Just consumables, no vanity purchases!

Over the last 1000 miles (autumn and winter) I've had to replace:

Headset: Cheap 'Merlin' one replaced by Cane Creek S-3.
BB: Shimano, replaced with the same.
Rear mech: XT replaced by the same.
Rear gear cable.
Pair of Cinders.
Half a pair of Ignitors – used autumn and spring.
Half a pair of High Rollers – used winter.
Wheel trued.

Total cost including labour is £238.00.
JESUS H CORBETT – that's 23.8 pence per sodding mile! 😯

Admittedly, I paid my LBS to fit the headset, BB, gears and cable, which were all bought from them rather than via t'internet, but it's still a lot.

Compare those figures to this AA guide.
I died a little inside when I read that…….

I'm off to book a maintenance course.

Anybody got any comparable figures? I dread to think what some of you serial bike wreckers must spend…

But if you drove your car like you ride your bike… how much do you think it would cost then?

Surely a better comparison would be to the costs of running a road bike to a car… in which case it'd be about 20p a year for some oil… and that's about it! :o)

Rusty spanner I'm sure some people on here must be on pounds per mile..

Err actually me. New used bike 3 shortish rides, maybe £70 per mile. But I hope that comes down…..

However If you tried driving a Landrover off road then you would see cycling as cheap. I think a friend of mine did £800 worth of damage in one outing with out crashing…….

Compared to most on here I'm sure that my cost per mile is stupidly low.

Still surprised me when I worked it out though – you just don't expect running a bike to cost almost as much as car.

Didn't include purchase cost, depreciation or cost of clothing – it would have scared me too much!

I measure things like this in Pints of beer.

Say a pint of beer is £2.60 if u are lucky.

you've spent £1000 over aug/winter = 6 months.

That's equivalent to 385 pints over 6months. that's 14.8 pints per week = 2ish pints per day, A lot of people (myself included) wouldn't think twice about 2 pints a day, which isn't money well spent at all. So don't worry about it!

Headset: Cheap 'Merlin' one replaced by Cane Creek S-3.

Merlin one should have lasted for years if maintained properly.

BB: Shimano, replaced with the same.

hollowtech II?

Rear mech: XT replaced by the same.

broken or worn out?

Rear gear cable.

£2 if you fit yourself

Pair of Cinders.

skids are for kids

Half a pair of Ignitors – used autumn and spring.

skids are for kids

Half a pair of High Rollers – used winter.

skids are for kids

Wheel trued.

glasses?

ballsofcottonwool

Some eloquent points, succinctly made. 🙂

I'm not complaining about the cost itself, it's peanuts compared to the money I've spent on various bits of tat over the last six months, but as I said, the cost per mile surprised me.

Kevevs – Member

I measure things like this in Pints of beer.
I like you.

Rusty – that is quite quick/low miles for it to all break but I now budget on a drivetrain per yearish.

Just replaced an utterly hammered chain, cassette, chainset (including BB) and cables after just over a year (my third drivtrain – last one was SLX chainset,SRAM 970 cassette, SRAM 971 chain, XTR cables – moved to XT chainset, 990, 991, same cables) and my three year old hub was shot to pieces (was M525, now Hope Pro 2) and my brakes were utterly wrecked (were Juicy 5s now Elixir CRs) – I'm not heavy (11.5 stone) and don't do any full on DHing or even big jumps – just 2-3000 miles a year of fairly hard XCing. It just wears out! Cheaper than a gym membership, much more fun and more exciting but yes – it is a lot of money. My bike has cost more to look after this year service wise than both our cars!!

I do most of my own maintenance. Never been on a course – just bought the Park book (excellent) and learnt over the years from having a go. Saves loads of money (here in London a workshop hour is £20-£30!) plus I don't have to wait for the LBS to have capacity + I know how to fix stuff on the trail if anything goes wrong. And there's no fun like putting some good tunes on, and fettling for a few hours. The satisfaction of a smooth running bike from your own effort is great 🙂

ballsofcottonwool has a point – how long did the bits run for until you had to replace them? and bear in mind that the replacements may well last more than 12 months

also you're comparing on road to offroad – compare what I spend on my red commuter to the car numbers. In the past 12 months I've had a new brake blocks (£7 from decathlon), chain (£10 from lbs) and brake cable (£3 from lbs) – ok I needed a new back wheel in january (pothole killed it) but the last one was 10 years old

I would bet that the AA numbers err on the optomistic side as well, they are a pro-motoring organisation after all 🙂

Try this to compare, motorbike track day abuse for 110 miles:

Tyres £125 (half worn out tyres to ruined)
Hard to quantify addtional wear and tear but the engine will needed an oil change due to topping up with incorrect oil on the day. Call it £40 in other damage to include brake pads etc.
Fuel £20

so that's £1.68 a mile…

I wouldn't bother with a workshop course either, get the park book and you'd be fine, or just get onto the park website, they have everything on there.
Although having said that the headset replacement and wheel trueing is just about the only work I would get a shop to do, only cos you need proper tools or really know what you are doing.

drivetrain etc and just about everything else can be done with a mixture of the usual tools and lubes, enough available time and the application of swearwords and brute force until fixed 😀