Just looking at the article about the new Intense Tracer, and see the top of the range is (gulp), £10,000! Now I like my bikes, and if you believe the wife, I spend this on bikes on a monthly basis....however the most I have ever spent, or could ever even contemplate, is £3500...which I still consider an obscene amount of money. The manufacturers all seem to market these ridiculous priced £6, 7, 8, 9, 10k priced bikes, so are they simply for 'brand status' or do people actually buy them? Has anyone on here - did you feel it was worth the premium? Im not judging, you can spend your hard earned however you feel, im just intrigued.
$2200 CDN back in 2002.
Since then, £1100 in 2009.
All my other bikes have been second-hand.
I spent about £2400 in 2008 on a Yeti 575. The closest to that was £1400, but in general I don't go over £1000. No point for me.
I've met plenty of people on some very top end bikes, most earn well and ride them well/a lot.
The build on my best bike was probably a bit over £4k when new, I didn't pay that for it though.
The other thing about the serious top end is if you are buying for the performance chances are your not paying full price.
£1,700 kona coiler deluxe 2006
Most I ever spent on one component was £1950 for a Turner frame back in 2001. It was worth every penny.
<waits for someone to mention a divorce>
£1500 on a Commencal Meta AM29
I know plenty of people who ride expensive bikes - and some of them ride them a lot and some of them are very good riders. And I wouldn't say they're all high earners and many of them drive cheap old cars. Priorities.
I think my main bike cost over £3500 but I never added it up. I've spent more time on it than in my car which cost a similar amount - and had a lot more fun. Cheaper to insure, service and tax too. Seems like a bargain!
£2500. That seems to be a hard-wired limit for me. Arbitrary I guess. Of course £2500 doesn't buy as much now as it once did.
I spent a lot less on my Ragley Marley and it gets used most often.
£370.00
The day I can ride this bike beyond it's limitations, i'll buy a better one.
'most earn well and ride them well/a lot' This a good point made by Mike ^. I have spent lots and lots and lots on bikes especially over the last 15 years. I have worked all my life and like to have nice bikes. I would happily sacrifice a newer car to have a better bike, although without sounding like a hypocrite the bike i'm having most fun on at the mo was a £500 second hand one from here.My family haven't starved yet and seem pretty happy. Expensive bike or a cheap one we're all just riding bikes.
£904.99 on the bossnut.
It will suffice, when the frame is sorted, obvs.
Thought it might be £1800 last night, alas frame was too small.
Most expensive frame - £340, second hand Solaris. Full bike - £750 ish genesis hardtail when I started out, but I'm more of a serial frame swapper/upgrader, I've not bought a complete bike since the genesis, but it's now evolved via 2 other frames into a Zesty.
I guess both of my proper MTB's stand about £1000-£1200 if I actually added it all up, but I don't bother anymore. They'd both be £2k or more to replace with something of a similar spec. now if buying new.
New tourer £1375 last year.
Current MTB cost about the same 11 years ago.
Road bike was £125 second hand about 6 years ago but has needed about £500 in wheels and drivetrains etc over the years.
All older drop bar bikes about the same - nice, secondhand or old stock frames, decent bits.
BMX was about £200 new, about 15 years old?
Old MTB/tourer/hack Rockhopper was about £700 new in 2001.
Still got all those.
🙂
Orange about the same, possibly a bit more before that.
Marin was £450 in 1992 and the British Eagle was about £300 a year or so before that.
I had a six grand carbon santa cruz. I hated it. It was too short, too steep, the threads holding the pivot failed and failure of the bearing seats was a worry but didn't happen. I was constantly put off by the fear of breaking it.
Eventually I sold it at a massive loss and got a sensible aluminium bike which I much prefer despite being 1/3 the price and about six pounds heavier.
£1400 - well that was a frame. I dont by bikes as a whole. I generally by 2nd hand parts or move bits over from bike to bike, only buying new if I need to/get a bargain (cant find 2nd).
Last whole bike I bought was a Rockhopper in about 1994, about £400.
£3300 in 2011 for Lapierre Spicy, it was disappointing, poorly specced given the cost and pretty underwhelming to ride. The lower-spec, year older model I test-rode was actually better to ride, so when it was stolen I bought the older one s/h.
The second most was maybe £100 less in 2008 for a custom / dream build Cove Shocker, back then that was a HUGE amount to spend on a bike – but standards had be standard for a long time, not many carbon frames, certainly not DH ones, no carbon wheels, X9 stuff was bling – simpler times, money was easier to come by then and no kids meant even though I rarely used it, I took a lot of pride of ownership and it spent most of it’s life gleamingly clean sat in my living room looking cool.
Last new bike I bought was last March, it was a Tracer actually. Foundation build in Alu - £1900 because Xfusion suspension made it all but unsellable at £3000 or whatever it was full-price was (sellers words, not mine). I swapped over my XT 11sp drivetrain, my Float X shock and a bought some RS forks and a Dropper with the proceeds of the OE stuff. It’s a staggeringly good bike (IMHO) for real world money it probably cost me £2300 after all the horse trading. My Mate has the top of the line Carbon one, it’s lovelier still, but cost £8k or so, it would be interesting to hand them over to a ‘control’ rider to see how much quicker his is, I think it would be marginal at best – but they’re different sizes so not easy to do.
The New Tracer is gorgeous, Carbon only at the moment by the looks of it which means it’ll be expensive even for a ‘cheap’ one – I usually keep my bikes 3 years so maybe I’ll get on in 2019. It won’t be a £10k one though, I’d bet it’ll be foundation or expert and horse traded up to where I want it. I’m an SLX / XT level man.
Close to 3k in 2008 - Orange five with upgrades . I've only bought 2nd hand since then .
Most of my bikes were built up from frames so my most expensive complete bike would be my Epic which would have been around £1500 I think. Of course it's had at least that much again spent on it since!
£2500, my latest road bike. But it is bloody lovely and I could afford it so that's OK.
£4.7K in 2003 Seven Axiom etc. Needs to be rebuilt after 77K miles with just tyres, chains, cassette, chainring so as I'd always wanted a Colnago went and looked, measured, specced, came out at £9.5k 😯
So doing the sensible thing, get Seven refinished, new groupset, wheels, finishing kit= £2.7K but on a cost per mile that's ok to me at least 🙂
£2,400. it was the early days of the bike to work scheme before they tightened the rules and the retail value of the bike was almost double that.
2250 a few weeks ago for an Enduro. Previously for a new bike was 1350 for a Trek Liquid. £900 for a 2nd hand 5 Spot frame back in ~2007. The Turner is now insured for over £3.5k due to new for old policy.
Serioulsy struggled to part with the 2250 due to changing circumstances, kids etc.
£1500ish on my Ritchey Road Logic.
Other than that, nearly everything's been a Trigger's Broom-esque rolling change of frames and bits, mostly bought second hand from here.
Saying that, the new for old insurance value of my Genesis 853 is something like £3K+, as that's what an 853 hardtail kitted out with X0, Middleburn, RS Revs etc would be new, even though I got it all (bar the forks) second hand.
£3400. hopefully it will be the last expensive bike I ever buy.
not because of the cost, because as I get older I find I need a bike to do less. comfort is my only true criteria now.
£2000 ish to build my Ti Inbred about 12 years a go now. It's still in the shed.
£2400 on a Spesh Enduro in 2004 pre house/kids.
£3K on a Yeti 575 in 2006, bought on cycle to work scheme, the early days when you could knock the VAT off as well so think I paid about £1300 in real terms for it.
£4K Canyon Aeroad last year, again on cycle to work scheme so not sure of exact cost but nowhere near £4K
Most expensive in actual spend a little over £2K in 98 for a Yeti HT
Anyone paged solarider?
Have a stock Rocky Mountain which cost £5500, when I got it I stripped out the, wheels, Sram shifters, Reverb and put XTR, better Mavic wheels and a Thompson dropper on it. I've ridden it twice since June 16 🙁
I also have a Giant Defy SL0 which cost around the same. Full DA Di2 etc. I ride that much more often thankfully, or I'd have a stack more earache off the other half for wasting money of stuff just sitting there doing nowt.
Erm £1400 Scott Voltage FR in 2011
Every complete bike I look at would need most of it replacing so I don't look anymore
I've o my ever bought one complete bike, a GT Avalanche 1.0 back in 2003. It was £315.
The rest have all been built by me, and I don't think I've ever spent more than about £500 in one go.
None of my bike cost me over a grand to build. PX London rd, Ragley Blue Pig, Commencal Meta AM. Soon to buy a cotic Solaris frame, got wheels (125) and forks (250) and the rest will come off the Blue Pig.
I build my own, setting myself a low target then blowing the budget and upgrading the hell out of everything.
Never add it all up.
I think my Chromag was just over £2k.
Not sure I could justify spending more that £3k on a full susser but would probably spend more on something special that would not get bogged down with new standards, e.g. custom frame and rigid forks that sort of thing.
I measure it out in small doses so it doesn't feel as much. Most expensive new bike? My Dune, at about £500. And then I fitted £400 worth of wheels, for example. I suppose my Remedy has about £3000 in it including what I've recovered by selling parts so that might be my actual most expensive bike evar... But I still have other bits to sell off that so it should come down to about £2500 I hope.
About £500 for a nearly new Cove HJ in 2008, which I'm still riding. Or £900 for a new NeilPryde zephyr which is lovely and worth every penny.
2K probably. Build from frame with a deliberate "don't ask, don't tell" policy with myself about full and final costs.
Those £10K + frames are there for a couple of reasons, I reckon. The main one being not leaving money on the table, if there are people willing to spend that much, make it possible for them to spend it with you.
The second might be the same thing they do with menu pricing - you have an "anchor item", usually an expensive steak, which people are welcome to buy, obviously, but it serves to set the standard of acceptability for the rest of the menu's pricing. If the tenderloin is £20, you're not going to sell the chicken at £17, but if the tenderloin is £32, it's going to make that £17 chicken look like better value.
I spent just just £1.37 less than the list price of the full factory built bike on my "built from a Frame" Bike. However, i managed to pack in better brakes, cranks, a Di2 drivetrain, and another 20mm of travel, so i don't feel too bad!
3800 on a Cannondale habit black. It was new in the box with a list price of 7k.
It was actually a bit of a bargain ( that's what I keep telling myself ) Di2 XTR and enve wheels.
The second might be the same thing they do with menu pricing - you have an "anchor item", usually an expensive steak, which people are welcome to buy, obviously, but it serves to set the standard of acceptability for the rest of the menu's pricing. If the tenderloin is £20, you're not going to sell the chicken at £17, but if the tenderloin is £32, it's going to make that £17 chicken look like better value
There's certainly something in that, at least Intense aren't pretending they have two types of carbon frame yet (they do on other models).
One thing that does surprise me about Intense (and their Neighbours Santa Cruz for that matter) they will sell you a Carbon Frame with a very nice shock, for about £3k usually, because as above, some people will pay that as a starting point, or if you like a complete bike with a Carbon frame for a few hundred quid more, a complete, throw a pair of pedals on and go for a ride bike for a few quid more.
You've got to really lovely the bling factor to buy the frame only (they always have the nicest paint scheme I suppose) and not the whole bike, even if you strip it and sell the bits you'd be quids in.
£1499 on a Flare frame which I'm still reeling at because
a) I can't believe I was in a position to be able to buy a fancy new frame and,
b) it's just over three months' rent, pretty much, FFS 😯
To ease the working class guilt/chip on my shoulder it's built up with used (by me) parts 😆
Really expensive stuff is usually bought on finance, isn't it? So people aren't really [i]spending[/i] ten thousand pounds on a bicycle in one go, like whopping a wedge of unmarked notes down on a counter, they're paying £120 per month or whatever by direct debit but the bike co. still gets it's wedge on one go from the finance bods.
edit- I agree with the 'priorities' comment on the first page too. Our car was cheap and is paid for- I could've bought two more for spares with the money I spent on the Flare!
Actually taking into account inflation mine'd be my carrera krakatoa flexstem, it was £360 I think, in about 1992. Exage doesn't come cheap you know!
Exage? Get you! You've changed...
£850 on a KTM aera comp new. Always been very happy and never wished for a more expensive bike. Spend what you like and enjoy.
Can't remember the exact figure, but it was over £8k, in May '14.
Previous to that it was £7.5k in Feb '14.
Still have both
Well, exage hubs, I'm not Donald Trump. I think the rest was all Altus C10. But nobody looked at the brand on the shifters, they were all too busy looking at the FLEXSTEM!!1!
Circa £4k - should have spent circa £5k and got the one with hubs that don't need new bearings every few hundred miles............
£1900 on a Giant XTC Advance, which went walkabout 8 months later.
FLEXSTEM!!1!
There's a shop near me that had three of those brand new in a box on the shelf last time I went in.
Thinking about it the Proflex was £1500 in 1996 wohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
This century
MTB £850 for a lightly used Trek FS and £720 for A gravel bike
I've bought 2 x £1k bikes on C2W - a Giant Defy 1 in 2014, and an Arkose just over a year ago.
The Giant is currently sitting on a set of £400ish Pacenti/Hope wheels, so I guess the answer is £1400.
I don't envisage spending more than £1k on a new bike anytime soon, and I'm not sure I'd do any better on a mega-money bike.
C2W is also a tax-efficient way of spending money for me.
There is a good chance I might build my next one, as I fancy a Bowman.
£99. What do I win?
4.5k 3 years ago for a bronson.
Just changed the frame and fork which probably cost another 2.3k.
I earn reasonable money, have no debt and Love my riding.
7.5k had it about 12 months before it got nicked 😥 Haven't been able to afford to replace it, and it was ****ing awesome.
About £2700 in total on a Liteville 301 - it'll have to last me the rest of my riding days, along with my trusty Hummingbird. The problem is though that I'd like to have one to ride in Greece as well.......
My Defy Advanced SL2 was £3500 with aero wheels in 2013. It's now full DA9000 with handbuilt wheels and £5000. Propel SL2 was a £4000 crash replacement and I race it stock weekly (and weakly).
Most of my bikes (see other thread) have been bought used, the above two are the only new ones. But then, there is another significant milestone this year 🙂
I've been a bit of a bike builder rather than buyer of complete bikes so not totalled them up before. Then I bought an Orange 4 last £3.1K with a spec that I really wanted.
Road bikes seem to be more expensive and lots of my friends have pretty damn expensive road bikes. I put a deposit on a custom spec Stork today - so next week I'll be joining that group too!
The £10k Tracer and the price of things like latest Yeti carbon frames amaze me too.
My MTBs have always been up to about 2 grand for the most expensive.
My most expensive was my Tripster, built up with expensive parts from money left to me by my Dad. Probably £3.5k or so. But it's used every day to get me to work so pays for itself by saving me on fuel.
My favourite bike cost £800 off the classifieds
About £4k when I had a generous insurance payout following a burglary.
I got a 2012 Trek Fuel EX 9.7 and upgraded the wheels and some other bits. It was a brilliant bike, really fast and great fun.
Unfortunately (for the Trek) I then moved up north and fell in love with big wheels.
I'm over my bike-swapping issues now that I've worked out what fits me in terms of MTBs, but still don't expect I'd spend that much again.
1200 in parts.
£600.
Both my proper mountain bikes (26 soul & 29 high latitude) were built by myself from parts purchased from Fb groups, shops, ebay and here. Not rubbish quality either: hope hubs & stans rims, XT drivetrains, Reba Forks on both etc. I love the build process and make sure I get time alone to do it and take my time. Proper satisfying.
£5870 last year on an S-Works Epic WC, was a bargain reduced from £8128 😯
Then fitted ENVE stem & bars; and since bought a 2nd set of Roval SLs for winter/mud..
Work hard play hard 8)
In one go? £1700 on a Specialized Enduro Comp in 2007.
Everything else has been triggers broom, slowly morphing into one bike after another.
jekkyl - Member
I love the build process and make sure I get time alone to do it and take my time. Proper satisfying.
Same here, I've never bought a new bike or even a new frame either.
£950 back in 2000 on Sub5, inheritance from my mum and £950 on mrs_oab's new Trek on C2W.
3.5k on a cove hustler frame and custom build back in 2006. Hated it. Don't know why.
Next was a canyon carbon hardtail for 1800 in 2015. The spec on this is bloody excellent and I'd not have been able to build something similar for new for the same price.
If I ever manage to get the remortgage over the line the. I'll be adding a road bike and transition scout or smuggler.
Then starting again in a few years time.
Bikes are disposable in my opinion.
I like to get a bargain so £2k on my 2015 trance sx saved a grand on that so was dead happy and built up a 2016 giant defy 0 to a similar spec to the £1k model for £650
Just spent £2400 on a road bike. Most I've ever spent by nearly a grand. But it will see me through 10 years, so £20 a month over 10 years?
I read about a lot of stupidly expensive bikes, road and mountain bikes, £7k and upwards, and I don't think I've ever seen one I thought would be worth that much money.
Most expensive bikes I lust after probably £4-5k. But only in my head.
I tend to build bikes up from frames and buy components from multiple places then never add it all up so I can fool myself about the final cost.
Surprised at the lack of pics.
£2400 on one of these.
[img] 
?itok=Ojmw849u[/img]
Courtesy of a personal injury payout from being hit by a car in June, so wanted to treat myself with the money.
£99 in 1979 for a Harry Quinn frame. A hell of a lot of paper round money saving. Loved it raced it 25m and 50m time trials, road raced and toured. Took me to John O'Groats and so many places.
£2600 on an Intense 5.5 circa 2006.
Like many of the posters above the £2500 ish mark is my limit. I would feel really uncomfortable spending £3 grand or more.
3.4K on a 5 in 2011 but that was only cos I'd had a recent windfall. Better bike than I'll ever be a rider & I'd never spend that much on a bike again unless money was little or no object.
Still got it & it's still beyond my capabilities.
My bargain Carbon Jekyll 2 from Paul's has had LB carbon wheels in Hope hubs. hope V4 fitted. 1x11. A 150mm Reverb. Ceramic BB. Easton bars. 3 differing sets of tyres. Absolute Black oval ring. But it was a bargain right? The bike I ride most is my secondhand rigid Cannondale Trail 29 about £250 from here.
5k MTB 3.5k road. Will never buy another bike again hopefully (full suspension e bike if I am still riding mtb at 70+!!!). Both bikes bought as I say hopefully for life.
£1,750 last month on a 2016 Cube Stereo reduced from £2,500.
Previous bike was frame & fork purchase using bits from my £1k Giant hardtail.
Saw a nice Haibike downhill electric one today, looked like a motorbike! £7k ish!!
£5400 on a Santa Cruz Tallboy LTc custom built back in 2012.
Nice bike, but then I bought a novelty fatbike and ruined everything.
The LTc gathered dust from then on in.
We spent close to £2k building up my gf's road bike second hand, don't remember the exact cost. Probably over £1k all in on my new hardtail, not far off on my touring bike But the exact numbers quickly fade away I find, and you end up with something far more special. I'd rather have my bikes than the money. Or a car.
Maybe it's different if you buy new; the TCR Adv SL with SRAM Red and Reynolds 46 wheels certainly wouldn't seem such a good deal at six grand...
£1250 on an upgraded Orange Evo2 in C.'99.
£1200 on a Kona Coiler Dee Lux in 06.
£1400 on a nearly new Commencal Meta in 09.
£999 (reduced) on current carbon Cube Agree road bike but now has pimpy wheels - last year.
£999 on current Cannonade Trigger.
I've been quite restrained really haven't I!
"The quality endures long after the price is forgotten."
I may be biased saying that because I run a business designing, manufacturing and selling fairly expensive pro audio equipment - but I see a lot of customers stepping off the expensive habit of constant buying and selling in the hunt for better sound once they finally commit to spending more than they'd planned on some of our gear.
For some the gear side of things, buying, tweaking, etc is as much a part of the hobby as doing the hobby itself, but if that's not your thing then buying something really bloody good (assuming you have the money) and then getting on with enjoying DOING your hobby can be a much better way to spend your money - and less expensive in the long-term.
My Spitfire wasn't super expensive but it wasn't cheap - but three years on I'm still so happy with it that you'd have to pay me to swap it for anything, including any of those £10k bikes! To me that makes it worth every penny.