Really Expensive Stuff that is Definitely Worth the Money

Chris King.  In almost 20y of riding, whether second hand or new, I have never, ever replaced a bearing on a headset, BB or hub.  Hundreds of thousands of KM in all weathers.  

Hope, Cane Creek, FSA, Shimano have all died in the attempt.    

Hate to say it but my Uniqlo selve edge are no where near the Hebtroco’s for quality. The difference is night and day.

For me:

Waitrose food. Stays fresh for weeks longer than Tesco or Aldi. Never understand why they dont market this. Stuff like carrots 6-8 weeks. Tesco 2 weeks if lucky. I know what tesco are doing and its sh!t grocery.   Essentials range is also fantastic quality for the price. False economy not to buy decent food.

King Headsets: Always buy second hand & expensive. Wait for the search to pop up on ebay.  One of the last true fit and forget items. Last way longer than Hope or Cane creek.

Leatherman for the 25 year warranty.

All my furniture is Ercol. 2nd Hand. Solid wood, well made, for the price of Ikea. Most of it is 40-50 years old and it will out last me.

Mattresses – worked for years in a mattress factory. You totally get what you pay for. High density Pocket sprung and layers of horse hair and lambswool every time. Just about to replace my 30 year old mattress and move it into the spare room. By my calcs I have spent over 70,000 hours lying on that thing. Why would it not be the most important item after your house?

St Anton lift pass. €406 for 6 days.

Grisport work boots, the tall ones. Not that expensive but they last and last

Cauliflowers. Well they seem to be bloody expensive at the mo.

I agree with sourdough, 3 quid for a large one at my local bakers.

Good beer (rather than going to Spoons ‘cos it’s cheap).

ATC loudspeakers.

Howarth oboes.

Also agree with @Andy re. Waitrose Essentials and Ercol. Recommend me a mattress Andy.

Like others

Exposure lights 

mattresses

good red wine

I’ll add Assos roadie clothing and Remarkable notebooks.

+1 leathernan, also Gerber. I had a multi tool snap after twenty years service and they replaced without a receipt. 

SP41 gear cable is on my ‘soooooo with it’ list.

Spend good money on your boots and your bed. If you’re not in one you’re in the other

V Spring mattress

Swaroski binoculars

almost anything by Apple

A weekend in New York with prime tickets to see David Byrne in concert

Our Ercol furniture.

@doris5000 early December what few mills left in Hawick have sales both invitation and public.

+1 Leatherman

+1 Exposure lights (didn’t pay ridiculous money for mine though)

+1 Frahm jackets (only have the one, but the quality is outstanding)

I’ll add ebikes 😉

I’ll also add – drysuits. Without a shadow of a doubt, the best bit of kit I’ve used this winter

It’s difficult to understate the bed/mattress when you realise, you spend a third of your life using it.

With that in mind, almost another third: my Secret Labs office chair.

Proper, Goodyear Welted shoes. Look after then and they’ll last decades.

Tyres, be it bike or car, they’re the only thing sticking to your ground and you normally get what you pay for.

Good bread. Sourdough may be hipster but it’s bloody lovely.

Beer. I’ve cut down on drink and maybe have 3 beers a week. So I make sure they’re really good ones, even if it costs extra.

A handmade acoustic guitar is worth every penny.
A good hi-fi.
Good Red wine.
Good cheese.

@slowoldman

Recommend me a mattress Andy.

I have only just decided to replace my 30 yo mattress, as I now want a king size in the spare room for my sister, so still looking. I always went for Vi-Spring or JL own brand when they had their own factory. I worked at the JL factory and visited the ViSpring factory a couple of times.  Expensive but amazing quality. I am just looking now and annoyingly JL clearance ends tomorrow so the best I can do for myself is record the prices for future reference. I would still buy from JL now as they used to have brilliant knowledge of mattress composition.  JL also used to do a spring unit refurb (recovering) but not looked into that yet.

OK here is my 30 yo knowledge. Key is to go to a shop with the stock to try it and decide on your firmness. JL used to be brilliant for this as they would have a mattress specialist, trained to advise properly. They are very staff light these days so worth phoning and establishing who the specialist is and when they are in. You and whoever else is going to use the mattress needs to have a good roll around on different examples.

A mattress is a sandwich. I dont believe in the memory foam or single sided mattresses.  Core is the spring unit.  I would go for pocket sprung over coil sprung. Key is a high spring count and each spring sheathed in natural calico, not nylon. Natural fibres breath and handle sweat much better.  The rest is about the layers. The best are a layer of horse hair, calico sheet,layer of mohair, calico sheet and a layer of lambswool to give that initial float before settling based on the spring firmness. All natural fibres so it breathes in use. Mattresses are as much about handling sweat as comfort.  Its old school tech!  Also important is a calico border which is hand stitched to the mattress through the springs. It means the mattress doesnt sag over time at the edges. I have watched them do it and a hand stiched border is quite intricate as they carefully link in the outer springs, and can take two hours to do a mattress properly, they then pipe edge sew the edges on a machine, but it means the mattress wont sag at the edges after 5 years use. Finally you need a good tuft count to hold it all together properly.

A proper mattress should never be rolled or folded. It snaps the internals holding together. A good mattress should also be turned every couple of months on a ventilated bedstead or divan to allow the turned half to breathe the sweat away.

Any decent shop should be able to describe exactly what the layers, border stitching, tufting and layers involves and exactly what the fabrics and fillings used are. If they cant then I would walk away.

Thank you.

That is incredibly helpful. 

I now want a king size in the spare room for my sister,

Christ, how big is she?

Christ, how big is she?

I am sorry. What are you suggesting sir? :o)

There is very little you can cut corners on in mattress manufacture. The spring unit maybe, the border assembly and also the tufting is normally automated these days but the layering, border sewing and edge pipe machining is still hand worked AFAIK so its still very much you get what you pay for and a £1500 mattress works out at £10 a week so pretty much perfectly fits into the “expensive stuff definitely worth the money”.

I would spend more time on a mattress than I would on a new car because I will spend a lot more time using the mattress!

At last I have found something useful to add to the STW hive mind! What a time etc etc

WMF Professional Plus Garlic Press

It’s £40 on a garlic press, but after years of using £5-10 ones this is a joy to use, we get through a lot of garlic here!

Tis is a great thread!

I agree with bike lights… Exposure in my case too…

Nice leather shoes would be on my list… I don’t think my choices would be in the TRUE expensive category as I  normally spend about £120 – 150 on a pair, and am aware they can be MUCH more than that… But I find they are much nicer than, say, a £60 pair ..

And steak from the supermarket… A seven quid steak trumps a four quid one by miles!

DrP

You and whoever else is going to use the mattress needs to have a good roll around on different examples.

Is this a euphemism and if so I’m surprised they allow that in the shop? 🤣

Overtone beers

Yes!! Currently Puget Sound and 99 IBUs. I’d swear you even get a nicer drunk off them than other similarly strong IPAs 😎

Shoes, see Vimes boots

Came here to say exactly that.

another clue to them being any good is when they have stretch in the title.

Hope I’m not misinterpreting that one as my stretch Levi 511s are my favourite ever jeans, and they haven’t gone at the crotch like every other pair I’ve ever owned (Uniqlo included). Definitely worth the extra £££

Am currently also loving stretch chinos although not sure how long £25 a pair will buy me 🙄

Along with the talk of a quality mattress I can also recommend a good wool filled duvet to go with it.

One of the best purchases I’ve ever made is a wool duvet. I always used to suffer from the cold, especially my feet, no matter what tog rating man made fibre duvet I used but since splashing out on a wool one I sleep like a log, an no longer wake up with a snotty nose.

My current memory foam mattress has done me 15 years though?

I’d have to buy five of them before I’d be in profit with one traditional mattress?

Dinner out in proper restaurants. A delicious and magical experience.

Went to Mana in manchester late last year. Brilliant.

Exposure lights

Expensive cycling bibs that actually fit well (Gore for me but your shape may vary)

Berghaus boots (again a fit thing, although my last pair lasted ages as well).

Battery power tools that you use a lot (combi drills in my case)

Winter sailing kit

As a Topper sailing circuit dad – stacking dinghy trailers with box storage.  Depreciation is slow, you can load them up with two boats, all your kit and spares, it’s a handy store at the club and at 630 on a cold winter morning when you’re heading off to a training event you hook up, pull the straps tight and drive away.  No faffing around with lifting onto roof racks and sticking 3m long bags of wet salty gear in the car and repeating when you get home in the dark on a Sunday.

Plasterers

A cleaner.

I think I’ve employed a “woman who does” from my first paycheck in my first flat, and I still employ people to do the stuff that I cannot abide doing. Worth every penny.

don’t scrimp on boots or beds

if your not in one your in the other

(c) CFH

Church’s shoes.

I inherited a few pairs, from the 60s, from my old man.

They fit like a glove but were in dire need of re-soling, so I sent them off to Northants…  Re-soling 5 pairs was eye wateringly expensive but they came back as good as new, and I expect them to outlast me!

I agree with most of the things and would like to add:

Good quality shirts, that iron easily and fit well. Essential when heading into the office.

Joinery. If you’re making things yourself this is linked to the tools comments. Good quality cabinetry is so nice!

Speakers. I’m a B&W fan.

Bike suspension.

Cadac Carre Chef 2

The wife bought me one as a back handed present a decade ago, it get used in the garden as our BBQ and for cooking on campsites, it has been built up and packed away hundreds of times now and is till going strong. I suspect we will never need to buy another.

https://www.bbqworld.co.uk/cadac/cadac-carri-chef-2-bbq.asp?tduid=Cj0KCQiAnrOtBhDIARIsAFsSe53v0kFsk3jzF7bqfhzJ6seAREWuTT8aAT0X3CiazMfFD4zpxrExBIkaAngKEALw_wcB_deviceid

When I worked and suits were the only option a made to measure suit was silly priced but oh so worth it.  I reasoned that because I HAD to spend 12 hours a day in the thing – probably three quarters of my weekday waking hours – I might as well make sure I had kit I wanted to wear, especially as being 41″ and R and a bit I was plumb between sizes.  Take care selecting the fabric and a shade that wasn’t just this year’s thing and they comfortably outlasted the off the peg equivalent, so total cost of ownership was less eye-watering.  The downside….Covid killed suits and I retired, leaving me with a rack of serviceable suits.

I’m lying on my mattress 

I’ll be in trouble for this as it’s from IKEA. But it’s their most expensive one, now discontinued. £800 which is cheap. But 3 times what their cheap mattresses cost

You couldn’t roll or fold it without a JCB

As it contributed to solving my back pain which was really pretty bad it’s just a huge thing in my life

@andy your moment has arrived!

Another vote for:

Exposure lights, Chris King, Hope, Gerber and Apple products. 

I agree with sourdough, 3 quid for a large one at my local bakers.

What all of them? Sounds like price fixing.

Church’s shoes.

I inherited a few pairs, from the 60s, from my old man.

They fit like a glove

Yik