Originally Posted by patentcad

Yes, it's great, it's trick, it's cool, it's light, it's nifty, we drool over it, etc. ad nauseum.

But I can't get over how many threads/posts I see from weenies who seem to be laboring under the delusion that the better bike gear will actually make them faster/climb better etc. Well, OK maybe 1-2% better. But nothing meaningful. You know, like the gains you'll get from the right interval training/speedwork/climbing/mileage? Over the past 17 months I've spent about $8K+ on bike crap, and I've also ridden 17K miles. I LIKE the bike stuff I purchased. I enjoy it daily. I'll let you guess where all my gains in riding mojo came from. Let's just say that if I hadn't spent dollar one, I could still have those. Would I have been sufficiently INSPIRED to ride/train so much and so hard? Hmmm.. maybe not.

So that bike schwag won't necessarily make YOU better. But it might inspire you quite a bit and might just give you that extra tiny edge in very competitive situations (you know the ones where you're on the edge of getting blown out or blowing some other rider out the back door), but it's a TINY edge. Will you ENJOY that new gear every time you ride? But of course. The bigger edge is the motivation NICE gear gives you to ride over crappy gear. Now THAT makes sense to me.

So if you want that new bike because your old one is tired, or you just want a better bicycle, more power to you. But keep it simple weenies. Ride and train. Get the motor working better (that would be YOU). And NOTHING is quite as rewarding as that. But that's much harder than doing the CHA-CHING on your Mastercard at the LBS.

I know, I've done both. And I'm just as guilty as any of you of gearaholism, so no judgements being handed down here whatsoever. Just sayin'.