Thursday, February 08, 2007

Dollar Bills

Bled my front brake last night, I love doing this knowing that it saves me money every time I do it. For some reason this is one of the more costly things to have done to your bike in a shop. It is so self gratifying to know that the lever was completely useless before the bleed and then afterwards PRESTO they are plush and ready to go.

So Mr. Goat Epics left a comment yesterday about our ride. 15.6 miles at a 10 mph pace, that’s more than double the speed limit. Thank god there weren’t many cops out.

So here is the deal. I love my Drunken Monkey. Since I have purchased that bike I haven’t ridden much else even though I have two other bikes. I love the fact that I can take the DM out on ride after ride and hardly give it any love at all but she still loves me back. For me, that is the appeal of riding a bike with minimal moving parts.

However, I still have the desire to get a full squish 29’er. The thoughts of shocks blowing out and de-railer hangers being ripped off makes me cringe even if I have a backup. I would like to see some statistics on how much money people put into their bikes during a period of one year. I am not talking purchase price, I am talking about maintenance alone. I am also talking about a real rider who rides at least 150 off road miles a month. I know that for me it was pretty high dollar when I was trying to keep my CAKE running 100% throughout the year. I know that now I could minimize those costs by trading time between two bikes but I don’t want a new bike to be that Ferrari that just sits on the garage getting flat spots on the tires either.

As you can tell, I still have a lot of thoughts to figure out before I purchase a new bike.

Peace.

3 comments:

1SpeedBrian said...

I don’t know how many miles I ride but I average about 45 hours a month on 3 mountain bikes. Most of that time goes into the SS with a suspension fork. I pull the 29er FS bike out only for big rides, highly technical rides, recovery rides, or if everyone else is riding squish I feel like a conformist.
This amount of wear on the FS bike nets me about 1 drive train a year (Rings, chain cassette) at around $125, some break pads ~$30, a cable change ~$40 (I like fancy cables) and Tire/tube replacements that are really bike independent. Most any issue that arises with a Fox air shock can be solved with a $15 seal kit of which I wind up doing once a year or so. I do practicly all my own bike maintenance so no real labor cost. With some incidentals here and there I bet it takes $300 a year to keep that bike rolling in top shape. If it were my only bike I think that figure would be significantly more.
To me its worthwhile.

Asheville Soda Works said...

Somewhere around $500 bones (cost, not retail)for all my bikes. And that doesn't include cables and housing, cuz its my only benefit. So estimated total: $1100 on road and mtb's. Car: $400 My bikes are more dependable. I do all my own work, sot that's only parts.

Anonymous said...

Jonathon,
I don't have any real statistics for you but what I've noticed is this: When I have two bikes that I ride often they both end up in need of repair and ultimately, funds. When I had only a FS26er I was, every few months, sending this part or that part off for repair or warrentee so I got the rigid 29er as a 'backup'. Well, the FS26er quickly became the 'fararri in the corner'. Quite an expensive 'backup'. If you have two bikes you will eventually have a favorite and having a second bike is more expensive than the repairs you do to your favorite...