How much did your commuter bike cost?

jamesco

£250 for a Trek T30 hybrid. Cheap, practical & reliable - a great bike that's not likely to be stolen!

anthdci

750 on the Cycle to work scheme, a specialised tricross because it takes guards and a rack. Using it for this year to get my fitness up then next year I'll be getting something like an allez elite for dry and keep the tricross for wet and winter weather. 8)

jonny_trousers

OptimisticBiker wrote:

Jonny_Trousers wrote:

Sorry, perhaps I didn't get my message across clearly enough. I meant if you want a 105 equipped Equilibrium (as opposed to the Tiagra equipped) then you'll need to stretch your budget. You're right, there a plenty of sub £1K 105 fitted bikes out there.

Do you think there's much advantage of 105 kit over a 10speed Tiagra setup? Most of the important parts appear to be interchangable and the main difference seems to be that 105 kit comes in different finishes.

No idea mate. I have never ridden a bike with Tiagra and only tried 105 once (which I wasn't that blown away by). It was just that the OP mentioned that he fancied 105.

cyclingprop

Jonny_Trousers wrote:

OptimisticBiker wrote:

Jonny_Trousers wrote:

Sorry, perhaps I didn't get my message across clearly enough. I meant if you want a 105 equipped Equilibrium (as opposed to the Tiagra equipped) then you'll need to stretch your budget. You're right, there a plenty of sub £1K 105 fitted bikes out there.

Do you think there's much advantage of 105 kit over a 10speed Tiagra setup? Most of the important parts appear to be interchangable and the main difference seems to be that 105 kit comes in different finishes.

No idea mate. I have never ridden a bike with Tiagra and only tried 105 once (which I wasn't that blown away by). It was just that the OP mentioned that he fancied 105.

I've run tiagra, 105 and ultegra. It's fine - still run tiagra on my commuter because its stuff that needs to be reliable enough but there is a cost compromise when you're using it daily on gritty dirty roads.

mudcow007

err 800ish i think?

Specialized Sectuer Sport

an have SKS mudguards on (the clip on type) they rattle like mad but keep me kinda dry

gtvlusso

Fixie:

Barron 531 Pro TT frame + forks - £75
BB Token Carbon 103 BB - £20
Vo Randonneur bars - £35
Dirty Harry Brake lever - £12
Wheels - v sprint - £85
Crank Sugnion RD2 - £70
Sprocket + chainring - £45
Seatpost FSA SL-K carbon - £22
Saddle Specialized Tri tip - £45
Headset - Tange falcon - £22
ITM Goccia stem x 2 - £40

Total £431~

Surly:

1 x 1 Frame + forks - £100
Thompson seatpost - £45
Thompson Stem - £45
Whyte Saddle - £20
Mavic Crossride Wheels - £109
XT cranks + BB + chainring - £20
Single speed kit - £12
Avid juicy 5 brakeset including 203 mm rotors + mounts - £75

Total: £426~

Most of the bits I already had from other bikes in the shed, but if I had to rebuild the fixie: £431~ and if I had to rebuild the Surly: £426~

Most parts are secondhand or were found in bargain bins/clearance items. The most expensive bit of cycling is keeping a bike running - re-painting and replacing worn out parts, hence I have single speed MTB and fixie - keep the costs low.

TheStone

Mine doubles up as tourer.

Spent £550 on the frameset and around £250 on wheels.
The groupset (a 4 year old Ultegra 6600) came from my good bike. Other bits, maybe £150.

So it's probably over £1000 in total.

Worth it.

DonDaddyD

Giant SCR3 £350 - bought as they were going to replace the range with Defy. At the time it was slightly less than the best I could afford as I wanted a SCR2.

Moan as I may, I am happy with it.

il_principe

About £800 (Singlespeed). Bought the frame and then built it up. Splurged a bit on Campag brakes and a Cinelli Bar/Stem combo.

rjsterry

IIRC, I paid £420 or thereabouts for my Giant in 1997. I guess it's roughly comparable with DDD's SCR3 in terms of position within their range. That tells you a lot about how much prices came down before they started going up again.

DonDaddyD

Huh, was £420 the full rrp? I think in 2006 the full cost of my bike was £450. £420 in 1997 (some 9 years later) seems a little expensive to me....

UndercoverElephant

Equilibrium: bought the F&F for £350, Campag Record headset (£30), Tiagra chainset (£35), FSA carbon seatpost (£19), Thompson seat clamp (£16). All the rest of the stuff came off other bikes, which means it was free. Right?

Utter bargain.

rjsterry

DonDaddyD wrote:

Huh, was £420 the full rrp? I think in 2006 the full cost of my bike was £450. £420 in 1997 (some 9 years later) seems a little expensive to me....

That's my point. An entry level 'enthusiast' road bike was at least £400 in 'them days'.

il_principe

meanredspider wrote:

Jonny_Trousers wrote:

PS. you'll have to stretch your £1K a little if you want 105, but if you want a road based uber-commuter then look no further than the Equilibrium.

Do you think? My first commuter was an Wiggle ex-demo Variado 105 that was £375 (2 years ago). My second bike was a Cayo 105 that certainly used to be under £1k last year. Not sure what Focus bikes are selling for now but I was very happy with both of them

ETA - the Variado is £899 with 105 from Edinburgh Bike Coop today.

In fact there's several bikes at the £1k mark wih 105 - Ridley, Felt and, if you're really small, Focus still have a couple of Cayos at under £1k

I paid £600 for an Ultegra equipped Variado in 2006... that was good value.

rick_chasey

Il Principe wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

Jonny_Trousers wrote:

PS. you'll have to stretch your £1K a little if you want 105, but if you want a road based uber-commuter then look no further than the Equilibrium.

Do you think? My first commuter was an Wiggle ex-demo Variado 105 that was £375 (2 years ago). My second bike was a Cayo 105 that certainly used to be under £1k last year. Not sure what Focus bikes are selling for now but I was very happy with both of them

ETA - the Variado is £899 with 105 from Edinburgh Bike Coop today.

In fact there's several bikes at the £1k mark wih 105 - Ridley, Felt and, if you're really small, Focus still have a couple of Cayos at under £1k

I paid £600 for an Ultegra equipped Variado in 2006... that was good value.

That was the best time to buy stuff. Strong pound, low(ish) demand.

DonDaddyD

rjsterry wrote:

DonDaddyD wrote:

Huh, was £420 the full rrp? I think in 2006 the full cost of my bike was £450. £420 in 1997 (some 9 years later) seems a little expensive to me....

That's my point. An entry level 'enthusiast' road bike was at least £400 in 'them days'.

But 9 years later it was the same price. Did 'them days' span a generation? Too be honest I'd have expected bikes to cost relatively less in the 90s. But to find that they were the same price - inflation taken into consideration. Was there a inflation in the cost of bikes in the 90s and those prices came down in the mid 2000s only to rise again around 2009 onwards?

To be honest I'd be loathe to buy a entry level bike right now. I think they are all over-priced and only ever see good deals when you enter then carbon £2000 market. That you can find an ultegra carbon bike for £1800 - £2000 to me seems like pre-recession prices.

rjsterry

DonDaddyD wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

DonDaddyD wrote:

Huh, was £420 the full rrp? I think in 2006 the full cost of my bike was £450. £420 in 1997 (some 9 years later) seems a little expensive to me....

That's my point. An entry level 'enthusiast' road bike was at least £400 in 'them days'.

But 9 years later it was the same price. Did 'them days' span a generation? Too be honest I'd have expected bikes to cost relatively less in the 90s. But to find that they were the same price - inflation taken into consideration. Was there a inflation in the cost of bikes in the 90s and those prices came down in the mid 2000s only to rise again around 2009 onwards?

To be honest I'd be loathe to buy a entry level bike right now. I think they are all over-priced and only ever see good deals when you enter then carbon £2000 market. That you can find an ultegra carbon bike for £1800 - £2000 to me seems like pre-recession prices.

Sorry, I'm being opaque. My point was that bikes have been relatively expensive, with a brief period around the mid-to-late 2000s when they became much cheaper (corresponding with the pre-Lehmans boom), before returning to 'normal'. I bet if you drew a graph, it would be a steady curve in line with inflation, with a dip in the late 2000s.

DonDaddyD

That I understood, thanks.

hjghg5

I've worked my way up. First bike was a hybrid somewhere around the £300 mark and I got on well with it for a few years. I then discovered road bikes but carried on commuting on the hybrid until I got a good road bike and converted the cheaper (£650ish) one into a commuter by adding mudguards and a rack. That did me nicely until it got written off in a run in with a car and I decided to get something a bit more commute specific and ended up with a Pompetamine with Alfine 11 and disc brakes for £1200ish. It feels like quite a lot but I wanted to make sure I carried on cycling to work, so getting something nice to do it on seemed like it would help - and it has. Having fairly secure storage at work helps me feel a bit less worried about it during the day.

Between the accident and the replacement I went back to the hybrid and realised that it was actually quite rubbish and there were much better bikes out there at that price point if I'd known a thing about bikes when I bought it.

rjsterry

DonDaddyD wrote:

That I understood, thanks.

Still kicking myself for not buying something blingy when I had the money and bikes were cheap - we'll not say those days again for a while.

DonDaddyD

rjsterry wrote:

DonDaddyD wrote:

That I understood, thanks.

Still kicking myself for not buying something blingy when I had the money and bikes were cheap - we'll not say those days again for a while.

+1. It's almost hard to believe that you could find Ultegra/Dura-Ace on £1000 - £1500 bikes.

rick_chasey

rjsterry wrote:

DonDaddyD wrote:

That I understood, thanks.

Still kicking myself for not buying something blingy when I had the money and bikes were cheap - we'll not say those days again for a while.

Since that was the time I bought most of my kit and started having to pay for stuff myself. I still have those prices as a reference point.

Updated models of the stuff I bought, so same brand, same point in the range are in some instance, 30-40% more expensive now.

I remember when inner tubes were £2 a go. Last time I popped into a cycle surgery they wanted £6 for them. :shock:

I was so shocked / incredulous that I didn't buy it.

walkingbootweather

Who'd have thought. "Inner tubes suffer from inflation".

Gazzaputt

£1k.

Canyon AL, SRAM Rival, Mavic Elites and FSA finishing kit.

fossyant

About £1300 for my fixed (including rack, panniers and lights) - not cheap but it has handbuilt wheels, Ritchey Pro/WCS Stem/Bars.

Clever Pun

my first one was about £400 then moved to the pista which was £975 I think... tax refund well spent

anonymousblackfg

I spent £5 at a jumble sale for my Raleigh 12 speed vitesse

I switched the seatpost out for about £15

but then I put my old wheels on with a single speed conversion so £12 more and some TT brake levers and new tape so another £25? also a new selle sadlle for about £15

Then I got bored of bullhorns and bought a drop bar, new tape and tektro levers so another £45?

Then needed sort the crank to a single ring up front for a cleaner look so that was £15 from a clubmate and a new chain ring for £20. Also I got a new BB for £15.

This meant it was time to go fixed for mid section track wheels from Tifossi for £180ish

Frame drop out snapped from all my raw power so I bought a roadrat frame for about £250 added a stem, seatpost and mini v's for circa £100 along with sundries and £30 for some rubino pros.

so, that's £5, Bargain.

tgotb

Today's bike (Madone 5.2) probably worked out a bit over £300 excluding the power meter. The frame was almost free (had to rebuild broken head tube and replace forks), and most of the groupset and other bits were either second hand or in the spares box at home.
Cross bike was probably more like £400 (again, mostly used kit, and built my own wheels)
TT bike was around around the same, including disc wheel (though I haven't commuted on that)

spasypaddy

ok so my commuter is a weird one you can decide the price:
originally a £1k Planet x with full ultegra. it is now.

PX front wheel
Fulcrum racing 3 rear wheel (came as a wheelset for £180)
hewitt frame (£80)
PX bars, seat, seatpost, stem
PX fork
Ultegra brakes
ultegra crankset
speedplay pedals (£60)
Rack (donated by clubmate, free)
105 STIs (£70)
105 front mech (£12)
105 rear mech (£25)
Vittoria Rubino - £7
Conti GP4000s - £30
Fizik Bar tape came with saddle on other bike
2 Carbon bottle cages from china £20
Garmin 800
Exposure Strada
Exposure Flare
Topeak Saddle bag

Kieran_Burns

(pedant)
Surely all these comments regarding the cost of all the replacement / additional parts miss the point? How much did it cost, which implies the question is: the cost at purchase; not all the extras since.

My original commute bike was a Carrera Gryphon which set me back £300 (which I thought was a FORTUNE at the time)
My present commuter is my 2009 Model Tricross Sport (brown / black paint job) cost me £750
My occasional commuter (Madone 4.5) cost me £1750

(/pedant)