Is the price of parts putting you off?

[bontybonty]

Covid raised the cost of bits 20%.
On Fleabay.
Iv found the best hope stuff often goes to the states. Big bucks for Ti6 especially
Patience still brings rewards however.
Nothing is unique over 6 or 12 months.
I tend to buy based on condition,
pick up a few mint bits I dont
need but know to be well priced.
Then sell to ease the cost of what I keep.
If you look frequently and the right part comes up in correct colour and mint condition.
If you don't buy it you might as well stop looking.
I would admit stone cold bargains are rare. I find Sunday nights Bin offers good.
We want someone who doesn't know the value right?
I like XTR 970. Chris King pretty colours.
Hope mono mini, m4, Ti6 pretty colours.
Recently paid £40 for a pair of blue lever blades £15 for a red Reservoir cap.
Excessive I know. I know.
Price does not always bring reward.
Iv had a Salsa el mariachi kung fu steel
Which I obsessed over for years.
But was roundly under-whelmed at £400
And went back to a charge cooker £100
In my opinion the better bike. I'v had 2.
Top drawer and top price
Does not mean top performance.
Aluminium is a cruel mistress

 

[Guinessisgoodforyou]

If you need the part buy it, if you don't need it, don't buy it. I see no point in moaning about the cost.

 

[bontybonty]

It is a cheep hobby
The bits are second hand
No labour cost as
You build it yourself
massively enjoyable
What you make is exclusive to you
For a few 100 ££ you can play for years
You can't beat it
Bored? sell it again
And do it again.. and again

 

[Nabeaquam]

It is a cheep hobby
The bits are second hand
No labour cost as
You build it yourself
massively enjoyable
What you make is exclusive to you
For a few 100 ££ you can play for years
You can't beat it
Bored? sell it again
And do it again.. and again

Agree. It’s a good thing it isn’t as expensive a hobby as golf. I was worried when I retired I’d do something stupid like take up golf. There are really a lot of bikes around, even though a lot of them went for scrap in the wars. No shortage of toys to play with.

 

[eri]

Theres precedent for depreciation.

Ive this collection of 50+ vintage beer steins that i got from my father who got them from his father. Steins are safely wrapped in boxes in my basement. They are nice to look at but… there was a time when they were worth $20k or more? And now their value is gone.

All the freaky folks that salivated over them are no longer with us, no-one cares. Im left with some nice mugs.

 

[PanoIgano]

While no doubt patience is a big virtue one can have in life in general and more specifically when hunting down parts I can’t count the times when I waited for something for ages to show up only to lose in the very last second.

Phew I could def use a full stop in the sentence above!

Anyways for certain rare or NOS parts it makes little sense to wait for a better deals as their price doesn’t fluctuate a lot.

 

[PanoIgano]

Mentioning this cause a lot of people are praising patience in previous posts and rightly so but alas it doesn’t always help.

In my experience it got me a deal about 50% of the times. Considerable indeed but not a game changer…

 

[player]

I personally think the same will eventually happen with our hobby. People compare it to classic cars but whatever sex you or how old you are, young or old all kinds of people like classic cars.
Retro bicycles to the person that has never been into bicycles full stop will never understand the workmanship or the history of that bike, it's just a push bike.

 

[legrandefromage]

You are supposed to ride them, not push them

 

[d8mok]

Things increase in value when the people who had/wanted them hit around 40 and want to feel like they are young again.

When they die/ become old the value drops to nothing.

Few exceptions like watches for example. But all the nostalgia stuff like consoles, bikes, cars etc.

Classic Cars follow a similar trend with a few examples that don’t. Look at the value of 90s cars compared to 60-80s.