High end bicycles

[Kansas kymco]

A RV forum I read had a post about local bike shops being out of inventory since covid. They were talking about bicycles starting at 4k. I understand if your a professional racer wanting the absolute best technology,  but for the common rider?  Your talking the same money as a nice scooter. 

If your wanting a bicycle for exercise wouldn't a cheap heavy hard to pedal bicycle give you more of a workout?

Even better get you a old moped that has pedals and don't start the engine. The weight of the heavy frame engine battery fuel tank would build those muscles.  And if start to have a coronary you start the engine to get to the hospital.

[gctkaz]

You're right about the coronary on the moped. I never had a gas-powered moped, but I had an electric scooter which was given to me for free. The pedals are utterly worthless. The gearing was too low, the cranks themselves were wiggly, the stroke was too short, and the riding stance was far too wide to generate enough sustained movement to balance. I think the farthest I got it to move on pedal power from a standstill was about 4 inches. It worked decently on lithium power, but I still considered it a fairly large and impractical vehicle during my ownership of it.

As for $4K+ bicycles, I personally agree, but everyone has their hobbies and passions where unreasonable amounts of money are spent, to the outside observer. I used to be really into mountain biking, but I still never owned a bicycle that cost more than $1K. I can't say from personal experience, having never owned such a high-end bicycle, but I imagine like most things there is a fairly early point of diminishing returns. I would say there is a vast improvement from $200 to $400, and still a significant improvement from $400 to $700, but it gets less noticeable as you go up. This is for things like smoothness of the drivetrain operation and such. These days I don't care half as much as I used to about bicycle specs. But yes once the price hits about $2K, I start thinking about scooters or motorcycles instead.

My current rides are a 20+ years old mountain bike retrofitted with a 48V 1000W front wheel drive kit, and more recently a moderately-spec'd department store mountain bike retrofitted with a 48V 1000W rear wheel drive kit. These are heavy (by bicycle standards) if I ever have to lift them, but they are perfectly rideable under pure pedal power and the weight is not terribly noticeable. Both of these have top speeds higher than what I feel safe doing on a bicycle, but the power is there for hill climbing and just a little throttle is great for casual cruising or running nearby errands, making them great practical machines. I know it's off topic, but I highly recommend putting together such a custom bike. It really doesn't cost much and they are great fun to ride, almost as much as scooters IMO.

[Kansas kymco]

My neighbor a few years ago built a couple of cruiser bicycles with gas powered motors (I beleive they were 80cc Chinese motors) and they would motivate down the road. He  built them for resell not for personal use.  I imagine the electric would be the way to go nowadays.

My mountain bike hangs in the garage and hasn't been used in decades. I take that back I rode it from the garage where I have my truck repaired back to my house a few times.

[Stig / Major Tom]

The fellow who bought my Burgman in Portland owned a high end bike shop. My Burgman was the first motor vehicle he'd ever owned! Said he'd never needed a motor in his city....now wanted to try some camping in distant places.
Kind of a strange fellow. Not sure I'd pay what I asked for my Burgman, sight unseen and then pay for shipping it 2,400 miles.

Well, he'd been watching my coffee run & servicing posts & photos on the Burgman forum for a while he said.

These two guys manhandled that 500lb Suzuki onto their truck, strapped it onto a skid....then went 50 miles east with it to a trucking hub - where it sat before eventually going west to the coast.




This was a couple of years ago - and involved a good bit of mutual trust between both parties.
Stig

[Kansas kymco]

Your Burgman was a nice looking scooter. Their is one other guy that always shows up to ROMEO rides on a scooter besides me and he rides a Burgman.

The trust part. I bought a People 250S  in a suburb of Minneapolis  this Fall.  I paid the guy and after visiting awhile he offered to store it in his shed until Spring for me saving a unnecessary trip in cold weather.   I basically did the same thing with a Lund fishing boat purchased in Northern MN in Fall picked up in Spring.

[Stig / Major Tom]

Your Burgman was a nice looking scooter. Their is one other guy that always shows up to ROMEO rides on a scooter besides me and he rides a Burgman.

The trust part. I bought a People 250S  in a suburb of Minneapolis  this Fall.  I paid the guy and after visiting awhile he offered to store it in his shed until Spring for me saving a unnecessary trip in cold weather.   I basically did the same thing with a Lund fishing boat purchased in Northern MN in Fall picked up in Spring.

The Burgman over-lapped the new Liberty for a few days, until the truck came.
I took the funds from the Burgman sale to jump on the red Liberty S before it was gone....(at the time the only one in 75 mile radius)
(just a note - look at the good solution to mirror extender I found in the U.K. for Burg's mirrors. Perfect chrome stem threaded right in. The extra 1.75" made all the difference!)
The Burgman was great on the interstates - I learned my lesson. I'm a back roads kinda guy. (did love those twin headlights, though!)

Stig

[klaviator]

If your wanting a bicycle for exercise wouldn't a cheap heavy hard to pedal bicycle give you more of a workout?

I have a nearly 20 year old bicycle that I use for exercise.  I'd like to get a new bike but I get severe sticker shock when I walk into a bicycle shop so I'll keep riding the old one.