I think the most I ever spent was £4k (maybe a bit more) on a custom built Cove Shocker Loved that bike, but it was like an Elephant, cool to own, but then do you get to use it? Couple of uplift days a year at Cwmcarn, one trip to the Alps, one to Whistler and then tried to sell it when I realised I was never going to ride it properly – probably less than 300 miles on it and it was pretty much like-new, but I couldn’t give it away, stripped it and the bits sold eventually, the frame finally ended up going to Cyprus. Now I shudder at the money I wasted on it.
My current bike (Intense Tracer 275A) I bought for £1900 reduced from £3k because it was last years and had been sat in the sun/rain for a few months and the X-Fusion suspension was never popular to buyers. It had some rust spots on some steel bits and the paint is a bit faded – but I’ve never been one for mollycoddling bikes with invisiframe stuff and all that mine always where their scars with pride. Shifted the XT groupset and Float X CTD over from my last bike, did some selling, some horse-trading with bits and now it’s got a lovely spec IMHO, nothing too fancy, but where I believe the sweet-spot is between too-cheap and too-bling, I think the total amount of cash I had to use was £1500, which I can live with.
I might go a bit more mad with the next one, youngest starts school full time in 2 years and that’s probably when I’ll want to replace this one – she costs me £800 a month in childcare at the moment, I told I could finance a Porsche for that ha ha, but I’ll probably make-do with a Carbon framed bike.