New bike; who has spent the most?

I’m not necessarily looking for a new bike, but the new Turner RFX v4.0 is turning my head and I am half considering getting one (or maybe it’s just a pipedream!).

The most likely option is to buy a frame only for $2,995.00 and swap everything else from my main bike and I’m up and running. This option is a £2k frame upgrade which is bordering on silly money imo.

Then there is the basic build for $4,573.00 or you can go for full XTR with Enve wheels for $8,718.00 which quite frankly makes my starfish wince.

So, lottery wins aside, what is the most the good folk on here spent on a bike?

I’m sure there are some very good bikes which have been built up with the bangermonics philosophy and others whom have a second mortgage on a bike.

I predict a high and low pissing contest and much grandstanding and a lot of moral judgement….

Converts to about 4k UK I reckon but cumulative over a year, and not at retail

mikewsmith – Member

I predict a high and low pissing contest and much grandstanding and a lot of moral judgement…

I may have started this thread intentionally for this very purpose.

I’m skint so no willy waving from me

In an alternative universe I was browsing the Internet the other day, daydreaming about getting a new bike and what it would be.

I thought the Ibis hd3 looks very nice, so I had a quick Google.

£8,500 — 😯

Good lord. I find that ridiculous. Eight and a half thousand pounds.

No doubt some people will find it justifiable. I’m not even sure if I did have a decent amount of disposable income that I’d pay that for an off the shelf bike

Most I’ve ever paid was just over £2400. A stupid “gold plated” bling build on an On One Summer Season £99 frame. And then wondered why it rode like a bunch of poorly constructed gas pipe.

My two bikes would be just over £2000 each to build again. Both could be replaced with £1000 to £1200 off the shelf bikes but with less bling.

I recently priced up, with spreadsheets and hyperlinks!, a Stooge build with an optional set of suspension forks for £2250. I then had to have a quiet word with myself.

Hora..but he does keep for sale alive. (A delight to buy from)

I’m also rather taken by the RFX. First bike in ten years to turn my head from my 6 pack. My current bike is probably pretty expensive but due to its “trigger’s broom” nature, I’ve never taken it as one hit.

I’m currently torn between the large and the medium otherwise it would be on order already.

Also can’t decide what to do with the old 6 pack so not sure if I should go with a rolling chassis or complete build.

Onzadog – Member

I’m also rather taken by the RFX. First bike in ten years to turn my head from my 6 pack. My current bike is probably pretty expensive but due to its “trigger’s broom” nature, I’ve never taken it as one hit.

My main bike is the same. It is an accumulation of upgrades over four years and the most dated item now is the frame.

Currently building up a Flux as a second bike. Depending on how good this rides may sway me in the right a particular direction.

Top end but not S Works camber evo. It then goes very wrong with a few upgrades. With discounts, ctrl and AC Carbonators still less than £4,500 ish.

Giant Trance frameset fresh for 2015, Giant abandoned their proprietary headset standard and went back to normal tapered head tubes making them a viable option again IMO….£1500….but it did come with headset fitted and Giant’s own dropper post….

X-Fusion Sweep forks £300
X-Fusion O2 shock £200
Saint brakes £200
Superstar Tactic/Tesla wheelset £250
Renthal bars £50
Magic Mary tyres £70 (F&R)
1 x 11 XT drivetrain £350
Charge Spoon saddle £20
Nukeproof stem £40
RaceFace grips £20
Uberbike race matrix pads £20
Shimano XT brake rotors £30 (F&R)
Shimano press fit BB £20

Jesus wept that’s about £3000 on a mass produced generic FS!….I’m going off to have a little cry now….the bike rides great don’t get me wrong, in fact I can’t fault it, the DW/Maestro system firms up under peddling and feels bottomless on big hits but this was supposed to be a budget build!….things do have a habit of escalating don’t they?!

Still, it’s not something I’m planning on selling, I’ll hope to be riding this in another 5 years time….at that point I think I may have had my money’s worth.
I’ve also enjoyed the buying and build process which took a good 6 months for me to find things at prices I was prepared to pay, it hasn’t been a credit card build either, as I’ve been paid each month I’ve bought components and have sold lots of my old stuff to bolster the PayPal account ready for the next bits to buy.

I built my czar frame up gradually, starting with slightly cheaper bits of drive train and wheels. Eventually moving to Enve and XX1/x01.

Cost me 6.5 all up now for current build. Done 7000 miles on it, and its all been worth every penny. I’m not a big earner but believe in durability and quality.

With your RFX, I wouldn’t hesitate. My Czar still looks and rides terrific.

I don’t get into justifying things but I do think that there is an appeal to non mass-market stuff that is produced at high cost, and everything that comes with that. I’ve never regretted buying ‘expensive’ but plenty of cheap disasters.

It’s tough to quantify isn’t it!!

Yep 8k super bikes seem a bit daft, but if you can afford it, why not! By the same extent, if it’s a £500 job hey ho it’s all the same thing dicking about on bikes to make you feel good!! TBH who gives a monkeys!

I was very lucky and had a S works bike, loved it, would I every buy one again no, will those circumstances ever arrive again no!! Was it making me a better rider than the Bike I had before which I sold to fu d part of the SWorks nope, did it out a smile on my face yes totally!

No as a old man with Kids etc! I look at top end kit ENVE wheel etc and think nice!! But in my head I’m thinking…SLX is the way to go!! Which makes me smile as I can remember looking at elastomer forks and STXRC like it was gold!! So I guess I’m doing a full circle!! Except the elastomers….. 😆

Saying that the Transition Scout Two is lush……… 😕

My last was somewhere north of $10k (custom tandem). If you count unicycles, my last was about £100 🙂

Wow, I usually like the look of Turners even been looking at a Burner V3 frame as a next bike but that RFX v4.0 is pig **** ugly.

Bit like Wookster I remember the good old days of mtb before it got to the silly money of what it can be now, but if you can afford it why not.

Bit like Wookster I remember the good old days of mtb before it got to the silly money of what it can be now, but if you can afford it why not.

Only difference now is you can buy some really good bikes for not a lot of cash. The entry level bike is a long way ahead of those from the rose tinted specs days

Only rose tinted bit I like about the good old days was how simple things were 🙂

I’m just as guilty for spending silly money on bikes.

This is going to be embarrassing, but hopefully enough to give me a kick up the Harris and start riding again.

I bought around Christmas a Rocky Mountain Instinct BC edition for £5.5k, then swapped out the Sram 11sp gubbins for Shimano XTR, swapped the RS dropped for a Thomson one, swapped the wheels and saddle too. I’ve not really ridden it for over 2 months. And not likely to for another year unless I take it with me when I move. But, I understand there’s not much mtb where I’m going so it’s not worth it.

If you added up the cost to actually build up my MTB, it’d be something silly like £6k. Though I got the frame at 1/3 of RRP as it was the last one CRC had, and other bits were at trade price. Still expensive. But it’s my Rohloff and USE SUB demonstrator, that’s my excuse.

Rohloff/SUB demo bike by Ben Cooper[/url], on Flickr

Transition bandit 26 frame, 150mm pikes, hope tech brakes, xt drive train, hope/stans flow wheels, reverb – everything bar the frame and wheels was new, total build was just under £1500.

Enve wheels only exist to fleece vulnerable people of their money, surely?

Someone should report them to social services.

Me – About £3k of insurance company money on my “perfect bike”, then I moved to a different part of the country and it was far from perfect any more. Expensive lesson but it was fun while it lasted.

Since I have a Chinese wife who monitors all my purchases I can only say I am luck that I have only two bikes:
Pivot Mach6, XX1/XTR groupsets, Fox 36 Forks, LB Carbon Wheelset etc
Stanton Switchback, new XT groupset, Pkes, LB Wheelset etc

All for 4k of your UK money! (god bless dodgy receipts).

I tend to throw money at a bike every 8 or so years but I tend to have spent most of that time researching exactly what I want. Not lots compared to what some here spend but enough for me to get a really nice bike. My last 2 purchases of that ilk were:
£1500 on an Orange P7, the bike I’d wanted since the early 90’s. Full XT build, Fox forks, Hope finishing kit, it was perfect. Recently sold on to someone here, I hope he’s loving it as much as I did.
£2500 for my new road bike is as much as I’ve got to though. Nice carbon frame, Di2, carbon wheels, it’s a bit of a dream build of me, I like it a lot.

My TRc cost about £3k ish when I built it. Frame was second hand off here. It’s had new forks since then but only because the other bikes died.

I really want a new 5010, that could get really expensive.

I have good disposable income, but would struggle to spend more than £4k on a new bike because of the diminishing returns.

Santa cruz nomad and custom pp shan. Thats a car right there…so you can get very silly if you want
…

Kuco – Member
Wow, I usually like the look of Turners even been looking at a Burner V3 frame as a next bike but that RFX v4.0 is pig **** ugly.

Each to their own but it’s a lot nicer looking that the prototype dw-rfx that came before it.

I think the rfx-4.0 looks more like a conventional diamond frame than any of the dw bikes before it.

Further to my earlier post about a 3k+ Giant Trance self build, I do also have a Ragley Piglet that is bloody brilliant and I got from eBay for £300 as a part finished project, the forks were crap so I treated it to some new Revelations for £300, it has a second hand set of Pacenti TL28 rims that I had laying around, it runs a Deore 2×10 drivetrain from Ribble for £145 brand new….bars, saddle, stem, grips etc were all in the shed/under the stairs etc….brakes are the current Deore M615 which are brilliant and I got second hand on eBay for £60 the pair…that’s about it….a fantastic, durable, perfect for the UK trail ripper for less than £900….I love it and ride it more than the Giant FS in my previous post!

I sold my motorbike booked a 2 week all inclusive for the family and paid 4500 for a lovely bike. Its the last bike i ever intend to buy tho.

The most I’ve ever burned on a single bike was around 3k on a cove hustler with fox talas, some nice mavics, xt and carbon bars/post etc. That was 10 years ago though! It definitely wasn’t worth it. I reckon the hustler was the least ridden bike of any that I’ve owned.

Recently laid out 1900 on a an of the peg bike. Good kit, well laid out, no hassle for me. Happy.

Im not sure that its the total cost more the capability I buy,

Pikes
XT brakes
X0 drive train
Reverb
XM Gobi (fits my rear)
carbon bars
Lock on grips
XT trail pedals
Tubeless
Maxxis tyres
Carbon wheel set – yes expensive but OMG so light and fast 😉

so I tend to buy the frame and build up, all pretty standard stuff I guess

Enve wheels only exist to fleece vulnerable people of their money, surely?

I’ve got 3x 65mm clinchers, a 3.4 smart front, a 29″ XC Rim, a 29″ AM rim and a 26″ DH rim
oh and 3 seat posts, 2 stems, 3 sets of bars, a Garmin mount and a bottle cage 😆

As a young man just out of uni…. I might have spent my first african bonus wage on a 3500 quid 29er rigid bike…..

Still got it now, its still as awesome as the day i bought it.ts been through a few guises- rohloff , singlespeed and now mostly xtr but its still riding brilliantly.

Works out at about 500 quid for every year owned.

Been all over scotland with it touring ( just finished 5 days c2c yesterday on it) and it can also hold its own on all but the gnarliest trails:) good versatile purchase and if i had to sell all my other bikes its the one ide keep – although with 2 sets of wheels 🙂

About 1 k I reckon but then again I have about 7 of them so it does mount up.

As they depreciate so quickly so i tend to buy frames second hand and only really buy forks and drivetrain stuff at new prices.

Not planning to buy anything in the near future as I have a lot of antipathy towards the industry and their desire to fleece me/ invent a new standard every other year to make whatever I buy have no resale value / be obsolete.

It may take me some time to break my Orange 5 – i suspect i will run out of fork options first

I fell for a cannondale scalpel carbon 29-er a few year ago, was aware of ‘issues’ so made sure the warranty was rock solid. It was RR about $8500 AUD, I paid $6500, more that I should have paid for a bike really but I excuse it as a mid-life crisis toy. Cheaper and safer than a motor bike, much cheaper than a car and can’t sink like a boat. I also don’t run a car or drink much any more (self-justification, obviously an addict, but at least only on cycling). Just upgraded the whole drive train to XTR and a few other bling bits with money from my secret cycling stash (which I suspect my wife know about but is happy with me spending it on the bike rather than coke and hookers).

Since having kids and a house to pay for, my spending on bikes has been very limited but back in the day I spent around £2500 on a Pace RC 100 with the all singing and dancing RC35 forks. When my Mom found out she threatened to throw me out as she simply could not comprehend anyone spending that amount of money on a pushbike!! I still have the bike, set up rigid and single speed which is great for going out with the kids round our local trails.

I’ve got 3x 65mm clinchers, a 3.4 smart front, a 29″ XC Rim, a 29″ AM rim and a 26″ DH rim
oh and 3 seat posts, 2 stems, 3 sets of bars, a Garmin mount and a bottle cage

*picks up phone*
Hello, is that social services? I’ve got a bad one for you I’m afraid.

Whatever the cost, it’s less than the depreciation after buying a new equivalent of my perfectly nice but old car.

@ bencooper – You’ve seemed to have left a reflector on your £6k super build.

😛

Nope, no reflectors on that – though the pic was taken before I cut down the fork steerer 😉

Last year I spent £24,000 on bikes.