# What things provide YOU the most bang for your buck? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 22, 2023, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-provide-you-the-most-bang-for-your-buck/984421 "2023-05-22T13:59:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 40
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2023, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-provide-you-the-most-bang-for-your-buck/984421/40 "2023-05-23T17:06:24Z")
> [@digs](#): > > My bike. > > After years of beaters, I finally bought a new bike in 1982 and it’s still going strong (it was a Trek). I commuted across town most days for forty years, except when it got too icy out. Now that I’m retired, most days find me on a long ride. > > And it cost a whole $350, plus occasional tune-ups. Similar story for me. Grew up on used bicycles, and shortly after starting grad school in the early '90s I spent $600 on a pretty high-quality mountain bike. I spent the next six years riding like a demon: commuting, pleasure riding around town, trials-style riding (Madison’s Capitol police were not happy with me riding full-speed down the stairs), trail riding in Wisconsin state parks and in Michigan’s UP. And then… > [@Bullitt](#): > > I wish I still had my motorcycle, but that was sold a couple of years back. After I finished grad school, I bought my first motorcycle. A brand-new BMW, $16,000. It’s difficult to put into words how much bang I got out of my buck. **[I’ve written about it previously](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-feeling-of-being-one-w-motorcycle/722131/7)**: > I used to have a bike like that, and I used to ride it like that. Custom saddle with backrest, barbacks, and a few other tweaks made it fit me perfectly, and after 130,000+ miles of riding it and wrenching on it I had grown intimately familiar with it. Took a trip from the upper Midwest to California, and several trips to the Rocky Mountains and the desert southwest. Track day. [Saddlesore 1000.](http://www.ironbutt.com/ridecerts/getdocument.cfm?DocID=1) Every kind of weather, from “goddam it’s hot” to “WTF, it’s actually starting to snow.” I did feel that kind of unity; it was my horse. When I stopped somewhere for lunch, I’d sit where I could watch it - not for security reasons, but simply because I liked looking at it. And not just because it was pretty, but because looking at it brought up a ton of memories of all I had been through with it. For me, all of the scratches, dings and scars weren’t depreciation; they were a storybook, a historical record of all the adventures we had been on together. > > I like my current bike - it’s more powerful, has cruise control and a heated seat and other things my old bike did not - but I have a much stronger emotional connection with my previous bike. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-provide-you-the-most-bang-for-your-buck/984421)._