How Much Has Your "Best" Bike Cost You in Pounds per Hour of Usage?

abr1966

BuckMulligan wrote:

I was just chatting to some colleagues at work about going out cycling at the weekend; the cost of my bike came up and as non-cyclists they were naturally horrified at the thought of any bike costing over £1000 :? I feel like I've racked up a fair few miles on my current "nice" (read: expensive) bike so took a wild stab in the dark and exclaimed "well it's probably cost me less than £1 per hour I've spent riding it in the two and a half years that I've had it so it's not too bad value-wise".

Naturally, this being the age of the technology, I decided to check Strava and see if that was in fact true and disappointingly I've only racked up 828 hours of bona fide cycling (i.e. not commuting) so probably somewhere around ~500 hours on my nice bike. For a bike that cost £1600 when I bought it (which I think most people here would regard as fairly reasonable for a nice bike) that still puts me at a current cost over £3 per hour!

Compared to other hobbies, I'm sure that's a bargain, but just wondering how you guys are faring? Let's keep it to your "best" bikes, because I'm guessing most people's 10 year old beaters will come in at less than £1 per hour even with maintenance costs!

B

abr1966

abr1966 wrote:

[quote="BuckMulligan"

Its a very good question! I came off my best bike last summer....it was fine but I wasn't so I reckon its in the region of £20 an hour so far!!!

pblakeney

To show how easy it is to skew this from the non cyclists point of view.
My sister once thought she’d join me cycling and got a Halfords special for £100.
Rode it precisely once for around 10 miles.
I estimate it comes out at over £100/hour. :shock:

PS - Commuting is cycling and definitely counts. Not only that but you are saving other transport costs and/or alternative exercise costs.

phreak

Mine is 10 years old so I'd say under £1 an hour even with the spares and upgrades. My commuter bike has been even better as that does the commute plus turbo rides and cost about £600. I dare say that's getting on for 20p an hour.

1964johnr

Not sure how much in hours, just for my best bike, but during a long daydream I did work out how much cycling has cost me per ride over the last 20 years. I included everything I have ever bought right down to puncture repair kits and it came out at approximately £3 per ride. Most of my rides are about 2 hours. I'm quite happy with that, which includes a new Ribble Gran Fondo which I bought for £1200, five years ago. I've looked after it and reckon it will last until I am the last road cyclist still using caliper brakes.

def_defyr

My frame (IF Crown Jewel) is SEVENTEEN years old. Nothing wrong with it. I've put about 5,500 euros into it in that time, including intial build, new cassettes/chains/consumables/wheelset. So even if I only put in 1,000 miles a year, it's basically costing me pennies per ride. (On average, probably about 2,500 miles a year, though some years it's been under that, other years, including this year, much higher -- I'm around 6k miles this year)

At the time i bought the bike, it was a wedding present from my wife, so I did sort of have to justify getting what at the time was quite a splurge for us.

apriliarider

Cipo NK1K 11,514 miles - approx. £17 per hour
Alchemy Eros Ti 5,736 miles - approx. £28 per hour

I way prefer miles / pound - sounds so much less !!!

pblakeney

I've covered the £100+/hour version in an earlier post.
Flip side now. My commuting/winter bike paid for itself in saved train fares. It is in negative figures now. 8)