After the near death experience of losing one of my bikes the other night and the thought of replacing it I realized that I would easily have to spend about $700-1000 more than what I paid for it to replace it. It got me thinking about the value I've gotten out of different bikes over the years and which bike gave the biggest return for what I paid for it. Hands down that award would have to go to my SX Trail that I rode for almost 10 years. Currently I would have to say the carbon Instinct I picked up used for $1800 has been over delivering in the smiles/dollar category.
We don't know what our limits are, so to start something with the idea of being limited actually ends up limiting us.
Ellen Langer