What would you do?

[mitch_302]

Finally heading back to work soon, after a ridiculously long Christmas break. I do FIFO work on gas pipelines and I'm lead to believe that I have a solid amount of work ahead of me over the next 2 years. Once I get back to it and feel confident that's still the case I'm planning on jumping head first into building a house and setting up a future for the misses and I.

Still being young, 23, and relatively responsibility free at this point I'm thinking it soon will be a good time to treat myself to a new bike before s$&t gets real!

Currently ride a 26" 2011 Specialized Camber expert (120mm full suspension). Its a great bike and with the upgrades I've put on it, it really suits my riding ability and location (lots of XC riding 10 mins from my front door). But I have All-mountain dreams and am very keen on something in the 150mm department.

So I'm going back and forth, losing some sleep, on how I should be looking at this.

1. "Buy the best bike you can afford" Doing the FIFO work 28 day cycles at a time means that a months work would cover something dreamy like an Alttitude 799msl or stumpjumper/enduro expert.

2. Being away from home/bike for a month at a time it will take years and years to get my money's worth out of a high end bike by which time it could be quite out dated.

3. When s&$t does get real, time and money may become too tight to regularly get away to new spots to stretch 150mm legs.

4. With lots of time off the bike will my skills/confidence exceed my current ride any time soon?

....................

So if youve managed to take in my ramblings, what would you do???

 

[FigBo0T]

First world problems, eh?

 

[mitch_302]

First world problems, eh?

Very true, just interested to see how others would weigh it up.

 

[moorey]

Keep the camber, spend $1500 on a good sh 26" am bike.
Cake = eaten also.
My Norco might not be a wet dream for everyone, but it's a ripper 160mm bike that cost much less than that to build up.

 

[mitch_302]

Keep the camber, spend $1500 on a good sh 26" am bike.
Cake = eaten also.
My Norco might not be a wet dream for everyone, but it's a ripper 160mm bike that cost much less than that to build up.

I think thats the way I'm starting to think after spelling it all out in the original post. Would be stupid to spend big money when I've only got 1 week in 5 of freedom.

 

[moorey]

If you weren't a huge bitch, you could use mine.
Something like a heckler can be picked up, well specd for well under $2k though. That'd be my thinking.

 

[pink poodle]

Sounds like i is time to spend! I would...

- drop a few pennies on the camber and keep it crisp for the xc riding you already enjoy.

- lash out on a top end AM bike, custom spec. Keep it 26 to match the camber. Get a nice Santa Cruz nomad or similar 160-180mm bling set up.

- ride with a very big smile on my face.

Your own control of things is about to end (for new and probably exciting things), send it off with a bang! A big bang.

 

[pink poodle]

I've only got 1 week in 5 of freedom.

That is a fairly similar freedom ratio to most people (2 of 7 days), but you are compacted. Which has pros and cons.

 

[mitch_302]

That is a fairly similar freedom ratio to most people (2 of 7 days), but you are compacted. Which has pros and cons.

At home there's often the oppurtunity to ride before or after work, where as I'm likely to be stuck in a camp in the middle of nowhere, Moomba for this year, where I may or may not be motivated to keep up peddle fitness in the gym.

 

[cramhobart]

Buy the best bike you can- once you start building a house, you will never be able to drop a whole months salary on a bike- and the bike you can afford in a month now will take you years to save for when you have a mortgage. Spend and spend big. Bronson!

 

[mitch_302]

Buy the best bike you can- once you start building a house, you will never be able to drop a whole months salary on a bike- and the bike you can afford in a month now will take you years to save for when you have a mortgage. Spend and spend big. Bronson!

The main reason for chucking this post up was to give people the oppurtunity to convince me its ok to spend big bucks on a bike. But now I'm thinking with working away, it would just take too damn long to get my moneys worth. Think I'm going to just keep some money in the kitty and an eye on the for sale thread and wait for something well spec'd and sexy to pop up. Its not as if my abilty is exceeding the capability of the camber yet anyway.

 

[Doggy]

Do you really want or need to spend massive dollars just because #YOLO #FIFO and you are trying to substitute for the usual SS ute and Jet ski that we are supposed to get? You can get a perfectly capable 150mm travel bike for a few grand that will handle all and cost you a week or so's pay. I work fifo on a 2/1 roster at the moment and spent the last 14 months doing 4/1 roster in the Pilbara which sucks the nut for riding but the gym usually tides me over. The way I figure it is that on a normal job, people think nothing of spending the dollars on something they will ride once or twice a week on the weekends, so spending dollars on bikes for my weeks off during which I ride pretty much everyday isnt really that big a deal if you work on the reasoning that the R&R is our weekends. So working on that, other people ride their bikes maybe 5 or more times a month and so do I...no problem. Then take into account that at the end of a project you can have a month or so off during which I ride, ride, ride, ride. I had Dec and Jan off and will have Aug and Sept off with lots of skids there. Having said that though, I havent gone out and spent a fuckload on bikes, merely brought the bikes I wanted and only one of them has been brought brand new.
If you want to treat yourself because it being away all the time then by all means do it, you can afford too and we dont work away because we are anti social retards (mostly) but it doesnt have to cost a metric shit ton. You will still save enough to buy a house unless you are one of those guys who gets home on R&R and piss it up against a wall and gamble

 

[cramhobart]

The main reason for chucking this post up was to give people the oppurtunity to convince me its ok to spend big bucks on a bike. But now I'm thinking with working away, it would just take too damn long to get my moneys worth. Think I'm going to just keep some money in the kitty and an eye on the for sale thread and wait for something well spec'd and sexy to pop up. Its not as if my abilty is exceeding the capability of the camber yet anyway.

That's a pretty smart decision. I'm about 20 years past being able to spend a whole months salary on toys- but when I was young and had no commitments, I frequently did- and while I made some pretty extravagant purchases(3 months wages on a pair if speakers) I don't regret any of them. There are however a few I didn't make that still haunt me.