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Comment by bennyelv | Hacker News Reader

The strangest question that I always get asked about my (quite fancy) bike is: "Is it fast?"

Well that depends what engine you put on it sir...

Which isn't to say that the bike doesn't make a large difference. I just replaced a bike with an all-steel frame and garbage drivetrain with one with an alloy/carbon plus shimano 105s, and the difference is absolutely remarkable.

The difference to your wallet is probably a lot larger than the difference to your waistline :)

There's also usually a quite noticeable difference in sheer fun, and that's what cycling is mainly about. More money can buy a lot more fun.

Given that I'm hoping the difference to my waistline to be 0, that should be trivially true ;)

But the hit to my wallet wasn't as bad as it could have been, in general I'm a big fan of buying second-hand. Local bike shop gets to charge me for fixing the previous owner's lack of upkeep, I get a lot more bike than I'd otherwise get for the same money. Not to mention that new bikes are hard to come by these days.

That's a good way of buying things in general. Especially high end racing bikes, a relatively large number of which are bought on impulse only to end up gathering dust. I bought a very nice Guerciotti like that, as good as brand new, and for a price that made me check the stolen bike registry first.

I know what you mean, but I think there definitely is a difference riding cheap versus expensive bikes. As with most sports requiring tech, the more you spend, the less you tend to fight the tech itself (friction, weight, etc). Granted it's diminishing returns.

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