Bicycles. Depreciation. Loosing.

"Grindintosecond" (Grindintosecond)
08/22/2018 at 19:29 • Filed to: None

A few years ago I bought a bike to race Cyclocross. Nothing special. Nothing new. Not disc. And I was not near competitive but I wasn’t last, really. Not all the time. I bought wheels, used, but nice and tubeless capable. dedicated saddle. Good bars and tape. And then I see how much it depreciated in stock value since then, according to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

It was used. It was seven years old. Disc was the new thing in cross bikes, UCI race approved just the year before I bought it. So after three years, the stock fit price is about 27 % of the fair price that I paid for it,a sudden drop (10% of overall new price) . All I can do is add on the parts and watch the program dismally discount those parts when I know they sell for more individually.

I love cars but they have zero return of any kind. Bikes I fear are far worse unless what you have turns into something made of gold thirty years later. Like a Team 7-11 Huffy branded Serotta.

Woe is me. Perhaps I’ll just strip the parts to convert a recently acquired CAAD9 frame into a basement trainer bike.

DISCUSSION (13)

benjrblant > Grindintosecond
08/22/2018 at 20:09

High-end bicycle depreciation is always sharp. The new hotness rapidly becomes the old coldness as soon as something gets updated. See: 6spd, 7spd, 8spd, 9spd, 10spd, 11spd, now 12spd, canti brakes, v-brakes, disc brakes, belt drives, 29er, 27.5, 29+, pressfit bottom brackets, etc.

I feel like m ost bike tech has been developed to keep consumers spending. While bikes have been qualitatively “fine” for several decades, the improvements seem to be more incremental, more expensive, and less beneficial overall, save for a few things like index shifting, discs, and maybe a few other things I’m forgetting.

LOREM IPSUM > Grindintosecond
08/22/2018 at 20:16

Bicycle Blue book is absolutely useless IMHO. No t sure how they get their info, but it isn’t based on reality from what I’ve seen and heard.

Nom De Plume > Grindintosecond
08/22/2018 at 20:18

You deserved every bit of the expletive laced response I just erased (three times now) to try again in a more sympathetic and humane attempt to express myself. It failed a fourth so good luck with whatever peace you need to find on this failed *investment*.

LOREM IPSUM > Nom De Plume
08/22/2018 at 20:22

Would “buy them to ride, n ot to sell" more politely sum it up?

Nom De Plume > LOREM IPSUM
08/22/2018 at 20:36

Frankly there was just too much to unpack. I shouldn’t have even hit send on what I did leave in place.

LOREM IPSUM > Nom De Plume
08/22/2018 at 20:38

I sense a back-story, but I'm gonna just leave it alone after.... This.

Grindintosecond > Nom De Plume
08/22/2018 at 21:17

I have no idea why the post deserved expletive responses. Its observation, nothing more, expressing disappointment. I wasn’t looking for an investment, merely NOT looking for shock and awe. I found that shock and awe. But there was app arently something that happened time wise where any value just plunged steeply instead of a usual decline. That I believe was the disc brake revolution in cross making things like what I have worthless overnight, yet, a Lemond Poprad not experience the same crushing blow....because it has discs.

Grindintosecond > LOREM IPSUM
08/22/2018 at 21:32

Yup, and everyone else out there beats the seller over the head with it. just like the auto black book.

someassemblyrequired > Grindintosecond
08/22/2018 at 21:43

If you used the crap out of it, who cares about depreciation. Ya got a decent season out of it and had some fun.

Nom De Plume > Grindintosecond
08/22/2018 at 22:15

Look, for all I know you are a painfully sincere 16 y/o unaware of the answers for your fiscal and emotional quandaries.

In brief; CX bikes are disposable. They often are accompanied by enough parts to stock a bike shop and have an average life span of a single season if they are lucky. This scam site that funneled your interest into sensitivity and imaginary valuation is less than worthless.

Buck up and go ride the damned thing until it breaks. Then assemble the mass of your experiences and procure something better matching your needs (so long as they are maintained to a level of still existing). Nobody cares if you suck or if it’s cheap therapy. So long as you don’t ride like a stillborn idiot or arrogant jackass. Equally, stuff it in your basement and admit you don’t understand what put you off on the way moving on with life. Woeful regret is an incomprehensible reaction so long as you come to realize the artificiality of that which is acting on you.

Grindintosecond > Nom De Plume
08/22/2018 at 22:23

See, no explatives. Wasnt so hard now was it.

Nom De Plume > Grindintosecond
08/22/2018 at 22:26

I didn’t even come close to touching on redacted subject matter that would have required them.

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > Grindintosecond
08/23/2018 at 00:46

I’ve got ‘a few’ bicycles and some of them were relatively expensive when I bought them. But I did so knowing that the financial loss on my investment was measured in percentage points per hour. That’s how these thing work. There’s a financial loss but that is far outweighed by the personal and social gains of actually riding the thing and engaging with the world.

Everyone should invest in bicycles.