Your whole premise about riding a "nice" bike is wrong. As long as it's maintained and adjusted, that beater "POS" can ride just as nicely as any "nice" bike. But the advantage is that because you didn't pay thousands of dollars for it, you don't have to worry about it, and you can use your nice bike for your pleasure rides.

When you have a multi-thousand dollar bike, do you own the bike or does the bike own you?