[Closed] Things you shouldn’t buy, but can’t help yourself...

The CK stamp is worth £10 alone! And yes, I have 2 of the bloody things, one on a Brompton...

I’ve got some nice £8 copies of ebay. I’m sure not as nice but still make a great noise.

Got a link Tony?

I both love and hate these threads. Love because they are full of cool stuff. Hate because they cost me a fortune.

Not gonna buy a bell though.

Bikes and crisps, basically.

Things in the Steam sale. Odds of me ever playing What Remains of Edith Fitch? Slim.

A MK3 Stooge frameset today to upgrade from my MK2...

Alcohol .

Alcohol .

Amen...

A yeti ascr weighing in at 22lbs..because I needed such a machine to race on. Never raced it once, used it about 10 times in 2 years

Likewise a power meter.. All it tells me is how rubbish I am.

Chocolate

Just ordered a handmade Spanish classical guitar.

Should be delivered before the borders close.

Burger King Bacon King burger -  https://www.burgerking.co.uk/menu-item/bacon-king™

Absolutely shouldn't have bought that earlier at the motorway services. Tasted nice though 🙂 Must be all the salt...

search ebay for Rockbros Cycling Ring Bell

No thanks.

https://cyclingtips.com/2016/08/a-tale-of-two-bells-spurcycle-vs-the-counterfeiters/

£1 toblerones from co-op

Doughnuts............. in fact anything from Greggs.

£2.50 Choc chip Panettone from Asda*.

(* yes I know it's not the preferred purveyor of groceries for the STW demographic, but in my defence: I do park** in the Waitrose car-park next door)

**all be it not an Audi with an Orange 5 attached

...and Merrydown cider from the same venue.

Cheers CFH.  My thoughts exactly.  I have 4 Spurcycle Bells including this one.

Lottery tickets.

"You've got to be in it to win it"

search ebay for Rockbros Cycling Ring Bell

Perfect, ta. That'll do nicely!

I'm a big fan of shiny lovely things but £50 for a bell just doesn't do it for me. Especially when you get things like the Spurcycle comment "Our material is about 50% more expensive". Ok that hardly equates to the difference does it.

In business you trademark and file IP to cover this sort of copying but there is no IP here. Just a mark up for a nicely made bell, which if you are OK to pay for. then that's fine.

Those big 120g bars of Dairy Milk or Galaxy, because it's 'only' £1.

£50 for a bell !  I'd rather shout "Oiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii"

Chocolate digestives, actually any biscuits for that matter. I’ve got a genuine problem not being able to stop eating them once I start!

Coffee shop near us has started selling artisan coconut biscuits. Two for £2.00.

They even have the word "artisan" on the packaging ffs.

Even then I cannot resist. Gits.

<div class="bbp-reply-author">weeksy
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£50 for a bell !  I’d rather shout “Oiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

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You have to have one of these to appreciate it. It's like being part of an orchestra. Fortunately I was gifted mine from an American friend who also told me about the war against the #fakebells (as Flashy's article goes into).

Vanilla lattes

I thought this was going to be another bearnecessities burger toast spead thing thread.

I is disappoint.

I’m a big fan of shiny lovely things but £50 for a bell just doesn’t do it for me. Especially when you get things like the Spurcycle comment “Our material is about 50% more expensive”. Ok that hardly equates to the difference does it.

In business you trademark and file IP to cover this sort of copying but there is no IP here. Just a mark up for a nicely made bell, which if you are OK to pay for. then that’s fine.

Well..............

1) Someone had to design it, that means sitting down, drawing it, making umpteen proptypes, testing materials etc. Time is money. Buying one for $50, stripping it down and sending the measurements to a CAD machine is $50 and a days work, not even slightly comparable.

2) 50% more material cost, plus the cost of doing it to finer tolerances (more passes through the CNC machine, more rejects) adds up quickly.  There's a reason most manufacturers forge their brake callipers then machine out the piston bores and oil pathways, it's a lot cheaper than Hope's way of doing things (forged blank then machine both inside and outside). But then Hope can do it more accurately, which means you don't get posts about Hope callipers leaking, or being impossible to bleed or having disappearing bite points (Juicy's and early ELixir's I'm looking at you!). All that adds up.

So far those points only adress why the $50 bell is intagiably better than the $10 one. Then there's the actual physical stuff.

3) The $10 bell is painted not anodised. Painting something that you want to make a note? There's good reason brass instruments are brass and not painted, you're adding something that dampens the oscillations. Also it's designed to be hit by a little hammer, paint is just the wrong coating for the job, it's just cheap.

4) The spring isn't springy enough on the $10 bell, just look at the Amazon reviews for it, a few dings and it stops dinging. That's probably a consequence of cheap material choices (remember that 50%?), poor tolerances and undersizing it.

5) The bell itself, the knock off ones sound like they came out of a cracker, the $50 really does sound like a musical instrument. The cheap one goes "ding", the expensive one "rings".

I can't justify $50 for a bell (although I really want to!), so I have a £1 dog squeaky toy on my bars. I quite happily buy quite a lot of stuff from china, but I don't think I could bring myself to buy a crap knock off of something expensive that just doesn't work as well. It's like people who buy enormous fake Louis Vuitton bags with LV insignia all over them, when the real thing is a mostly an understated bag with the logo on the lining.

In addition to all that posted above - It's completely made in the US, not just assembled.  The materials and components are made in the US and the whole things is assembled in the US.

I've got both the RB and SC bells ( I wanted to see the difference for myself.  the SC bells are exquisite, everything fits perfectly and once installed doesn't move.  The RB one requires either substantial force to get it to bend the strap around the bars (which in turn then displaces the rubber) or pre-bending of the strap to fit.  It's also noticeably quieter and duller.  It's also lighter, which is usually a good thing, but not in this case.

£50 bell is no different to a £500 watch.

Apart from one tells the time and the other goes ding.

Best stealth marketing ever.

I now want a £50 bell.

Thanks.

Edit: Just bought my xmas present 'from the kids'

Edit Edit: The keyclip does look a bit of a rip off though....

A bell on a bike... oh dear.  'Excuse me' is far more engaging, or a dirty big skid if someone is being an ass - i.e. can see you coming but won't move to one side so we can pass.

In addition to all that posted above – It’s completely made in the US, not just assembled. The materials and components are made in the US and the whole things is assembled in the US.

(from the article)

“Our sheet metal parts are formed in New Mexico, the wire form is made in Ohio, we have a turned part that comes from Reno [Nevada], there’s another turned part from Alabama, a plating vendor that’s all the way on the east coast in Pennsylvania, and then we have some parts that are made in Pleasanton, California,"

It's a bell.

£7?!? For a bell?? A fool and his money eh? 😆

I'm glad my biggest extravagance is too many cycling tops. At least they're useful!

Pasteis de Nata (Portuguese Egg Custard Tart)

om nom nom

www.tugapastries.co.uk

Pork scratchings. So wrong, yet so right.

I just bought a Gravel Bike, do I win? Or should that be lose...!

On a more regular note, I stop at Starbucks on the way to work every Friday morning on the A3 after going to the gym and buy a coffee. We have an Espresso machine in the office that tastes better and costs less per drink but I still do it every week!

I like fancy cables

It's a lovely bell. I have two.

"Posted from my MacBook Pro".

Gregs; £2.25 for a bacon sandwich and a coffee.

I know its not sun roasted on the pert buttocks of cost Rican virgins before being digested by a tiger and ground by a hipster in shoredich or bristol, but its cheap and comes with bacon!

29er/B+ hardtail frames...

Just read that article. If you just want a bell it’s not for you, obviously.

But to say, ‘it’s just a bell’ completely misses the point. You could take the engineering, production and craftsmanship principles and apply them to many things and create a product that is more than is function. And that’s the key bit, just because an item has a utilitarian function doesn’t mean it has to always be made to the lowest common denominator. Any pen writes, any watch tells the time, any knife will cut stuff etc

Things from PSAs that I don’t need.

”spare” forks and cheap 29er wheels means I’m now looking for a frame.