Originally Posted by
phedge
The only wastes of money I've discovered are the things I bought ignoring the "buy once, cry once" dictum. Pumps, stands, shoes, jerseys, shorts, tools, all stuff I went cheap on the first go-round. Except I learned a valuable lesson, so maybe not a waste. Yeah, yeah, I'm going with that.
I've certainly wasted a lot of money buying stuff to cheap to begin with. I normally dabble a bit to see what I like/need, but it hasn't been cheap or good value.
I'm on my 3rd mountain bike in 2 years - a $400 bike, replaced with a $700 bike and finally a $1500 bike. Each one had under 100 miles on it
Ditto with road/gravel bikes - a $300 bike, replaced with a $600 bike and finally replaced by a $2000 gravel bike and a $1000 road bike.
And that's not including all of the upgrades. I must have lost about $1000 in the first year alone on upgrades and trades to get to something I like. And even then, my $2000 gravel bike has only done 200 miles so it's still sitting at $10/mile which is terrible value.