There’s an 853 Genesis Altitude for sale on the Classifieds for £200. It’s possibly a bit underpriced, but it’s probably not wildly off, and it’s a hell of a buy for the money. I have an 853 Genesis Altitude, built from a (changing) mix of new and second hand bits over the years, and it’s currently insured for £3200…

I came up with that figure based on the cost of buying a quality hardtail frame and matching the build I have of Revs, X0 group, XT wheels and brakes, Gravity Dropper post, quality finishing kit etc. It soon adds up at RRP.

I’m not sure what the point of this post is really, it just struck me when I saw the FS ad and thought “blimey, is that all my bike’s worth?” 😯

new for old, innit.

Selling price something else altogether.

You have to insure it for the price you would have to pay to replace it exactly the same. Unless components are not available any more (say retro/vintage stuff) the only way you’d replace the bike as it was is by buying the components again. As it would be done all in one go there isn’t any other way other than buying all the bits new. So what I do is total all the bits up, either the price I paid (if I had a receipt) or the price sold by Chain reaction or Wiggle at the time of calculation. You often find that, even if you bike has been superceeded and not available any more, that the figure you come up with closely matches how much it would cost for a full bike of equivalent modern quality.

My 1994 Kona Kilauea which had a ground up resto is insured for £1000 – it nearly cost that much for me to build but in reality to get a similar quality steel frame and forks with an XT group and nice Ti bits would cost about that much anyway.

My Spesh Pitch is insured for £2300, which again is around the price I would have to pay for a modern 6″ travel bike with XT/Hope bits.

Used = 60% less than new even if it’s something desirable. Upgrades add no value.
Insurance = what it would cost to replace it keep your receipts

It certainly was fun in an epic way to get Noahs to price up my Whyte 19 ti once for insurance purposes. 😆 😯