TimothyH

This is the problem.

Wilfred Laurier

Problem is OP is gullible. There will be no performance difference going from SPD to SPD SL. Nor is there a performance advantage going from a 'cheap ebay bib' to a name brand one. Get used to riding in gym shorts and a t shirt on laundry days and you are magically $200 richer. The only purchase mentioned that was not throwing money into a hole was new tires - assuming the previous tires were worn out.

indyfabz

Ergo, it sucks to be you.

wphamilton

I can't really gainsay someone buying GP4000's but consider that the Vittoria Rubino Pro line of tires are 1/4 the price.

Wilfred Laurier

I am not intimately familiar with either of those tires, but my thinking was that good tires have the potential to be a real improvement, while most other money spent on a bike (provided the bike fits and is working properly) offers no tangible improvements.

WalksOn2Wheels

Peformance advantage? No. Comfort advantage? Yes. And for me, comfort usually equals increased performance. I would not buy Chinese bib+jersey combos on eBay.

That said, I would second that bibs found at Performance Bike will do the job on a budget.

And yes, going from SPD to SPD SL was an unfortunate waste of money. I rode SPD for a long while on the road bike because it was what I had and I didn't have the budget to do anything else. I eventually went to Speedplay pedals and road shoes, which I greatly enjoy, but still have SPD on my CX bike that sees the occasional road ride.

wphamilton

Significant potential IMO but the perspective here is probably 5 or 6 watts and a bit better grip - I'd think it was extravagant if I were dead broke ...

mcours2006

Maybe OP is trying to keep up with the Joneses. You know, can't show up on a group ride with $27 shorts, beat up shoes and MTB-style shoes, and [gasp!] god-forbid, $20 Michelin tire (tubes included). Pfff. What others must think!!

I've gotten shorts from eBay for $20. Most work fine.
Used 5700 pedals on CL for $40, practically new.
Lithion 2 tires from CRC, $40/pair, tubes included.
My shoes were brand new when I bought them from the LBS a few years back, $90 (including tax). Diadora something Racer 2's. Can't recall the full name.

I found a few other things to do with the other $310 I saved.

And no, it doesn't suck to be Canadian. One of the best, if not the best, countries in the world. What sucks is our $20 limit on imported goods duty free.

mooder

99$ USD = 136$ CAD + 15% tax + 10$ Custom fee = 166.4$ Still much cheaper than anything that can be found for a pair of trans E70.
I was lucky that they offered free shipping. Usually it is 20-30USD$ to ship to canada which kill any deal.
My current shoes: shimano M064 MTB. I had them since 2012 and they were a bit too large for me, upgrade was necessary. I heard that having SPD-L would help my hotspot which is why I made the transition (confort).

As for the Conti GP4000, it was probably not the wisest buy but I have them in 25mm and they don't fit on my custom wheel from bdop (the tire ends being 28mm and don't fit with my bike fork). I should have bought some thing else but this is the part I can't control myself!

The leg warmer (+helmet & jersey) were needed to get the 20$ off (150$ all three) (and it has been a while since I wanted one).
Last autumn I bought a Craft bib for ~110$. My 60$ set from ebay was a bit too small for me (you can't try them on). The bib had very cheap padding.

My point was that biking requires so much piece of equipment. If you are serious about it, you won't just get the strict minimum (ie. no saddle bag, confortable clothing, etc.). Golf and skiing are expensive because you have to pay every time you play but you can get for ~100-200$ basic (used) equipment. I don't think you will get away with only that for (road) biking.
With the bib I bought, I noticed a huge improvement in confort and quality feel. If I had to do it again, I would skip the cheap equipment and directly invest a bit more for something better.

Plus, I might have had a better deal on some stuff from different place (GP4000 are going for 90-100, R550 are 50$ at merlin) but I get a fixed fee for every order so the difference isn't worth it. Also, the season begins now so I don't want to wait the end to save little buck.

topslop1

Physic engineering student? So you're probably going to jump into an 80k/yr job out of college, right? So you'll be able to afford all the nice stuff that you want, and have money to save. Any school loans?

I like quality stuff too and I did a bit of a splurge recently, but it was stuff that I found heavily discounted. I chose to use my tax return money towards the student debt that I have as opposed to buying a nice wheelset for myself. Am I a little sad that I had to make that choice, of course.

People say: But you could die tomorrow, why do you want to pay off your loans as quickly as possible?

Uhm because what's the bigger tragedy? To live a little more frugally in the now OR to live much longer than expected and run out of money? I think it would be much sadder to live broke when you're old as opposed to splurging when you're younger and having only yourself to blame for not being able to retire.

There's billions of dollars spent on marketing every year and we're essentially trained from birth to have our jealousy, envy, desires completely exploited so that we feel crappy.. then what's the only way to feel better (temporarily)? Go out and buy that new **** that makes you faster, better, cooler, stronger, whatever.

Guess what homie: You can save so, so much money by staying just one tier behind the current technological trends. Stay one generation behind on literally everything that you own and you'll be rich with saved money, rich with goods, and probably happier since you're not fighting to get the latest and greatest.

Here's my little patch work example:

New Cannondale 105: $1500
New 52'' 4k tv set: $800
New videocard (for computer games): $660
-----
You're in for $2960 for the latest and greatest here.


Now here's some of the purchases I've done through the magic of not buying the latest and greatest:

2013 Cannondale 105 used: $600
Craigslist 52'' 1080p tv: $400
Generation old videocard: $250
----

You're in for $1250.. you're still $250 under what the price of just the bicycle is in that other equation and you get EVERYTHING - oh wait you get 85% of the performance of everything in that other equation. Yeah, my ego isn't stroked, yeah I don't get the emotional feed from society of 'doing the right thing as per what marketing tells me to do' and yeah I don't have friends who are impressed or drooling over my stuff.

What I do have is $1710 left over to put towards student debt, mortgage, retirement fund, all things that are going to keep you from being mr. brokesville when you're older.

PepeM

Cycling is expensive.

RPK79

I hear ya. I walked into the LBS for a $30 Yakima SKS lock core and it cost me nearly $300 for the new helmet, tubes, Gatorskin tire, and the lock core (which I almost forgot to buy!).

To be fair when you bought the $100 bike back in the 1800's that $100 probably went a lot further.

WalksOn2Wheels

Haha, yeah, no. Starting salary for most engineering jobs are in the 50-60K range on average. I recently got my aero degree and I don't think anyone I graduated with is making over 65k.

EDIT: Oh wait, he's in Canada. Maybe things don't suck there. That and I'm in Texas where the cost of living is relatively low, so jobs pay accordingly.

WalksOn2Wheels

Yes, it is.

PepeM

Doesn't change the fact that going from SPD to SPD-SL is nothing but a luxury though. If you really are 'broke' then you'll need to learn to control yourself my friend.

DOS

i can understand the pedal upgrade if the small platform of the spd was causing hotspot foot issues, which was my experience using spds for long rides. Going to a wider platform made for more comfortable riding. But a decent set of look or similar wide platform pedals can be had for considerably less than $200, including shoes.

topslop1

I'm @ 50-60 too but..Damn, maybe I am doing OK going business after all. Ain't nobody gettin paid good no mo!

Dan333SP

One way to rationalize bike purchases when you are tight on budget is to make sure you're using the bike for more than just fitness/recreational rides. When I was still in grad school I figured biking to/from class over the course of a semester saved me about 2 gallons of gas in my car per week. That's not a ton, but over extended periods of time if you're replacing driving with cycling the purchases can pay for themselves.

That's assuming you still have a car. If you ditch a car entirely you're saving a LOT more which is how a lot of my friends can afford $5,000 race bikes on a very modest salary.

There is an entire sub-forum for that, though.

topslop1

Agree, I think I saw large platform pedals for like $40? or $45? Made me kinda hate myself for having the SPD mountain bike style ones for $34... oh well.

topslop1

There's a finance blog mr. moustache that advocates bicycling around or living within bicycling distance of where you work - and owning like a $1000 junker. I'm trying to line something up similarly.. and if I can't reach it with a bicycle or I can't get a shower in before work..well my 20 year old car does just fine

mrodgers

Being broke when you're young is normal. If you don't want a very good chance at staying broke, don't get married. $4000/month income whittled down to living on $800/month after you pay "her". I own a bike, a kayak, and a car. I don't have a home. I don't pay for 100% of my food. Rent would take up at least $700 of my $800, so an apartment is out of the question. A mortgage would put me about negative $500. All I can do is sock what I do have in the bank for a few years until I have $10k saved up and buy a mobile home to live in.

Hobbies are only as expensive as you make them. You can bike on a $100 Walmart bike. You can get a really nice bike for $500-600. You don't need shorts, jerseys, bike computers, special shoes and pedals, special wheels, tires, and tubes. I ride a $600 bike in $5 synthetic t-shirts and whatever shorts I have on and platform pedals in whatever shoes I have on. I got into the hobby of photography with a $200 camera. That was 2007 and it met it's demise on the kayak when I got swamped last year. 8 years with a $200 camera.

I fly RC. Started in 2006 with a $100 airplane. 6 or 7 years later, I bought a $150 radio and another $100 airplane. Still fly that 2nd one.

There are consumables in every hobby (cameras don't last forever. Airplanes crash and burn and you buy another or more. Tires wear out and you get flats and replace tubes. Chains wear out and eventually cassettes and chainrings wear out.) Doesn't mean you have to buy the absolute latest and greatest to keep going if you are "broke".

WalksOn2Wheels

Not to get too deep into it, but as corporate bureaucracy continues to seep its way into every aspect of life, I think prospects for engineering have gotten progressively worse. A lot of the really big names want to hire really cheap new graduates and push out old timers who make LOTS of money. The reasoning is that they can train/adapt new people to do twice the workload at half the cost. The problem is they are pushing out smart, experienced individuals and replacing them with really eager, but green engineers who WILL make some expensive mistakes at one point or another. They expect the very few higher up engineers to reign them in and catch all the mistakes. I ended up at a much smaller company making slightly less (and more in some cases) than my fellow graduates, but I have some advantages and room for growth without a lot of barriers in my way.

Hiro11

Because riding is free, cycling is actually cheap compared to most sports. A recent argument I had in my house:

My wife's tennis gym membership: $200 / month, $2,400 / year (admittedly, a family membership but the rest of us almost never go to the gym)
Coaching and drills: $70 / month, $840 / year
Uniform and clothing: $200 / year (at least, probably far more)
Racquets: $300 / year (at least)
Shoes: $200 / year
Travel: $250 / year (at least)
Total: $4,190

She started pushing back for me spending ~2K / year on bike stuff and I made this point to her. She no longer pushes back on bike stuff.

PepeM

Tennis is also a posh sport though.

Ratzinger

OP, keep an eye on craigslist and kijiji for good deals. Takes some patience and persistence but it can pay off.

I don't spend thousands a year on bikes, but probably a few hundred. It's a small price to pay for something that keeps me mentally and physically healthy and happy, and gets me around town in the best way possible.