we all know bike bits cost a fortune and spending £500 a year on parts and servicing is fairly straighforeward.

But how much does it cost you in other stuff?

Could you live in a smaller house? (no garrage, cellar, spare/bike room)
Swap the van/estate for a small hatchback?
Lifestyle tat? (did you realy need that howies Tee?)
Petrol to go riding elswhere?
Work some overtime rather than feking off at 4 to go riding?

Just realised I’m renting something £50-£100 a month more than I need, I’m spending £4k on car/tax/insurance next month when 90% of its use is for is bike ferrying duties, and thats before i fill the tank up!

Still like to considder my £1250 (to build from scratch, new) hardtail a budget choice :s

I’m staying off the beer indefinately, should compensate for some of that, and create more riding time 😎

I never add it up and giving up beer is silly. 🙂

Amost nothing. a bit of petrol money on the odd occasion I get a lift somewhere, occasional car hire to get somewhere, occasional trainfares

Couple of hundred quid in the last year at a guess

I thought giving up beer was silly, then I tried it!

Loads of extra cash, no hangovers, and I’m actualy more confident when I’m sober because I know I’m not being/saying somthign stupid!

I ride from my front door every day. Only occasionally does the bike get strapped to the car, and once or twice a year I’ll head abroad to ride.

We own one car – Mazda MX5, so that’s hardly bought for the purpose.

Our house is a house we bought because we wanted to live there, not because of any cycling specific reasons. Though, it does have a cellar where the bikes live.

The only non-use cycling items I own are cycling related books and journals and a subscription to ST. Oh, and a club branded t-shirt and a hoody.

So, I guess, a few hundred a year (mainly from going aborad).

Car?
I have a normal small hatchback (Citroen C4) which is one of the more efficient cars around (125g/km carbon) and has reasonably low tax and insurance. I can fit my bike in no problem (wheels off).
Why on earth are you paying an extra £4k on a car for a bike – nearly any normal size hatchback will do perfectly well.

Oh and in terms of bike costs:
I ride from the park and ride into york and back everyday (saving £3.30 a day on the bus thats about £780 a year!) and then saving several hundred quid a year on gym membership.
On top of that I’m less likely to die early from heart disease / stroke / cancer / diabetes etc. or one of the other overweight related issues. So if you put a price on a days work or a days retirement pleasure then add all those extra days up – cycling is a damn good investment! (we’ll ignore for now the early death potential for being eaten alive by mutant sheep after coming off my bike somewhere remote in the dales or other such risks).

Petrol: yeah ok I spend a bit extra on Diesel to get to rides – but then I’d have to buy the same fuel to get to a gym if I didn’t ride.

Beer: give up beer? er… sorry I don’t understand the premise. It’s beer, cask conditioned, real ale, lovellyness. A nice pint on a sunny summer sunday at the end of a ride is the definition of heaven (OK the sunny summer sunday is perhaps a rareity I admit).

I think you’re thinking about it too much. You need to get out and ride mate!

Erm guilty. Very.

I rent my house becuase it has triple garage (I barely viewed the inside).

I drive a huge Ford Falcon wagon because it can fit lots of bike s(and kayaks and other toys). Realistically if I didn’t mtbike I wouldn’t need a car at all as I ride to work and can walk to the shops.

40 mins drive to the trails twice a week plus a few road trips a year.

Also lots of money of race entry fees plus travel costs to these. Next year this might involve flights.

Plus a bit more cash on mags, t-shirts etc.

I consider it very worthwhile and good value. Biking is my only real outgoing, rent excepted. I don’t actually own much furniture – why would why, I’m in the shed all the time. There are plenty more expensive hobbies, drinking included.

I think the only extra expense I can link directly to cycling is the mountain of food my body seems to scream for every day. I offset this against the savings I make by not having a car or having to pay for public transport to get to work.

I do wish you hadn’t asked this! I reckon on racing alone this year I’ll be around £1500 plus a couple of riding holidays £1000 plus some uk trips £250 plus a huge van/race truck for doing half the above £600 a year plus…

I’m going to stop now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not an awful lof of overheads. My local trails are er, local, so I ride there. If a go away to other trails, usually £10-20 on fuel and something to eat.

I’d say a few hundred quid a year. But it’s my hobby, enjoy it, so I don’t look on the money as an issue.

Nearly all riding is out the door. When I’m at home in the holidays I take a few trips to the lakes. I don’t have my own car though so use the ‘rents and only pay fuel costs.
Uni club membership is £50/yr which subsidises a lot of stuff including trips, even entries etc.
Typical Wales weekend including accommodation and travel about £25, I’ve only done one this year though.
Mayhem and SITS etc about £40 a pop when in a team but can claim half of that back. BUCS events were fully paid for by our Athletic Union so only paying food costs there.
Singletrack mags are about £4 each, Howies tees (and their ltd edition Timbuk2 bag) – guilty 🙁

I’m bloody terrible.

£100/month on diesel, minimum (and I could probably get away without a car if I didn’t mtb, whether I’d want to is another issue – I’d probably climb or hike or something so would still want personal transport to the middle of nowhere)

Getting on for £1500 on foreign bike holidays.

Bikepark/uplift passes once or twice a month.

I buy next to no clothing that isn’t in some way bike related (although that does include stuff for the daily commute)

I do basically work to pay for my bike habit. If I didn’t have this hobby, I’d be equally into something else.

Our flat was bought with a view to being bike friendly, but we both like a bit of space, so arguably we wouldn’t have gone any smaller without the (10) bikes – it would just have been a bit less cluttered…

next thing is the workshop build.

£2.5K is the finger in the air budget.

Too much plus a thousand.

£4k on the car breaks down as

£2500 (focus gaia estate 1.8 petrol, 54k miles, cheeper than book price off my parents)
£850 insurance (i’m 22, everything is £800 apart from a 2CV)
£200 cambelt and new rubber (its just been serviced but these are due in the next year so may as well to be safe)
£200 tax? (no idea how much it actualy is)
£200 new stereo, bike rack, roof rack, and all the bits that make long journeys comfortable.

There was more to giving up alcohol than purely the financial reasons, although the other reasons tended to up the cost a bit!

Could you live in a smaller house? I live in a 2 up 2 down tarrice with no garrage, cellar, or spare room. I use the utility room for soring 4 of my 5 bikes and 2 of the girl friends, the other is in the back bed room on my turbo trainer.

Swap the van/estate for a small hatchback? I have a ford fusion (fiesta in stilts) diesel and i and do 600mile on a full tank (£40’s worth) (went to fort william for the World cup from Blackburn on full tank) and the car tax is only £35

Lifestyle tat? I get most of my cloths form TK-Max and from races and events where i get free t-shirts, I dont really drink,

Petrol to go riding elswhere? A lot of my rides are setting of from my house but the car is very ecnomical.

Work some overtime rather than feking off at 4 to go riding? Over time at my works is not cycling hours, i.e. nights and evenings 🙂

So i dont think there is much i can cut back on.

🙂

|This year so far, new B/B £16.00/park tool to do it £10.00,new bottle n cage for my sons bike,plus a new bike for the lady n thats about it , fuel would go in the car anyway,uses LPG,so 50p ltr for localish trips as well served round here for trail centres.
I cycle to work as local most of the time so the bike saves me money plus bonus of added fitness which i need for work and a real PLUS ,twice a month i support a guy to ride his bike so he can get out n about and get paid to do IT>!!
Few pints of amber nectar is not going to kill me either.!!

yea I could get a small car, but fancy something that can carry boats as well in the future (ok so its not purely for cycling, just 90%), and probably sleep in the back as well on a few weekends away too. Planing on keeping it untill the engine really does need a rebuild, then if the bore’s aren’t worn, re-building it! So it probably does need to be bigger than my imediate needs in order to be futureproof.

The real expense is the bribery to keep my wife happy…

lots … last year

1x verbier trip
3 x wales trips
1x Spain trip
£ 2500 +

race entry’s for a year
£400 +

petrol to ride/race
£500??

maintaining 6 bikes

lots

Car – same price as if i didnt ride ….

its hard to put a price on it, its not a hobby its more a lifestyle …..