this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
261 points (97.1% liked)

Asklemmy

43988 readers
745 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

For me it was "buy high quality pillow" because you sleep for one thrid of a day etc. I needed a new pillow anyway so I came to the store and bought the best they had. And it was ... ok. Like it's a fine pillow but my sleeping haven't improved really, it's basically the same. So I was disapointed :(

So, which life pro tip disappointed you?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 13esq@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

You also get diminishing returns.

If you spend £400 on a bike instead of £200, it might actually be nearly twice as good, but spending £2000 doesn't mean it will be ten times as good, when you're in to bikes that cost £10k+ you're talking about fractions of a percent better than the one that costs many percent less.

The top of the range items are good for enthusiasts, but almost always not worth it for casual consumers.

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For a $200 bike, it's never going to work the way it's intended to work. ANY bike you buy at a department store--and many that you buy at general sporting goods stores--will be garbage. In 1995, the rule of thumb was to spend at least $500 on a bike to get something that you could realistically ride every single day; that's about $1000 today.

I'm saying this as someone that worked at bike stores as a mechanic off and one over about 15 years; the cheap dept. store bikes someply can't be fixed and adjusted to work the way that their owners expect.

(PS - yes, fixies are cheap and light. No, you should not under any circumstances ride them on public streets or trails. If you do, sooner or later you will have a serious accident that will involve stitches, broken bones, possibly surgery, and probably rehab.)

[–] grue@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I concur with you, but I'd phrase it in a different way: if your budget is $200 for a bike, you should be shopping for a used bike-shop/reputable-brand bike on Craigslist or whatever.

Also, agreed about fixies, except that switching the flip-flop hub to single-speed mode and adding brakes makes it fine.

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Well, that's why I specified fixie rather than single speed. 🙂 I'm not a fan of single speeds since they're inefficient, but they're not inherently unsafe, and I'm not going to tell people that they're suicidally stupid if they ride one.

[–] Bye@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Very true for bikes in my experience. Guitars as well.

[–] 13esq@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

£500 - £1000 is the sweet spot for electric guitars. Anything much higher than that is the exact same guitar, just with extra bling.

Acoustic/classical guitars are a bit different and even though they still suffer diminishing returns, a higher price can be more easily justified.