Originally Posted by
Longfemur
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?
You know, every time we have this discussion there's always a handful of really enthusiastic people who say all kinds of crazy things where they redefine all their terms. Now a POS bike can ride just as nicely as any "nice" bike?? Let's get back to regular english here - if your 2nd bike can ride just as nicely as your primary bike, it's not really a "beater", and it's definitely not a POS! :-P
And if your cheap commuter bike could actually ride just as nicely and be just as fast as your expensive weekend bike, why would you need an expensive weekend bike unless you're actually racing? (and most of us are not).
Someone needs to come up with a better term than beater (and POS bike that isn't actually a POS doesn't make any sense at all!) so we can stop having this discussion over and over again. :-) Can't we just call it your "cheaper" bike?