If it’s time for a new bike, not the variety with an engine (if you’re interested in these you might want to visit Aussie Bike Loans), your choice is virtually limitless.
If you just need a bike so you can keep up with your kids on their bikes, you can probably get a perfectly serviceable model from your local big box retailer for under $300. Of course it will more than likely be built in China and don’t expect any go faster stripes or bells and whistles. If, on the other hand, you’re buying the bike mainly for sport/fitness then you’re better off at a specialist bike shop, where you’ll need to make a choice between mountain bike and road racer, and with both your options start from around $600 and go up from there.
And when we say ‘go up from there’, you might not believe how far. In very broad terms, expensive bicycles can be categorised into two types – those that are really the absolute best bikes in terms of sports performance, and those that are really just ‘luxury’ versions of often pretty good bicycles that have been pimped out for their uber-wealthy target market.
Take the ‘Gold Bike Crystal Edition’ model from Aurumania for example. Of course all of the accessories are top class – it features a Brooks leather saddle and hand sewn chocolate brown leather handlebar grips, but it’s the rest of the bike that bumps the price up. It’s almost entirely covered in 24 carat gold (including the wheel spokes) as well as more than six hundred Swarovski crystals. Somewhere around $125,000 will secure you one, although it may already be too late, as only ten were due to be made.
Quite a few luxury and sportscar brands also have their name on bicycles – take for example the Colnago for Ferrari CF8. This model incorporates the latest in superfast gear changes, courtesy of the Shimano Dura Ace Di2 electronic gear system. To keep it super light as well, a lot of the bike is constructed from carbon fibre, bringing it in at just under 7kg. It could have been your for just $18,000.
French design house Hermes also have their own bike which they launched last year, the Le Flaneur, handmade in France, mainly from carbon fibre. It’s light at a touch under 11kg thanks to the carbon fibre, and will only lighten your hip pocket to the tune of $11,500.
Leaving aside these luxury conveyances, for the hardened competitive rider there are many options to help you get to the front of the pack. In the same way that technology in F1 racing filters down to high end sportscars and then to ‘normal’ cars, bike technology developed for professional cyclists often appears on high end bikes. The best example is the Shimano Di2 gear change mentioned above: developed in 2007 and used by two teams, it is now an optional extra available at around $5,000.
There does not seem to be any sort of slowdown in the super luxury end of town in bikes. One of the theories for this is that, where someone might previously have bought a high end car, a luxury bike is a lot more affordable and a lot less conspicuous.
If you’re not worried about this, you might be interested in the latest intersection of cars and bikes – the Fahrradi Farfall FFX. Designed by Austrian artist Hannes Langeder this ‘bike’ is closely based on the Ferrari FXX super car and in fact doesn’t really look like a bike at all. The name is a play on Ferrari and the German word for a bicycle – Fahrrad. Asking price is $1.9M. Top speed 16kmh.
Regardless of which type or model you’re looking to buy, a personal loan from Aussie Personal Loans can get you where you need to go!
