> > From: "Bob W" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: 2007/05/29 Tue PM 09:37:42 GMT > To: "'Pentax-Discuss Mail List'" <[email protected]> > Subject: RE: Editorial: Pentax missed the boat? > > > > Oh, yeah. I've been pricing bikes lately. Holy cow, some > > of them are > > > pricey. ... > > > > Yeah, mine cost me about $950 last summer and it's far from > > "high end". > > Depending on what you're going to use the bike for, it's worth > comparing it against the cost of other travel. In my case I could > easily justify spending a huge amount of money on a bike. > > I don't need a car, so I don't have one, but I do receive a reasonable > car allowance from. I am in a car share club (www.streetcar.co.uk) > which is very cheap and convenient to use on the few occasions I need > a car. So I reckon I have (notionally) at least £3000/year car money > available to me. Realistically, if I were to buy a car I'd be spending > about £15,000 on it, amortized over 3 years, so the actual cost would > be much higher. > > I also spend £150/month on a 5-zone season ticket for getting to & > from work, so that's another £1800/year. I could save most of that > money if I cycled to work (I don't because of the lack of washing, > locker and secure bike parking facilities). > > So I could spend up to £4,800 a year on a bicycle and still break > even. > > The bike I have now cost me £400- 12 years ago. When I replace it, > probably early next year, I will spend about £2500 on the new one, > which I will have custom fitted and made by one of the 2 sepcialist > framemakers who live within 12 miles of here. > > Given the figures above, the bike will effectively pay for itself in > less than a year. I expect it to last at least 12, and probably more > years, so it will cost me less than £5 per week to have that bike! And > it will still be only about 10% of what I've spent on camera equipment > over the last 25 years... > > Oh, and if I cycled to work, the government would give me 50% of the > price of the bike. > http://www.cyclescheme.co.uk/
That seems to be one of those hire/buy scams, sorry, schemes. You have to pay a lump sum at the end of the hire period to actually own the machine - or you get another one and carry on the payments. That rather negates the point of buying a machine and using it until it is worn out. Which is a pretty long time with a bicycle. The savings over motor transport are more than enough financial justification to use a hptw. ----------------------------------------- Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
