I came in here for, er, something but can't remember what it was.
Here is a picture of my cat.
View attachment 595809
Ah! Cats. I'll come back to them. As for the original question:
Is the cost of parts putting me off what exactly? Retrobike building, retrobike collecting or retrobike riding? There are different reasons people come to this site.
Building constantly and collecting are likely to get expensive. But if you just want to enjoy retrobike riding, it needn’t be an expensive hobby. £200 will get you a good condition, mid-range bike like a Bear Valley that you should be able to enjoy in your local woods or wherever, just as thousands of others have. If you keep it for, say, ten years, you will probably spend less than £100 a year, on average, maintaining it. Overall, then, that would work out at less than £10 per month and for that sum you improve your health, you enjoy the fresh air; you reduce your chances of certain types of cancer, dementia, heart disease, depression; you sleep better and you have better concentration. You even look younger because of the growth hormones going to the skin due to exercise. For less than £10 a month, I would call that a bargain. I spend over four times as much each month on insurance for the cats.
If you cannot enjoy riding a bike like that, the issue is probably you, not the bike. You’ve lost something—zest for life, or whatever—that no dream bike, shiny new build, or collection of rare exotica is likely to restore. If anyone is genuinely upset because they can only afford STX rather than XTR, they don't need a new hobby; they need some perspective. What sad individual was ever tearing down a piece of singletrack thinking, ‘This would be alright if only I had an XTR front mech instead of an STX’?