How many bikes would you have if you could?



This is Big Bear California. I did a timed century event called Ride Around the Bear. I was just about to descend from Onyx Summit which tops out at 8400 ft. I had already climbed about 9,000 ft total gain and about 77 miles into the ride at this point. I had just finished enjoying about 60 miles of this same scenery on the way up. :D

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I use to ride years ago all over Big Bear, though I don't recognize that area because since I rode all over Southern Calif mountains the roads all look the same! I've even did that ride about one to three years after it became a ride sometime in the early 80's, I think I rode it in 84 because I'm pretty sure it was the year I got my Trek 660.
 
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I use to ride years ago all over Big Bear, though I don't recognize that area because since I rode all over Southern Calif mountains the roads all look the same! I've even did that ride about one to three years after it became a ride sometime in the early 80's, I think I rode it in 84 because I'm pretty sure it was the year I got my Trek 660.

Yeah it is a great ride! I did it 4 times and hope to do it again. We live at the base of Mt Baldy so having done Glendora Mtn Rd hundreds of times and local mtns, I have no desire to travel 200 miles to do mtn roads that look the same whne I am invited. You know what I mean if you have done all the local mtn roads. :D
 
One. My dream bikes: Road, steel frame, frame shifters, 8-ring cassette, compact cranck. No need for more.
 
Several of course. I would like to have a good road bike and a mountain bike. Considering the fact I could choose I would buy the best possible. Another one on the list would be that city hipster bike with all the details on it. I would probably never use it but I would like to have two of those, one blue and the other one pink for my girls if I ever find one :). I would also like one of those hybrid bikes that cost like a car. Audi bike or something like that. I say some pictures and they are very nice.
 
At the moment I've got 3 bikes, 2 mountain bikes and one for the road. In the past though I've had as many as 6 at the same time but that came about simply because I don't like seeing good quality cycles go to waste and I saw a few at very cheap prices so I'd be crazy not to invest.
 
This wold be ideal for me...11 bikes

1 TT bike
2 road racing bikes
1 Touring bike
1 Rando bike
1 Mt bike
1 Tandem
1 Foldable travel bike friday
1 Velo Mobile
1 recumbent (M5)
1 70's vintage road bike

I only lack the velo mobile and recumbent.
 
I really don't see the point of collecting bikes. Yes, they are far easier to store than cars, but I don't see any practicality of collecting a large amount of bike, cars or anything else for that matter. I probably could afford to own 10 high-end bicycles but I just won't have the time and inclination to ride each one, on a regular basis.
 
Each of the 11 bikes that I listed has a distinct purpose.....for actual use and not to collect dust while I sip 61 Latour reminiscing about the old days.
 
I don't see any practicality of collecting a large amount of bike, cars or anything else for that matter.

What does 'practicality' have to do with it?

I want a Viking funeral and an estate auction that runs 3 rings for 3 days. Hell, I want the local firearm auction house to take 3 dedicated auctions to sell off my ammunition stash...just like they did for my wife's uncle, may God protect his soul (not that he ever needed anyone else to protect him!). I want prospective buyers to get lost for hours when walking the land I have. I want Campyphiles to cry tears of delight at the hoard of Super Record from the Golden Age of Cycling as it falls under the hammer. I want newspapers to report record crowds of onlookers and gawkers as fists full of dollars fly in the air.
 
I really don't see the point of collecting bikes. Yes, they are far easier to store than cars, but I don't see any practicality of collecting a large amount of bike, cars or anything else for that matter. I probably could afford to own 10 high-end bicycles but I just won't have the time and inclination to ride each one, on a regular basis.

There are different strokes for different folks. I could as well buy expensive either vintage or new bikes if I wanted too, but I'm a practical tightwad, meaning I don't need a $15,000 wonder bike, nor do I need a rare $10,000 1970's era Colnago. While I have several vintage bikes the ones I bought used I didn't pay over $100 but they're not the highly sought after Italian bikes either, my most valuable one (for some odd reason which I can't put a finger on why) is probably the 84 Fuji Club that only has 250 miles on it. Even my last new bike wasn't high end but with a bad back from an accident with a drunk driver that left him dead I found that titanium gave me the most amount of comfort while riding.

I also have a small collection of cars, but I bought most of those years ago when the prices were low and just never got rid of those particular ones mostly because I have a daughter who I know want's one car in particular so that one is already in the will for her, and grandkids, and when the grandkids get old enough (the oldest is 8 and kind of already knows which one he wants) to know what they are they can select whichever car they want and those cars will be in the will with the name of who they go to, so I'm keeping them mostly for them so they can have fun after I'm gone. The odd thing is I have a daughter and 3 grandkids...I have 4 classic cars, not sure how that worked out that way. Storage of my cars is a problem but fortunately I have a friend who has over 30 vintage cars and has a large climate controlled pole barn and he allows me to store them there in exchange for me helping him with his cars on occasion.

People collect stuff, some to the extreme, I had a friend in California who at last count had over 500 various models of Victoria and Gramophone of all sorts of sizes, and this guy is probably one the foremost experts on them but he is also a Victoria pack rat, you can barely walk through his house he has so many, it's nutty to me. What amazed me about those though is that the large ones put out some serious sound!
 
On a training ride in my younger days my training buddy asked me what percentage of my income gets saved. I told him. he told me he was a Financial Planner and that I needed to loosen the purse strings. I bought a full on Campy bike. The Federal Reserve Notes are all going up in flames in the coming big reset and you can't take it with you anyway. In the overall scheme of things, bicycling is cheap compared to other activities.
 
On a training ride in my younger days my training buddy asked me what percentage of my income gets saved. I told him. he told me he was a Financial Planner and that I needed to loosen the purse strings. I bought a full on Campy bike. The Federal Reserve Notes are all going up in flames in the coming big reset and you can't take it with you anyway. In the overall scheme of things, bicycling is cheap compared to other activities.

Cheap especially compared to cars. Neither investing in cars or bikes is a good investment, if you don't lose money on the surface value you'll won't gain anything beyond the rate of inflation. Coins is even worse, you probably won't see even an inflationary increase. That sort of collecting is strictly for fun, and if you do that way not expecting to retire off of it you'll be ok.
 
Collecting ain't about the money.

I've watched multi-million dollar collections of cars, firearms, motorcycles, bicycles, coins, militaria, real estate, fine furnishings and such that took a lifetime to gather...scattered to the four winds in a few hours or a few days of the auctioneer's time.

I've always been in awe and have respect for all it took to establish those collections. Almost always, it was done by a great man.
 
Collecting ain't about the money.

I've watched multi-million dollar collections of cars, firearms, motorcycles, bicycles, coins, militaria, real estate, fine furnishings and such that took a lifetime to gather...scattered to the four winds in a few hours or a few days of the auctioneer's time.

I've always been in awe and have respect for all it took to establish those collections. Almost always, it was done by a great man.

Real Estate is different, I have income property and where I live I can buy the stuff cheap and make money on the rents, in fact I make a lot more money on rents then I could have ever made on my 401K and not have to put up with the up and downs of the market that will change my income. I don't consider investing in real estate or mutual funds as a fun little collection hobbie, Someone who let their real estate holdings go to the four winds at an auction just didn't have any business sense.
 
You can't take it with you...so...my ex-wives can all contest the estate and claw each others' eyes out for all I care. As far as dirt and houses going at auction...you would be shocked at the number of people that do not want to deal with acreage or the hassle of maintaining it. Gimme the money...I'll take it from there.

Farms split here all the time. Tons of houses and factories and rental stuff on the market. Some of it reasonable. Some of it for a small...er...large fortune.

I damned near tried the rental game. Had two spare houses and now down to the one spare. I can't deal with most renters and rents are low here. Figure the 'quality' of the human factor...

Yeah, it's a living, but dealing with 3 AM calls about busted pipes, blown up furnaces, retarded idiots running meth labs, legal issues with evictions...not for me. I figured out other ways to make money.

Guy at work has 6 properties and 8 units. Another guy has 3 properties and 4 units. All I hear is *****ing from them and constant phone calls from renters and the contractors they have to hire when they can't spend their own time tackling the repairs and restorations. Then there's the bankers and lawyers constantly involved.

My neighbor up the road just had 5-year tenants pull up stakes at the only property he rents. They trashed the house and burned the shutters for firewood. Carpet's shot throughout. Shower surround has to be replaced. They left enough stuff to fill two 30-yard dumpsters. All the usual other stuff, too.

Let's say he netted $30K over the last five years. What is his outlay going to be, minus write-offs? His time involvement?

He's thinking of burning the place and hauling away what's left. Filling the basement in with sand and calling it a life lesson.
 
Campybob, you are a very negative person, all is a failure in your eyes, you subscribe to Murphy's Law, it's no wonder you have ex wives and problems with rental property.

I came from California to Indiana to buy property cheaper and to be able to make a living at renting property, I couldn't do that in California with rental properties starting at over a million dollars where I lived, you could never collect enough rent to cover the cost of the building, but investors there bought that stuff knowing that they couldn't make enough money on the rents but hoping instead to cash in when they sold the property in about 5 yeas, but California lost it's luster there too. Where I live the rents are low, but so is the cost to buy, and I can live off the rents here but I can't sell the property and expect big profits in the sale like they use to be able to do in California.

No I can't take it with me, but I can give it my surviving family, and if there is no surviving family or as in your case they're all haters then i'll give everything to a charity of my choice, but it took hard work to get my family where they're at today, but not just me alone but by my wife and my kids all worked hard, so I know my stuff won't be handed to charity unless the kids want to do that then I'm fine with that, but it's for them and their retirement too and they know that fact.

I happen to enjoy being a landlord, sure there's problems as there is with any business, it's just the name of the game and you're definitely not a player. Any business will have bankers and lawyers so what? I don't rent houses any more I sold those so could buy complexes of 6 or more, and never had a tenant trash the place, can that happen? of course, but again it's a business and you have to be prepared for such events and be able to take it mentaily, you are simply one of those people that should never go into business because you don't have the mentality for the downs, you think a business should be lined with gold bearing trees and just browse the flower covered lane and grab a bar or two when needed off a low hanging branch, no business works like that, why heck life isn't even remotely close to that!

Rental homes blown up by meth labs? That's funny stuff. If you're not doing your job as a landlord and never keep an eye on the property and you are a slum lord than I can see your point, problem is as soon as a meth lab is detected the law will confiscate the property from you anyways, at least here in Indiana they do. But I don't rent to those kind of people and I keep an eye on stuff. Some states like California and New York (and maybe a few others) are very liberal states, an eviction could take up to 13 months to get a deadbeat renter out, but in Indiana after 30 days delinquency I get a lawyer who sends paperwork over to the Sheriff's department and they serve notice to evict and they're gone in 10 days unless they want to push it through court but then after the hearing they'll have up to 30 days to clear out. Or the landlord can simply pay the renter $1,000 or so to vacate if the landlord doesn't want to wait, must deadbeat renters will take the money and run.
 
Bikes are not investments nor are cars nor are houses. They are consumables of varying duration.

We knew an ex-mafia member who built up more than 100 units in NYC. He told me once he fixed the old buildings up, he picked his tenants really carefully. I think he preferred gays because they have so much disposable income and they fix the place up on their coin. He avoided single moms or those with limited means. I suppose business owners are not allowed to select tenants anymore.
 

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