I was trying to explain this to a mate as justification for buying another bike.
Basically I have three bikes.
Planet X Carbon SL, okay’ish all FSA carbon inc chainset the rest Ultegra.
Pearson cross bike, all 105.
Giant XTC custom build, World Cups, XT/XTR ect.
All okay bikes, but all built for the purpose of racing. Nothing was ever bought and used because it looked nice. All done to get the best performance for my money. And because of that they stir as much passion in me as my electric drill.
Does that make sense?
Hence the recent interest in a new bike, something roadie, something that works well but is a bit quirky at the same time, bling bits, heavy bits, retro bits. Want a bike that you pat on the saddle after riding 😳

Edit; Got a couple of very old part built bikes, but say what you like about 52 year old bikes, but they ain’t that practical.

For me, I’ve got to buy bikes with the heart ruling just as much as the head!
Buy second-hand – that way if you get it wrong, you shouldn’t lose too much money! My best purchase was a second-hand Titus frame in a titanium / carbon mix (what they call exogrid) off Ebay. Cost me about 30% of what it would have been RRP, including a CK headset. Truth be told it rides well, but no better than a load of other bikes out there, but it’s a thing of beauty, a stunning bit of engineering, and pretty rare too!

Yeah I had a Nicolai custom built and factory specced Argon singlespeed, only Uk one I think. But when I went back to racing I fell out of love with singlespeed and became obsessed with function.
[don’t want to argue the geared/SS thing though]

What about getting a frame built bespoke? I’ve been looking at Mercian frames and some of them with the hand cut lugs are works of art.

Mr_Mojo
I’ve got a bike on paper. Bob Jackson with steel power forks and brazings and colour to my spec. 105 or Ultegra groupset. Ultegra/Mavic handbuilts with Pavés. Deda silver finishing kit. Brooks Swift. CK headset.
So not an excersice in expenditure, but something modern that harks back to the sort of bikes I used to ride.

Yawn……I’m bored of your bikes as well – it’s not about the bike

See, I was in the same boat

My bikes are appliances, tools for the job. I can’t get excited about a steel on-one frame, SLX or Reba’s but it didn’t let me down during a fairly tough year of racing. Likewise, my planet-X stealth was pretty light, aero enough and pretty much a copy of my mates 3k storck Aero – but I could never get excited about it.

What I find is that you build up a nice/pretty bike, then you don’t want to use it as much, or maybe don’t ride it as hard. During a 2 month period I didn’t clean/maintain/do anything to my bike other than race it pretty hard and ride it a lot. By the end it was fairly knackered, BB gone, forks sh@gged, wheels out of true and so on. On a boutique bike that would have upset me, on this I just thought it was cool and showed it had been used. Same for anything, my new fireblade is sat downstairs covered in salt and muck and its bugging the hell out of me sat here. I’d not have cared less if it had been my old 600

Rag it, break it, buy another.

I feel that way about my commuter (boardman cx pro) its just a tool for a job, and yet its the one i rely upon the most 🙄

My Blur is treat like its on life support yet that one hardly gets washed…..

bikes are tools not jewels.
when i’m buying stuff, i go for decent kit, and i like them to look smart.
my bikes get washed when they are dirty, and are maintained.
i’m not anal about them. look after them, and they’ll look after you.
bikes are for riding! 🙂

the bob jackson is a flawed choice imho. as in the other thread i think wou would be better served with tigged/fillet brazed oversize steel and an 1-1/8 ahead rather than quill set-up.

We get so seduced by magazine mentality and the latest thing that we forget what really matters. Just like cars – who cares if one is smidge faster than the other? What you really want is something feels nice more of the time.

I have recently ebay-ed my factory road wheels and gone back to handmades – makes the road bike a lot more comfortable, love it. 25mm tyres ditto.

Also, I’ve always thought that extra attention to the bits you touch and that are in your field of vision is well worth it. Soft bar tape, a neat (to your eyes) ‘bar arrangement (computer etc), lots off time spent getting handlebars and levers just right (shallow drops, both depth and reach wise, are much better for me). All that stuff – fave saddle, nice shoes etc. Maybe get a softer seat post… Could be that you could transform your current bike?

Your bikes are shite. Sell them and get a Ti hardtail and a decent full sus, a 575 etc. Forget the roadie crap as roadies are all ****

Trying to justify luxury items is a waste of time and money and demeans the third world workers who sweated to make them, just say “I’ve got the money, I earned it and I’ll fritter it away on whatever I like.”

BMX?

Build it up yourself using bargain second hand bits.. takes a while to do, but you get to spec every last detail, and is worth it once it’s complete, and costs a fraction of what it would have cost new.

I built up a full sus Club Roost xc4 for approx £600 in total, inc full XT, easton carbon bars, rebas, mavic 717s and weighs about 26-27lb.

Fancy selling the carbon planet x sl?

glenp – Thing is I race the bikes, so I want as much function as possible for my dosh. The PX get raced in the LVRC, the MTB in things like Summit Series and FNSS and I race the crosser in the Central league.
As for the BJ being a flawed choice, well it meets my criteria for a general purpose, but functional gentlemens road bike. A bringing together of old and new if you like.
Regards the second hand option, yes I’m looking down that route. You can get some nice steel quality frames like SLX or 753 with 130OLN ends. Cheap enough to get resprayed to look new i.e there’s a Columbus SLX in my size on Ebay there is a chance I could buy that and get it painted for under £200.
Hora it’s probably too small anyway.
Another thing is I like to keep my bikes race ready, which I see as another reason to buy the bike I’ve described.

Well you’re contradicting yourself a bit, oldgit. You say you want ultimate performance, but then you say you want a steel bike with a bit of character. Do you mean you want an additional bike as well as race bikes?

Well I have enjoyed riding my croix de fer more than any other bike I have owned. Functional, practical, beautiful and fast! Definitely the first bike that I smile to myself as my legs fall off going up a big climb.

Do you mean you want an additional bike as well as race bikes?

Yes.

easy answer .

become obssessed with retrobikes .
before you know it , you will have 10 plus bikes which make you smile everytime you look at them .I use all of mine regularly and race them too . retrobike had 50 riders at last year MM .

but when weather is crap or you need to race , use your modern .

which make you smile everytime you look at them

But not when you ride them 😉

I was reaquainted with my old Gios last year, the frame was a delight to ride, but the period equipment was dreadful. Shouldn’t have sold that. Now I’m eyeing up an Italian frame in my size and with the right OLD. I’ll have it if the price is okay. Refurb it, and kit it out with new 105.

I get all nostalgic about my Cougar, & a local spin around the lanes is nice. But I had this daft idea that it would be cool to work towards doing a hundred miler later in the summer. The reality of how impractical it would be came apparent after 40 miles on Friday. Time to face up to reality.

I think I know what you mean.

Love my carbon roadie race bike. Love it to bits, light, fast great handling great bike. But it is not my old Gios Compact Pro, Gios blue with chrome lugs and dropouts. Heavy, mega stiff but somehow classic. Looked like the bike Roger de Vlaeminck rode – though with more modern groupset. Heaviest road bike I ever owned yet I had more placings on that bike than any other I have ridden.

How can anyone love a carbon bike? There’s something horribly lacking in artisanship about them – they kind of scream characterless mass production. There’s a weird thing mountain bikers on this forum do where they post up pics of some monstrous, swoopy, brash, multi-coloured, hideous carbon road bike with comedy wheels, then rag on and on about how gorgeous it is. It isn’t. They aren’t. Simple.

That didn’t really help much, did it?

you could grow to love an IF, cyfac or a parlee (custom)

I know what you mean. Only got one bike now but it doesn’t call me to ride it like some previous bikes I have owned. Problem is I want a light bike I can race on so it’s geared towards that but then I really want something I can throw about so I want a bit more travel etc etc. Basically I don’t know what I want from a bike other than I want one bike that will suit all rider disciplines that I used to enjoy when I was at uni and had more bikes than sense and obviously money

Love my bikes. Riding them makes me happy. I make them happy with gifts of components and trips away. It’s like marriage only I have two of them 🙂

BadlyWiredDog – Member

How can anyone love a carbon bike? There’s something horribly lacking in artisanship about them – they kind of scream characterless mass production. There’s a weird thing mountain bikers on this forum do where they post up pics of some monstrous, swoopy, brash, multi-coloured, hideous carbon road bike with comedy wheels, then rag on and on about how gorgeous it is. It isn’t. They aren’t. Simple.

That didn’t really help much, did it?
Yes/No
I agree that nothing will ever match up in my mind to the Dan Shotten custom 653SL I had (till some little shite stole it) with a mix of Campag/Huret,Mavic Cinelli & Suntour.
But my PX Clubman SL is lighter/more stable/quicker to respond & easier to ride (OK so its not carbon & has straight tubes & welds)