We were having a discussion today at work where someone said:

“The absolute cost of something you buy is irrelevant. What matters is the cost in proportion to your earnings”

Which got me thinking “I bet that applies to bikes!!”

So, how much was your bike as a percentage of your salary in the year you bought it?

Doesn’t matter if the bike was new or S/H or bought this year or 10 years ago!

So for me, my main bike (this is STW so peeps with multiple bikes (ie everyone 😉 can choose their fav…) was 7.6% of my (gross) salary when i bought it. Hows about yours??

(ps, i don’t want to know who much your earn, or how much your bike cost, just the percentage between them 😆 )

Mine was 7.1% of gross salary

Just realised 12.1 %

2% of gross.

14.5%, don’t like this game.

2.5 of gross roughly

4.3% of gross.

1.5%

Probably about 40% odd but who gives a ####

4.5% of gross

2% of gross

1.5% of gross. Makes me feel a bit better than thinking of the actual amount of money it cost!

About 35% of gross… But then I own a bike shop! 😉

4.5% mtb
6.3% road

6.9% but have spent a little bit afterwards upgrading.

If at rrp 40.7% but probably 8-11%

All four 0.00153%

Won’t say, as Missus might dig it out 🙂

And then it would be fast divorce fulfillment 😀

Cheers!
I.

About 99% but I’m 17 🙂

Road -1.86%
MTB – 0.33%, before some a-hole relieved me of it

Had the same question/thought myself, and a far more interesting Q than most STW surveys.

At time of purchase
MTB 10% gross
Road bike 5% gross

But TBF mtb IS worth more than my car or my motorbike.

About 99%

good man 🙂

Doh Ivan, good point, wish I’d seen that before I posted!

Doesn’t matter if the bike was new or S/H or bought this year or 10 years ago!

Premise only works if bike is replaced annually and consumables (chains, pads, tyres etc) are factored in.

Annual

hardtail = 1/24th (4.2%)
FS = 1/24th (4.2%)
CX = 1/36th (2.8%)

tbf, all built up 2nd handish looking/waiting for bargains and taking advantage of the bike to work scheme.

About 11%, I’m not 100% sure exactly how much the bike cost having never added it up 😀

4.4% of gross for last mtb

This all depends on how often you change it.

3.4% – as a new value, but built up mainly of old parts from ST4, that in itself was insurance replacement for the Niner, which was the last bike I built up from scratch…So this Triggers Broom bike cost originally 2.1%, and is ‘now’ 8 years old….

i dunno as i bought and frame and transferred the bits and the one before was a frame which i transferred the bits and the previous one had lots of upgrades. but if i assume a fully built cost estimate then around 5% for the fs, 2% for the hardtail and 1.8% for the cx. for reference my primary mode of transport (the van) was 4.5%

11%

As my last bike was bought when I was unemployed, for the financial year in which it was aquired, close to 40%
As a percentage of the salary I was on just before I Bought it- approx 7.%

13.7% MTB – 5.5% car!!!!!

14.3% of net but its not percentage its the quantity 🙂

3-4% I think for the mtb. Though struggling to remember what I was paid 5 years ago (the bike is a bit like Trigger’s broom by this time). Probably a bit less than that for the roadie (er, one of the roadies).

Mind you, comparing to gross salary doesn’t take into account what you have left after the taxman has had at you. An interesting measure might be against net salary, i.e. “of the £X,000 I had to live on this year I spent Y% of it on a push bike”. That really could be divorce-making material for anyone who prioritized carbon fibre bling over the family holiday 😆

All four of my bikes together come to approximately 4% of my gross salary as it is today.

but they were acquired over a number of years and I have at various times owned more bikes, and bikes of significantly greater value both when my income was much less, really the major limiting factor is what else makes a claim on your finances, kids and mortgages tend to dictate available funds for discretionary purchases like bikes more than some arbitrary percentage calculation…

2% ish

7.2% if I only count my fixed income and not my self employed income as its up and down.

8.3333% for my favourite bike. I’m glad they don’t make a carbon version!

(cough) .just worked it out..

Not playing, it’s embarrassing.

😯

Still riding my first bike from seven years ago, bought with teenage savings (no job at the time). So… >100%?