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Comment by Jun8 | Hacker News Reader

I think a useful tactic to curb loss of expensive bikes would be to legally target the people who buy them, these are the people that cause the market to exist and perpetuate the situation. My guess is that most of these people are not crooks, i.e. they are just young people who want to but can't afford a nice bike and they know exactly what they are buying. I don't understand anything about bikes so can't give an example there, but if a person would approach me to sell, say, a 2010 Prius for $5K, I just know that is a stolen car. If knowingly buying a stolen car carries even a small legal charge, most people wouldn't do it.

Tangentially, and pardon my ignorance, I'm not a biker: I can't understand people who shell out thousands of dollars for a bike, are these so much better than a $500 one?

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"I just know that is a stolen car"

Which is why criminals do not charge half of its used value -- they charge 100% of the used value just like everyone else.

You cannot tell a stolen bike on craigslist apart from a non-stolen bike based on the price alone.

The problem of stolen cars is addressed through licensing and registration. Not to mention, bicycles do not have a reliable and standardized VIN system like cars do. The fact is, the hassle of creating and enforcing such a system probably outweighs the positive aspects of preventing bike crime.

I lived in a town that required all bikes to be registered and licensed, and all sales of bikes to go through the local government. It was such a big pain that I would rather just live with the higher risk of theft and the lack of enforcement.

What town was this?

Many towns have laws like this from the 1970s that are unenforced (except, perhaps, as an excuse to bother the people police don't like).

San Diego just repealed theirs: http://www.bikesd.org/2012/08/02/city-of-san-diego-to-remove...

The LAPD was ticketing riders on large group rides a while back for not having their bikes registered. It was a misapplication of the law, since the law was supposed to protect cyclists from theft, not get them ticketed if they didn't have their stamp. The idea was that the bike shop registered your bike when you purchased it.

The cyclists stormed city hall and complained loudly, and the police were forced to stop doing this.

More often they charge 75-90% of its used value, enough of a discount to move it quickly but high enough of a price to avoid looking "too good to be true."

Not sure if it applies to all of Japan or just the city where I lived, but there was a requirement to license and register your bike with the local police department. Despite that my bike still got stolen from my apartment building, and from what I heard from others bike theft was not uncommon.

>Tangentially, and pardon my ignorance, I'm not a biker: I can't >understand people who shell out thousands of dollars for a bike, >are these so much better than a $500 one?

They are better. They aren't 5x better (as if this was even quantifiable)... but if you are passionate about biking and you spend a lot of time on your bike, it can seem worth it.

I spend much more time on my bike than in my car... and I appreciate the improved ride of associated with an extra $1000 on a bike more than I'd appreciate the improvements from spending an extra $5000 on a car. So, it certainly seems reasonable to me.

> I can't understand people who shell out thousands of dollars for a bike, are these so much better than a $500 one

They are significantly and astonishingly better if you do something that style of bike is designed to do - eg. ride 40km as efficiently as possible, go up mountains all day, sprint finishes, etc.

They aren't 10 times better, but that's not how subjective value works.

How do you charge someone with knowingly buying a stolen product in a legal system where someone can plead the 5th? How do you prove they knew?

Typically legal systems don't go after end consumers of stolen or counterfeit products, they go after suppliers, because they can prove that suppliers are actively breaking the law.

Knowingly purchasing stolen goods is already illegal in most places. The key is the "knowingly" part.

You would have to have a ubiquitous BikeID system in a central registry of stolen bikes. It would have to be incredibly easy to check the status of a BikeID (web/email/phone/sms). It would have to have incredible traction.

At that point if someone bought a bike which was tagged in the system as stolen, and didn't check/report it within 48 hours, they could be considered complicit in the theft.

We're getting pretty close to this with cars. I'm pretty libertarian in my ideology, but at some point the barrier is so low to running a CarFax-esque check that even I wouldn't mind penalizing buyers who don't do due diligence. It is, of course, easier to justify with higher ticket items than with bikes or phones...

Actually, purchasing stolen goods is illegal in most places, full stop. The reason is that it's practically impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt what somebody did or didn't know, and when.

The BikeID idea is about as old as bike theft, but it's pretty difficult to enforce. If you care enough about not buying a stolen bike, the solution is simple: Ask for the original invoice. If not, you're not going to bother looking up the bike.

You could sweep parking areas, but you'd only return the bikes to their owners, at considerable cost to operate - and buying a stolen bike is still free of risk of punishment.

> Actually, purchasing stolen goods is illegal in most places, full stop.

In my state, the statute says "such person knowing or having reasonable grounds to believe the same to have been feloniously stolen or taken".

I doubt any state makes receiving stolen goods in complete ignorance a crime. However, the stolen goods are generally recoverable by the original owner, whether or not the person receiving them purchased them in good faith.

>However, the stolen goods are generally recoverable by the original owner, whether or not the person receiving them purchased them in good faith.

This is good. Usually there is just a demand for bikes. With this system there will be a demand for non-stolen bikes. The prices for stolen bikes go down and so does stealing them.

> "The prices for stolen bikes go down and so does stealing them."

If the buyer did not know the bike was stolen, this will only punish the buyer and have no effect on the price of bicycles, since one cannot distinguish between a stolen vs. non-stolen bike (short of, say, suspiciously low prices, which has been called out elsewhere in this thread as a non-issue).

As usual, it's probably more complicated than that…

I wonder how much the "market price" for 2nd hand bikes is driven by the large(?) volume of stolen bikes in the market? Are legitimate bike sellers being forced into selling at lower-then-desired price points by a glut of stolen bikes being offered for 15 or 20% below "current prices", perhaps over time settling on unrealistically low market expectations? I wonder how big a percentage of the total demand for 2nd hand bikes is being met by the supply of stolen bikes? And what the effect of removing the stolen portion of the supply would be on the market price?

It's possible that if you raised barriers against selling stolen bikes, the prices of legitimate 2nd hand bike would rise, creating a "gap" where the time and money customizing/disguising stolen bikes became worthwhile.

And the "reasonable" is in regard to the legal reasonable person, not to the individual in question, so "I just thought it sounded like a really good deal" isn't really a defence (that's how we spell it here) unless you had equally reasonable grounds to believe that the deal was square. If there's one really cheap bike at what appears to be a yard sale, you're probably okay, but if there are ten of them, well, you're legally expected to be at least a little suspicious.

Why would a purchaser, after paying, ever check a stolen registry? So they can add themselves to the list of victims as well?

Pre-transaction diligence is workable, post-transaction checks are a non-starter.

Just to avoid getting into legal trouble, for starters.

How can you tell if a bike you are buying is stolen? It would be pretty easy for a bike thief to post an ad on Craigslist saying they are selling their used bike.

>>Tangentially, and pardon my ignorance, I'm not a biker: I can't understand people who shell out thousands of dollars for a bike, are these so much better than a $500 one?

It makes a huge difference. More expensive bikes are built from lighter and stronger materials (such as carbon fiber), are more aerodynamic and have better balance. Just to name a few of the benefits.

I would argue it's often more about falling into the same trap as 'audiophiles' as it is about direct benefits. Few people notice the added weight from drinking 2lb of water but people spend hundreds of dollars shaving 1/10th of that from their bike.

It does make a very considerable difference, if you're serious about your biking, though. Plus, more expensive bikes are not necessarily lighter - there are many variables involved on the price (wrist comfort, seating type, suspensions, frame stiffness/weight, numbers and quality of gears, etc) - many more than the usual 'audiophile' choosing range.

But yeah, a lot of people buy expensive rides for the looks and have no idea what do do with them...

To chime in - offroading with a mountain Bike - if I take a drop > ~5 feet or so, the tires on my (former) $500 dollar bike would Taco.So yeah, there's a diff, and its not always weight.

Alas, my bike was targeted and stolen. :(

In my experience, it stops making a difference once you have to carry a 20 lb kryptonite chain to lock it. I just spent all that money on a light bike, and now it's 20 pounds heavier. I hate bike thieves.

Just had my bike stolen last week in NYC

It's been said that all appropriately-paired combinations of bikes and locks weigh 50 lbs.

For me the price isn't about the weight, it's about me commuting in a city with huge hills, rain, and long flat stretches. My commute goes up and down several 300ft hills and across a long bridge (Seattle to Bellevue). So I end up riding a road bike with a large gear range and disc brakes. This isn't easy to setup, and my components cost more than the frame. When you commute every day 45 minutes each way, it also makes sense to spend some money on comfort (I mean that's 400 hours a year you are on the bike). Most people do it when they buy cars, it's the same think.

Most 'serious cyclists' don't actually spend that kind of money on that kind of weight. Some crazy people do, but some people also spend $8k on a desktop PC.

In the range of most cyclists: having carried my $400 iron-frame bike up stairs and a friend's $1500 bike up same, the difference is certainly not "1/10 of 2lb".

Unlike audiophile "benefits", weight loss to cyclists is directly quantifiable in theory[1] and measurable[2].

It's true that it is usually much cheaper to lose weight on the rider than on the bike, but for some people it is probably easier (and more fun!) to spend the money.

[1] 1.5 kg makes ~8.5 second difference over 2000m on a 3% slope hill http://www.analyticcycling.com/ForcesLessWeight_Page.html

[2] http://www.training4cyclists.com/how-much-time-does-extra-we...

[1] that's assuming your vary light, climbing the whole trip, and have a terrible power output of 250w and uses 3lb which is a fair amount and even then 8.5 seconds after a 2km climb.

A more realistic 400w + 120lb rider +3% grade for 2000km then a negative 3% grade for 2000km and a weight diffidence of .3lb for 300$. End result after 4,000km is less than 5 minutes wow that's worth 300$.

[2] 1 trip using human riders hardly qualify's as measurement. But even still measurement is next to meaningless you can detect cocaine on most people in an international airport that does not mean they have had anything but the most indirect contact with the stuff.

PS: Sure if your racing professionally then things change around, but that's a tiny portion of the bike community.

When you are out riding with your friends, you typically want to beat them to the top of climb. A 2km climb is fairly reasonable for that type of climb.

You are right - 200w is low - I just used the default values. If you look on Strava, most middle-of-the-pack people post power in the low 300watts.

1.5 kg is easily the difference between a < $1000 bike and a $2000 bike. Cycling (as a sport) has a lot of financially wealthy (but time poor) people (the same people who used to play golf). These people aren't interested in the cost effectiveness of an upgrade, just weather it will help them beat their friends up a hill on the Saturday ride.

Personally, I think using ~$200 carbon fiber water bottle cages to save 30 grams is a waste of money. But the truth is that the grams they save do add up, and the weight does make a difference on hills. If you don't care about money (!) then why not spend the money....

It completely depends on one's typical ride. If you're climbing 10% grades all day in lycra, then 5 lbs makes an enormous difference. If, on the other hand, you're carrying a 10 lbs lock and 40 lbs of stuff in your panniers, then, yeah, the weight of the bike won't matter that much. In the latter case a heavier bike may actually be better.

As much as everyone obsesses over weight, it's not the only difference between a $500 bike an a $5000. The more expensive components are also going to have more-difficult-to-quantify benefits like fit and finish (i.e., look prettier). The higher-end components also work better: shifting will be much more consistent, bearings will roll more freely, brakes won't require as much force, etc.

This is analogous to a car magazine complaining about how a particular model has a "mushy gearbox." You can still drive it, but the experience isn't as nice.

> More expensive bikes are built from lighter and stronger materials (such as carbon fiber)

I would recommend anyone thinking carbon fiber makes stronger bikes to visit a topical image blog at http://www.bustedcarbon.com/ :)

The weight issue is addressed elsewhere in comments...

That is a cool link. Carbon has tensile but not shear strength. As the evidence shows.

In absolute terms, Tenstile (psi x1,000) for Ti Vs CFRP Tensile = 145 vs 215 Shear= 135 vs 1.5 <<that is why things go crack.

Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) Composition: 70% carbon fibers in epoxy matrix Property Value in metric unit Value in US unit Density 1.6 10³ kg/m³ 101 lb/ft³ Tensile modulus (LW) 181 GPa 26300 ksi Tensile modulus (CW) 10.3 GPa 1500 ksi Tensile strength (LW) 1500 MPa 215000 psi Tensile strength (CW) 40 MPa 5800 psi Thermal expansion (20 ºC, LW) 0.0210-6 ºCˉ¹ 0.0110-6 in/(in ºF) Thermal expansion (20 ºC, CW) 22.510-6 ºCˉ¹ 12.510-6 in/(in* ºF)

LW- Lengthwise direction, CW- Crosswise direction

[1] http://www.substech.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=epoxy_matrix_co...

[2] http://www.substech.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=titanium_near-a....

These are directinally correct for raw materials; the actual alloys and engineered structures will take into account obvious characteristics of the material.

I hate, hate, hate the anti-scientific view that busted carbon promotes.

Carbon fiber's failure mode is different to metal - it breaks rather than bends. In most cases crashes that destroyed carbon frames would have also destroyed metal frames - but a frame bent out of alignment doesn't look as spectacular.

It is possible to build a bike from carbon fiber that fails in surprising ways (eg, clamping it in a bike carrier). That's because CF allows more flexibility in building with it, not because it is inherently weak.

If you want a strong carbon frame buy a cheap one. They typically use the same number of layer of fiber all over the frame (instead of trying to minimize weight in low strain parts) and they use plain woven fiber aligned randomly. That makes the bike heavier than a high-end frame, and not as strong for expected stresses (pedalling) as it could be for the same weight but it makes it more robust in the even on unexpected strains.

How about these quotes from the first page:

"She spent a few days in the hospital over this. On a normal ride with friends and frame let go"

"This shot is of a friend’s seat post sometime after he adjusted the saddle height"

"Just 'popped' when I stood up to do a fast sprint"

"I managed to mostly avoid it but got pushed into a barricade and when I looked down my bike was in two pieces"

"I was sprinting through busy downtown San Jose traffic with a guy a fixed gear when my seatpost went "ka-RACK." Fixie kid laughed."

(well that's just the first half of the page, will stop pasting now)

I'm not sure what your point is?

Yes, people get injured when they have bike crashes.

Yes (as I noted), carbon can fail. Metal can too! [1] is a much better survey of random broken bikes than bustedcarbon. [2] is a good summary of the hysteria around breaking carbon frames and some of the facts.

Here's a pic of a broken titanium (!) bottom bracket: http://www.pardo.net/bike/pic/fail-001/FAIL-143.html

Assorted mostly steel and aluminium broken frame pics: http://www.pardo.net/bike/pic/fail-001/FAIL-167.html

[1] http://www.pardo.net/bike/pic/fail-001/000.html

[2] http://isolatecyclist.bostonbiker.org/2011/02/21/carbon-bicy...

I guess one point is that carbon fails catastrophically more often, your metal links point to breaks where the bike still stayed in one piece. Yeah, they're not unheard of with metal bikes, but much more rare.

The injury quote was about her getting injured because the carbon frame just fell apart with no warning (no crash, except after the frame failure of course).

I guess one point is that carbon fails catastrophically more often

- There are "scientific" reasons why these things break for no apparent reason. b/c carbon is prone to developing "flaws", not all of which are visible (to naked eye). These happen either through previous impact damage or fatigue cycles.

- Carbon failure can cascade (snap...snap...snap...). Once the structure is compromised, the lack of sheer strength combined with different-from-design force vectors...are not good (a two-sided trianle = wishbone...) Look at how many carbon parts had multiple, complete failures.

- A metal frame will dent or bend if damaged; it doesn't hide flaws nearly to the same extent. You might get a hairline crack, but unlikely 3-4 snapped cross-sections.

-Obviously, getting hit by a truck or whatever doen't matter what you are riding.

I hate, hate, hate the anti-scientific view that busted carbon promotes

WAT? Are you a materials engineer? Its CRP - carbon reinforce PLASTIC. The resin is prone to degradation from fatigue cycles. Raw carbon fiber without resin is brittle, think pencil leads. Bike racers (not sponsered) commonly race aluminum frame because a single "drop" if it doesn't render the fram unusable from catastrophic damage, can render it structurally unsound. That's the nature of carbon fiber. If my CF (CRP) motorcycle helmet so much as drops on the ground, it has to be X-rayed by by SHOEI to test for unseen damage that would render it unfit to work in an accident.

Strength is misleading for a material that is not tough. Steel frames and Titanium frames are far tougher than CF/CRP frames, they can survive crashes without catastrophic failure. Even the Pro-peleton used ALU drop bars for many years for two reasons (1) they bend, dont break in a crash; (2) CF bars don't reveal potentially catastrophic failure to the naked eye (like the moto Helmet example), so even A minor drop (if it looks ok and you keep going) is now a huge risk factor (when racing in close quarters - you bars break, you can take out alot of people).

Edit:

If you need more "scientific" evidence, for any reason, use Google compare shear/failure points of epoxy resin (vs steel vs titanium vs Alu etc). Yes you can overbuild anything, but you need to understand the materials you are working with. And also, as those pictures show, in the REAL WORLD the stuff that is for sale BREAKS.

The difference between a nice "adult" bike and a cheap department store bike is night and day.

The expensive bike won't rust. The expensive bike can be repaired when things break. The expensive bike is half the weight.

If you are using your bike frequently, it's better in the long run to have decent hardware.

Sure, the department store bikes are garbage, but you can get a perfectly good brand name basic city bike for well under $1000.

Bikes mass is marginal compared to your body weight especially if you're average weight. A basic bike is 34 lbs and you are 175 lbs. And the weight only makes a big difference when climbing hills.

You're much better off losing a few pounds of fat than spending a few grand to get 10 lbs off the bike and shaving 2% off the required muscle power per mile :)

And the weight only makes a big difference when climbing hills

For most people the weight makes the biggest difference when climbing stairs (with the bike on your shoulder).

Ah, heh. I can't imagine doing that... would get mud, snow and grease all over even if I could be bothered with all the wrangling.

In general, about weight, I agree. One exception is rotating mass (i.e., wheels). A light, well-built wheel handles a lot better than a heavy one. No amount of personal weight loss is going to make up for that.

Beyond mass, the behavior of shifters and brakes on nice bikes is much, much crisper and more predictable than on cheaper models. They also have better capacity for tuning (e.g., to eliminate chain rub, or accommodate a high-range sprocket set), and are more likely to stay in proper adjustment for longer. This makes riding a lot more fun -- the machine is very responsive to your wishes, and you forget it's there.

You probably are aware of this, but I felt a need to mention some of the advantages of a nice bike.

You're right about the difference that lowering your body mass makes. It's the easiest way to drop the weight that you have to pedal around. I have a cyclist friend who loves to claim "I just took a $1000 shit," the joke being that that's how much it would cost him to get a $poop_mass lighter bicycle.

However, this doesn't apply to racers. If it's going to speed someone up by 2%, and he's got the money, and he wants that last tiny advantage, he may just drop the cash on a $1500 wheel set.

Heck, if it's going to speed him up enough to make a 50m difference over a 200km road race, it's worth the price to an actual racer. (And there will probably considerable time spent tweaking even the best of things to perfection before each race.) But they are so very, very few in number, even if it's sometimes hard to tell when you pass that one local cafe that is populated exclusively by spandex-wearing, logo-encrusted latte drinkers who gather to talk about their bikes.

> Tangentially, and pardon my ignorance, I'm not a biker: I can't understand people who shell out thousands of dollars for a bike, are these so much better than a $500 one?

Think about one thing you're passionate about. There's going to be products that are good enough for the casual, every-day user and there's going to be premium goods, even if there's a decreasing price/performance ratio. Since we're on HN, I feel safe talking about computers.

Compare the $1000 3.9GHz i7 from Intel and the $500 3.8GHz version. Do some people need the minor performance increase enough to pay for it? Sure. Enough to create a market? Nope. It's people wanting to buy things just to show they can pay for it.

Well, given the amount I will use that computer over the 2 years I have it and the disruption to flow that processing pauses cause, a ~10% increase in performance might be worth the premium. I imagine there's similar logic for bikes. But you're right, sometimes people just want to show off.

Wild handwavey ballpark estimate follows.

Your 2 year timeframe for a computer - lets call that 500 days (assuming its for work, and rounding to 2significant digits).

That's $1 per day "extra" for the slightly faster processor.

Which is what, well under two minutes of most people reading here's hourly rate.

If you use that computer for anything more processor bound than word processing, that apparently tiny speed bump of under 3% will probably _easily_ pay for it's $500 premium.

Hell, I'd probably save $1 per day in time spent not waiting for chrome to open/render all the links I click from HN in a day on a slightly faster machine…

If you put it that way, I wonder how much it is worth a day to not read HN..

Yep. It's like the difference between a netbook and a MBP. Can you get work done on both? Yep. Is it Easier/Better/Faster on the MBP? Yep.

The question is, if you see a couple year old Trek on ebay for ~800, with some mix of 105 and Bontrager parts, is it stolen or is it a good deal?

That's assuming that they are selling the bikes at a far lower price than the market rate. Wise crooks probably know to offer a realistic price.

The prices for second hand bicycles are all over the place anyway. There's a significant number of people who will buy a reasonably expensive bike and keep it in the shed for years and then by the time they decide to get rid of it they have no idea what it's worth so will just sell it for below it's value.

> Tangentially, and pardon my ignorance, I'm not a biker: I can't understand people who shell out thousands of dollars for a bike, are these so much better than a $500 one?

Yes, they're considerably better - the price is directly reflected on aspects such as durability and weight of the components (frame, gearing, wheels, etc). Keep in mind, though, that buying the most expensive bike around just to commute 10-20 miles to work won't be a good investment - you should go for a good quality one when you're serious about long distance training or hard core mountain biking, for instance (usually after you're already practicing whichever style you prefer - a lot of people invest in an expensive bike upfront and never really use it to its full capacity).

(or assemble your own. It's fun, specially for hackers/geeks!)

> I can't understand people who shell out thousands of dollars for a bike, are these so much better than a $500 one?

Sure, if you want a MTB for blazing offroad trails or a road bike for touring. For your regular 20 minute commute, a sub-$1000 city bike is pretty much the sweet spot (depending on your available disposable income of course).

I'm torn over policies of targeting buyers of stolen goods. It's easy to think everyone buying stolen goods knows exactly what they are getting into.

Yet, not too long ago, I purchased a vehicle for a wholly reasonable price. I got the original pink slip. I got the keys. There were absolutely no signs of breaking & entering. Yet, I take it to the DMV to get registered, and what do you know- it's stolen property.

I lost my shirt on that deal, and it would have made it a million times worse if I was suddenly facing criminal charges.

Seriously, I hadn't even the slightest clue it was stolen- that is, until the police entered the DMV, looking straight at me. At that point there was only one thing that could be happening.

Shouldn't you have checked the car's plate and registration at the DMV before buying? That's standard procedure here.

Yes, you can meet at the DMV and transfer ownership and registration together, in person. But, that can be a colossal pain, especially when you're busy all week and have to do this sort of thing on the weekend, when the DMV is closed.

These days I phone in to the police records department and ask them if the plate is stolen, but you just wouldn't think that would ever be necessary when you've got the keys, title, etc... Even the officers I spoke with were surprised & confused.

The problem is many bikes are legitimately sold for well below MSRP. When a bicycle manufacturer sponsors a college team, they typically sell just-released models to team members for less than wholesale. The members will sell the bike the following year (when the frame is still considered a current model year) for the same as they paid and buy another new one.

Tangentially, and pardon my ignorance, I'm not a biker: I can't understand people who shell out thousands of dollars for a bike, are these so much better than a $500 one?

As many other answers say, yes, there is a difference.

Here are some details (for 'racing' road bikes, which I know best):

For around $400, if you buy well online you can get something with an aluminium frame, carbon fibre fork and moderately decent components (eg [1]). It'll probably weigh a bit under 30 pounds (13 kg).

For around $700 you'll get a bike with similar specs from a major manufacturer and you can get it from a bike shop, where they will assemble it for you, make sure you get the right size etc. See [2][3]

For around $1000 you can get a carbon fibre frame on your bike (online, with terrible components[4]) or bikes from major manufactures where the components start getting better (eg Shimano Sora 9 speed). These bikes should be between 20 and 25 pounds. See [5]

At $1500 you get bikes from major manufactures that are suitable for racing (ie, Shimano 105 10 speed, eg [6]), or can get pretty good carbon fiber bikes online. You also start getting decent bikes from high end manufactures (Bianchi, Pinarello, BMC). Most of these bikes will weigh a bit more than 20 pounds (9 kg), but if you choose carefully you might get under that.

Over $2000 you get carbon frames and Shimano's second to top component set, better wheels, and began getting under 20 pounds more often. High end only manufactures (Cervello, Ridley etc) are making their base level bikes.

Around $5000 you start getting electronic shifting, or better aero frames, deep rims on your wheels. You can start considering custom made frames. Your bike should weigh well under 20 pounds, and you can probably get down to the UCI limit of 6kg.

At $10,000 you are getting bike similar to what they ride in the Tour de France. You can get a power meter built into your crankset or wheels. The carbon frameset has been wind tunnel tested and is engineered so carefully that some parts of your frame only have a single layer of carbon, yet you still can't flex the frame at the bottom bracket. You probably have to add things like the power meter as ballast to make sure you are over the UCU weight limit. You can consider custom titanium[7] or trying to buy onto the speedvagen waiting list[8].

Over $10,000: McLaren + Specalized: http://www.bikerumor.com/2011/03/17/specialized-mclaren-veng... (actually, to be fair there are plenty of ways to spend $10K+ on a road bike. This is just one).

[1] http://www.bikesdirect.com/products/windsor/wellington3_IX.h...

[2] http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en-us/bikes/model/defy.5/9014/...

[3] http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/bikes/road/sport/1_series/

[4] http://www.bikesdirect.com/products/fuji/fuji_sl3.htm

[5] http://www.specialized.com/us/en/bikes/road/allez/allezsport...

[6] http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/bikes/road/sport/madone_2_ser...

[7] http://www.baumcycles.com/bikes/romano

[8] http://www.adecadentexistence.com/?p=469

Or, if you're me, you're often carrying 20 pounds of stuff in a backpack on your back anyway, which probably obviates the 5 pound difference in bike weight. I'm riding a Big Buzz: http://www.rei.com/product/775488/novara-big-buzz-bike , which is apparently "sold out" right now, and it seems to work tolerable well. I've ridden friends' expensive bikes, and most of them don't seem to be worth it unless you're racing or riding a LOT of miles.

Don't buy upgrades, ride up grades -- (allegedly) Eddy Merckx.

And don't trust doctors.

But if you want to ride fast, why buy an upright bike at all? (Unless you want to compete in races that require it.)

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