Machka 

In my case ...

A bicycle that is comfortable on long distance rides vs a bicycle that wasn't particularly comfortable on long distance rides.




By long distance rides I mean, of course, 1200 km randonnees.

KraneXL

<span style="color:unset;">https://i.gifer.com/KNry.gif</span> <span style="color:unset;">https://i.gifer.com/KNry.gif</span><br /><br /><img src="https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikeforums.net-vbulletin/350x350/knry_de00587700d4ab4915e8d83b32cf0dc93a8a0c92.gif"/><br /><br /><br />And yet, I willing to bet credits to navy beans there was once a time when you ask someone (or yourself) that very question.

Brocephus

Years ago, i was a dive instructor in Cozumel (and the region), and I started getting back into biking (and eventually even road racing). I first bought some generic low-end mtn bike from a local buddy that was leaving, and I rode that to and from work, until my next rip back home to the states.
Then i went to a local ( Georgia) bike shop, and bought a low-end Trek with Alivio/Acera and grip shifters, and rode the hell out of that until my next trip home. So right before flying home I sold that bike for nearly what i had in it ($350-ish), then back in the states, bought another equilvalent bike (Specialized, GT,etc.), and basically repeated that whole cycle several times. This pattern became known and I soon had people literally lined up to buy whatever bike I brought down next, sight unseen.
But then I started buying nicer and nicer bikes, and eventually went to buying higher-end frames and components, and (mostly) building them myself (which made rotating the stock more difficult, but they still moved). But as the years went by, I'd see various friends still riding those older, bottom-of-the-line mountain bikes, running fine and happy with them, and i know they never even rebuilt a hub or replaced a chain.
Sure, the XT/XTR and Ultegra/DA bikes that later became my mainstays were "nicer", lighter, and smoother shifting, but I never had any complaints about the service I got out of those humble $350 mountain bikes. The damn things simply worked, and kept working.
So,even though I used to own and still appreciate "good" bikes, I've felt for years that the point of diminishing returns was quite low, and excepting the pros that have a legitimate need for every microscopic advantage, a multi-thousand-dollar bike is more about ego than necessity.
These days, I find myself back on a couple bikes that I got off my local Craigslist, a mtn bike that retailed for about $650, and road bike that retailed for about $1200, and I'm perfectly happy with them both. Go figure.

Caliper

Cheap bike vs super bike:
mid range bike vs super bike:
They all go down the road, generally...

Colnago Mixte

I like those guys, they're very entertaining. But I think they have an unstated agenda, which is getting people to buy expensive new bikes. The Bike Shop-Industrial Complex seemingly always comes out on top, especially in professionally-made YouTube videos.

KraneXL

Counterpoint: they are about as fair and impartial as it gets. Besides, if the new bikes weren't better (although not by a huge margine) I'd be asking for a refund.

Maelochs

Actually, the reason most con men are successful is because people are unwilling to admit they got conned. They swallow thew loss ans suffer in silence, rather than face shame and ridicule.

I'd say, at the level those guys ride, they might actually notice tiny marginal differences that most of us never will. Those guys ride hundreds of bikes, thousands of miles. They can compare a huge range of bikes and years or riding experiences.

Me, I ride 300-500 miles a month or maybe a little less when work is really busy. I have a couple of nice CF bikes, old steel, old aluminum new aluminum, and cheap aluminum. I cannot tell if a stem is flexing. I cannot feel the difference between two frames, where one is six percent stiffer at the bottom bracket. I don't put out the wattage which deflects the frame under hard pedaling--or if I ever did, I would be so caught up in thrashing the pedals I wouldn't notice.

Those guys' personal bikes are probably all in the $2500-$4500 range ... and they can tell the minute differences because of thousands of miles of testing and training and racing and just riding. So for them, they can appreciate the tiny differences.

Me, I am just thrilled to be riding. Every one of my bikes is different, has a different character, and provides a different ride. I couldn't even begin to compare beyond the most basic criteria (this one weighs ten pounds more--but rides just as well (measured in smiles-per-mile.))

Those guys Might be unbiased ... but on the other hand, no company would ever send them products to test if they made videos saying "This bike sucks, it is way overpriced!" They might also have different cycling needs and desires than most of us.

I stand by my earlier statement---for most riders a bike between $700 and $1500 (maybe a little more due to inflation, I haven't checked) will provide all the bike you will need.

People who ride more and have more specialized needs ... won't have to ask this question, because they wall already know (hint: there is a different answer for every rider.) So ... if you have to ask, save up $1500 and get the best bike you can for that money and you will never be missing a thing.

tagaproject6

Where's the OP?

GeneO 

So does a Walmart BSO.

I enjoyed the videos though.

Day6

The difference is largely snobbery. Concentrate on your riding skills and endurance, and your $700 bike will beat their $3000 most of the time. (Be really diligent about developing your RIDING, and so will your Huffy).

Machka 

Methinks a number of people need to increase the distances they ride.

124Spider

Fair question. And here's my answer.

When my knees ran out of cartilage (literally, after 25,000 miles of running, and countless hours of games like basketball and soccer), I took up cycling two years ago. At the time, I owned a $700 Specialized bike.

I liked the bike but it was heavy. When it became clear at the end of the summer of 2016 that I was hooked on cycling, I bought a bike at an end-of-model-year sale for $2800 (a Cervelo R3 Ultegra). When test-riding it, I was astounded at how much more responsive the Cervelo was than the Specialized, in every way. I was sold immediately (and found that, all else being equal, i was 1mph faster, immediately, on the Cervelo than I had been on the Specialized), and I'm still sold now, 6,000 miles later.

But until I became an avid cyclist, it would have been silly for me to spend so much money on a bike. Unless you're rich, spending $3000 on a bike makes sense only for one spending a lot of time on the bike, who wants to go as fast a possible while on it.

toast3d

I'm high-5ing that.

Hell, a sub-$200 bike can beat a $2,000+ bike in the right circumstances. The rider is what matters most. You are the engine, after all.

Ride what you have. Love what you have. Let the snobs do what the snobs will do. Bikes are meant to be ridden. Everything else is BS.

124Spider

One of life's imponderables, to me, is the extremity of snobbery, on one side, and smugness (disguised as anti-snobbery), on the other, in so many hobbyist forums.

The idea that the only reason to spend money on a bike is snobbery is such nonsense, it hardly bears dignifying with a response, other than pointing out that it's nonsense.

As with any tool, there is a diminishing return as you work your way up the expense ladder. But whether that return is worth the expense is a matter for the individual to decide, not for those so taken with their own moral superiority that they pan the very idea of spending money on a tool.

Those who pretend that one does not get any return for spending more on better tools are just as mystifying, to me, as those who pretend that spending more is always better. Whether a more expensive, higher quality, tool is "worth it" to a particular buyer is a function of many variables, not one of which should be the opinion of someone else.

Jofu

toast3d

Well I'm sure that it feels pretty great and you can get lots of brownie points with your "the other side is just as bad" post. I personally can see straight through it.

More expensive parts can and usually do perform better. The rider is a big part of the equation. The biggest. He or she matters way more than the bike.

A bike is a tool, yes. It gets you from A to B by burning the energy stored in your body. A more finely engineered and crafted component will save you some of that energy, no doubt. The middle is where the rubber meets the road.

Bikes are transportation. If you treat them as a toy, fine. They can be toys too. And very fun. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. The thing that really matters is not what you ride, but that you ride at all. Chances are pretty good that the "fred" you cross paths with cares just as much, if not more, than you do about his or her wheels. So don't be a dick.

124Spider

Wow! I'm being a "dick" for pointing out that it's beyond silly to claim, as you did, that spending more for a bike is purely a matter of snobbery?

Your "argument" is beyond silly. It is inarguable that a better tool will do the job better. Whether it's worth the money for that better tool is a personal decision, based largely on (i) how important it is to have the better tool (by whatever criteria are important to the buyer), and (ii) how much money the buyer has. To ascribe it to snobbery, as you did, is absurd.

toast3d

I didn't say that.

I will repeat something which I have posted here before. Leave your baggage at the door.

Ride what you have. Bikes are transportation. Bikes are tools. The rider matters most.

Snobs do exist. They are the exception and not the rule. Most people are cool.

You appear to have lost your cool. Maybe you should think about that,

KraneXL

Actually that means you're in support of the more expensive bike. Since if what you say is true with the cheaper bike, than its even more true of the lighter more expensive bikes.

Maelochs

What is "beat"? Be faster in a race? As you say, that is almost all rider.

In what other ways will the cheaper bike "beat" the more expensive bike?

Maybe there is a competitive mentality at play here?

My bikes range from an old Raleigh I got for $35 at a yard sale to a couple CF bikes towards the upper end of the range mentioned in the OP. None of them “beat’ any of the others.

In specific performance terms? Define the job, that defines the tool. If I need to go grocery shopping, my race-geometry CF bike with a peanut-sized seat bag is useless. My sub$500 Dawes with front and rear racks rocks.

Seems so simple when you strip away the aggressiveness and just state facts.

Doesn’t always work. I have bought a couple sets of cheap screwdrivers over the year. Obviously some of them were crap, or I wouldn’t have needed more. But … the ones I have used for the past couple decades were still cheap, Walmart-style tools. A tool needs to be good enough to do the job. Beyond that … a diamond-studded, gold-plated screwdriver doesn’t spin a screw any better than the ones I have. Once a minimal level of function is reached, spending more Doesn’t necessarily buy more.

Again, this seems so obvious as to be not worth stating, except that it seems to be beyond so many people.

Also … people like to pretend that they are exclusively rational, but in fact almost all decisions are made pre-rationally … and even decisions we make after careful comparison of facts and figures are often tinged or even swayed by what we want (emotion.)

Nothing wrong with that, and silly not to admit it.

I can say, “A bike is a tool” but then why do I care what my bikes look like? Why do I Like my bikes? I have emotional attachments to my bikes.

A “better” bike will not make a person a “better” rider in any measurable terms.

I have done the same speeds over the same routes with a number of different bikes … it depends more on how I feel on any given day (of course, even my “cheap” bikes run well …. They aren’t all rusty and gunked with old grease ….. they are well-maintained tools, so they do the job well.)

But “better” is otherwise entirely subjective. And it seems rather silly to me to be out here saying “My opinion is better than yours because that is my opinion of your opinion and my opinion.”

On another hand, reaching from another direction … when we get into ideas like “snobbery” we are talking more about ourselves than about the other people.

The real answer as to whether a $3,000 bike is “better” than a $700 bike is “sometimes …” ?

I hear that in the Japanese language there is a response, “Mu,” which means … "The question cannot contain the answer, the terms of the question cannot lead to an answer … the question as asked has no meaning.”

Not yes, not no …. Simply not.

Rollfast

$2300

toast3d

Bless you, sir!

Machka 

I wonder if certain people here actually ride their bicycles any distance.

Colnago Mixte

The thought has occurred to me as well.

Machka 

It boils down to this ... those of us who know what we're doing buy the best tools for the job that we can afford.