There are some brands of bicycles that can cost more than the down payment on a car. Why? Surely making a bike lightweight and reliable isn’t so difficult that it warrants that price? Is it just the brand name or maybe it has to do with customization options?
Low key loving it that people here automatically assume that a bike would mean you would go on trails and off road while here in the Netherlands we still are riding that old riggidy hunk of metal (a Omafiets) we got handed down form our sister 15 years ago. (Who also got it as a hand me down)
There are nice bikes here with carbon fiber belts instead of metal chains but those get quickly stolen or used so much they wear down away in a few years because the bikes get beaten to bits by the weather and usage.
The best kind of bike is one you can lock up and not worry about.
Jup! It’s quite normal here to have a bike that is so ugly, it is not even worth the effort to get stolen. 😅
One of my favorite episode of Top Gear was when the boys went to Africa and brought used cars for a thousand pound [UK] then drove them across the continent without many mishaps. They pointed out that there were people in London / New York City who brought high end SUVs to handle six inches of snow on a paved road.
Pavement princess
I live in a neighborhood full of them. The funniest thing is when there’s a heavy snowfall and you see the same beast buried and unmoving for weeks.
That’s something of a point, but they’re also followed around by a literal caravan of assistants for their show, including mechanics and a van full of parts, just in case anything goes wrong.
Edit: not to mention fully prepared to handle logistics and expense of staying at hotels or even camping out if needed, not to mention tools and equipment for major roadside repairs.
But even that was kind of cheating. I think May had the Mercedes 300D, which is probably the most reliable car ever made, and Hammond had an Opel that had already survived 50 years there. The only one who really struggled was Clarkson in the Lancia, which makes sense.
I had to convince a woman with a giant SUV at the base of a slick uphill road that this was the reason she bought that thing. She was blocking the road in paralysis. After I convinced her to go up she made it up, no problem. People think they need a tank to deal with an inch of snow.
Did they encounter 6 inches of snow in Africa?
No, just a thin salt crust over deep mud:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gear:_Botswana_Special
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makgadikgadi_Pan