Well, it's happened. I've found something that I don't like about my new BEST JOB EVER. I didn't think that there was anything about working in a bike shop that I didn't love. I loved cleaning the bikes, looking at the bikes, talking about bikes, selling bikes. But the thing that I don't like is the money involved in biking.
Here's the thing. I'm a relatively simple person. For me, extravagant spending is not getting peanut butter on sale or forgetting my coupons at home or shopping at the mall instead of a thrift store. My bike, while nice wasn't terribly expensive. O.K. let's face it: I'm poor. Graduate school is running me a whopping $31,500 per YEAR. I'm not even poor, I'm broke.
So unfortunately at the best job ever, my co-workers make fun of people who don't have $150 pedals with $400 biking shoes, full carbon bicycles ($2,000)and GPS watches($499). I...do not have anything close to all of that. I know it's all in jest coming from them and that they do love me despite by $80 biking shoes, and cheap pedals and sale-priced shorts. But it still brings to light something interesting in the sport of bicycling.
In NO OTHER sport in the world (besides golf maybe) does wealth equal talent. You can't buy your way onto a professional football team with an expensive helmet, you don't get to play soccer in the Olympics if your cleats cost more than 3 months worth of rent, and of course, you don't win marathons by being rich. period.
However, in bicycling people seem to be under the impression that the more expensive bike/shoes/pedals/carbon/helmet/waterbottle cage they own the better and FASTER they will be. To a point, I suppose all of this is true. A lighter bike with $1200 wheels (I KNOW) will make it easier for you to drag your butt up hills. But you know what? If these people don't spend more miles ON said bike than the dollars they put into it, it's not going to add up to much.
I have literally seen people who I doubt can ride more than 10 miles at a time drop thousands of dollars on a full carbon bike that is probably going to sit in their garage for a majority of the year.
Don't you think...that if a person really deserved a $4,000 bicycle that they would be going pro and not in the position to buy it for themselves anyways? Exactly. If you're good enough you don't have to buy your own running shoes, your own football helmet, your own baseball bat. If no one is offering to drop that kind of cash on a bike for you perhaps it means that you are not fast enough to be riding it.
I don't care if a bike weighs 5lbs less than mine and was 5 times more expensive. I spend 5 more hours a day on mine.
I'm not necessarily a fast biker or blessed with some sort of bicycling talent. But I will tell you this. What bicycling requires is not thousands of dollars on equipment. What it takes is dedication and admiration of the sport of bicycling. It's far more important to be in tune with your bicycle, how it handles hills and bumps and what gears it likes the best and how the two of you can get over 40mph together. I believe on any given day my bike and I can beat one twice as expensive.
I don't know what other people are like but I will tell you this. I sleep with my bike in my room. I take care of it as best as I can afford to. I make sure that it'll never get stolen, or broken, or wear out. THAT my friends, is dedication.
Bicycling should be about happiness. Not money. Biking...should be about being free.
I never realized that biking was so expensive and that talent was correlated with $. Very interesting. You're right - it should not be that way.
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