patentcad

From the front page of USA Today's Monday 'Life' section:

https://www.usatoday.com/life/lifesty...s_N.htm?csp=34

Read it and weep. I hope you're happy you OCP morons. I ride a Cannondale. But I am actually more guilty than any of you, I purchased an Ibis Titanium Road 11+ years ago.

So Pcad started all this. God help me.

roadwarrior

Good thing Euro hasn't seen this.

Interesting...BTW, professionals ride expensive bikes, but they are generally stock frames. But they know what they are doing when it comes to fit, knowing every dimension...one of the biggest changes in the last few years has been better frame fit. Unlike when I raced, we all rode custom stuff.

The funny thing is that, where I am we sell a ton of bikes. Top 100 shop in the US, top 10 to 50 with every manufacturer and we still focus our efforts on the average person who wants a hybrid/comfort type bike. That's the bulk of the bike sales. These high end shops intrigue me. There's a shop in San Francisco that one of our guys visited and their average bike sale is close to 3 grand.

daytonian

22 grand for a Parlee

t595

Actually a fairly well written and in depth article for that newspaper. What they didn't focus on was the vast amount of disposable income out there and how it is being spent on things that people don't NEED but what they WANT.

oilman_15106

Excellent insight. Should have mentioned some others like Titus in the article.

Hocam

If it was being spent on thing they NEED, it wouldn't be disposable. The idea behind disposable income is that your needs are satisfied already.

roadwarrior

But the Dinosaur Media keeps saying the economy sucks.

Johnny_Monkey

Must be the 9 lb one.

rodrigaj

The high end shop in Madison, WI, Cronometro, sells only 150 bikes a year at an average cost of $5000.

roadwarrior

Wow...we do that in a week (# of bikes) but the average is about $500. But we do about $5 mill a year.

That's more like the Rolls Royce dealership not too far from my house.

Must be all the state legislators buying those bikes.

I periodically teach at UW in the business school (extended seminar teaching) and there's not a lot of wealthy people there....

NotAsFat

Da, comrade. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

jit5

Since when does the LEW VT-1 have stainless spokes?

patentcad

I don't know what media you read. The media I read daily (NY Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, local paper up here) says the economy ROCKS.

And generally it does. Unless you are out of work. Then it sucks. So it goes.

CrimsonKarter21

That's what I thought.

BillyD

Well, in most areas of my life I've never felt I held a snobbish or bourgeois mentality, but I must say I can identify with wanting to own a unique bike that you won't cross paths with a dozen times whenever you go out for a ride. You just want something different than everyone else has.

On the other hand, I DO have a lot of pride as well, which means I'll eventually be upgrading to Campy Record to make sure none of these rich schmucks can look down their noses at my baby.

SDRider

No, they're buying all those gas sucking SUVs.

nostromo

This brings up the point about whether you'd rather pay more to have a very rare brand name bike vs buying a more commonly found LBS brand that has better components and maybe even a better frame.

I put myself in that predicament, where I steered clear of some great deals on Caad 8's, Cervelos and other, more commonly seen (around here anyway) bikes and opted for a pretty rare, older frame with all Campy parts.

Now that I have some mileage under my wheels I ask the question; so I have a very rare brand frame, who cares? No one oogles over it or asks me about it, even with it's obvious Italian name. What my club and racing club are more interested in are my skills and how well I can ride. Thankfully I was already pretty fit and have been able to meet most of the challenges with each club.

To that effect any brand bike would have sufficed. But I do get a small kick out of seeing my bike parked alongside all the other club riders bikes at our first stop, and how much it stands out from the crowd.

knobster

You sound exactly like me. I have a '98 Eddy Merckx Titanium AX that I bought because I wanted something different. All Campy, including the wheels. It's brushed Ti and most people think it's aluminum. They look at the unimpressive decals and think it's just a cheap bike they've never heard of. These people don't care and they don't ask either. I also like the look of mine parked next to all the other bikes that seem to blend in with each other.

patentcad

Your Yankee fan status being the obvious glaring exception to this statement.

7rider

If you own securities, it's really been an awesome year so far.

This NY Times article shows where some of that high-end disposable income for bikes may be coming from:

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/bu...999&ei=5087%0A

Even a $15k bike is cheaper than an entry-level convertible, but I'm not sure how many people would know what the difference is between a $5k and $15k bike.

BillyD

FYI Mr. PCad, I've been a Yankee fan since I was a little leaguer. The team would get comp tickets to the games and we were within easy walking distance of the stadium. I can't help but be a Yankee fan -- it was all around me since childhood. It just came naturally, and I'm glad it did. Just FYI.

brianallan

Right. The top 5% getting richer is an indication that the economy doesn't suck.

Ritterview

I agree. Seeing that it was USA Today, I expected it to be ridiculous, but it was actually a pretty good article. The photo gallery is also worthwhile.

ViperZ

When the rubber hits the road, it doesn't matter what you ride, and is more about how well you ride. I too find the same thing during my club rides.

On the converse, we all chuckle at how my 17 year old Trek and Colnago always steals the most comments, questions and looks while riding and during post ride conversations over drinks. Even when there are so many Hot new Bikes in our club. I suppose seeing something you don't see everyday during a ride, or in current magazines has it's merits.

That said I do want to build a more current Carbon bike, and would like it to be different than the others in my club, and less common. So maybe that article has pegged me?

Mouton

Its sort of refreshing to see a traditional print paper take "This Thread is Useless Without Pics" to heart!