“… The money’s no good / Just get grip on yourself”

For Sale

It's an occupational hazard, or maybe an addiction or quite possibly a sign of insanity. I'm talking about your bike collection. I'm talking about my bike collection.

If you work in the bike industry, you have a herd. It goes with the territory.  While I’m primarily a mountain biker I’ve owned road and cyclocross bikes, and even a couple of different fixed gear bikes. At any given time I probably have four different bikes I can pull out of the garage, and of course, my wife has a couple of bikes too so we couldn't get the car into the garage even if we wanted to.

That, however, is part of the allure of working in the industry, free or heavily discounted items. It’s also an excuse to indulge in prolonging your adolescence and mammalian hording instincts because as the Stranglers said “… the money’s no good / Just get grip on yourself”.

Having a herd of bikes gives you the illusion that you can always liquefy a member of your collection if you want to upgrade to the next years’ model or if need some ready cash if you have a financial emergency.  Bikes, however, are a poor investment because they depreciate rapidly. The problem is every one wants a bro deal and cycling is an industry base on bro deals. While you may not be penalized by the IRS if you do a short sale on your 50th Anniversary Lamborghini Edition Impec BMC road bike put a couple of miles on it and it’s just another BMC Impec with an unusual paint job.  Want a better investment? Hire a financial manager. While the IRS may penalize you if you do a stock dump or liquidate your IRA or 401(k) in the long run you’ll be better off. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love bikes but the retirement plans for a lot of people who work in the industry is about par with gang members, mixed marshal arts fighters and former members of Special Forces.  If you can work your way up the food chain in the industry your chances of having a somewhat comfortable retirement is better but don’t count on that 1999 Bianchi 101 Pantani Replica Bike helping you out when you wind up in a memory clinic.