Bike poll

[lethargic_man]

Took my bike to the bike shop yesterday. They said they'd never come across mudguard mounts slipping like mine had before. We discussed various solutions to get them to stay in place, but they said there's no 100% guarantee any of them would work, so I decided to buy a set of full mudguards as a replacement. (Anybody want a secondhand set of half-size mudguards, complete with tips for how to keep them from slipping?)

I left the bike there, as my second fall put the derailleur out of whack and they couldn't fix it on the spot; this morning I got a call from them saying that the front fork had been bent back, the wheel was not coming out easily and the brakes not working properly. None of this had I noticed, but I didn't want to risk the front fork breaking on me, so I agreed to let them replace it.

This is going to come to nearly £100 in total, meaning I'll have spent nearly £200 on the bike in the course of the last month, once you include my earlier taking the bike in for a new gear cassette and general service. That's two thirds of the value I spent on the bike in the first place! Sometimes I think it would be cheaper just to buy a new bike... but of course if I did that, it would only take a couple of years to be back to having to spending money on it again.

The one consolation is that the total I'll have spent on the bike in the last year is still probably less (probably, and only slightly less if so) than the money I've saved by not using public transport instead of the bike.

One for the serious bike users among you (anyone here other than bluepork, ewx and perhaps lethargic_fan?): how much would you expect to spend a year on bike maintenance? I don't mean for an typical year, but rather the average you get from putting together the years in which the bike is low maintenance with the years in which major repairs are needed. (Please also indicate if you're good enough with your hands to do the job yourself and save yourself the labour costs...)

Comments

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I don't keep records but I'm reasonably confident that I spend under £50/year on bike maintenance on average. Things I deal with myself: lights, brakes, tires/inner tubes. Saddles would probably fall into that list too but of my last two saddle replacements one was rolled into a collection of fixes and the other was fitted for free.