GCN's top 10 ways for cyclists to save money. Commute to work.
One of the great things about cycling for transportation is that the day-to-day cost
is significantly lower than driving a car or taking public transport.
The added benefit is that you can put riding into your daily schedule,
which is perfect for those people who are tight on time. In terms of your general
health, too, less time spent in traffic could go a long way to reducing your
stress levels, and according to one survey, improve your sex life.
Make your own energy products. Energy drinks, gels, and bars are fantastic for a
big event for when you need a high number of calories. But these can be expensive if
you buy them all year round. For the vast majority of the time when you're riding,
homemade alternatives are just as good at getting you the energy you need.
They're also much, much cheaper. Think, jam sandwiches is a place to start,
but we've also got some great recipes here on the channel, too: uber bars,
recovery juice, and rice cakes from the Tinkoff-Saxo team chef,
Hannah Grant. Buy secondhand. There might be a little bit of uncertainty about
buying secondhand, but if you know what you're looking for, you can easily save a
ton of money on higher-end road bikes. Check out your local bike shop,
or even online, for ex-demo bikes. These are bikes which would have been kept
in-store for customers to try. They'll still be in near-pristine condition,
and if you're lucky, you can pick them up at a nicely discounted price.
Keep your bike clean. A clean bike is much less likely to have expensive mechanical
problems. Excess grit and grime mean components will wear a lot quicker and you
end up having to replace them more frequently. Cleaning doesn't have to take
forever. Check out our video, "How to Clean Your Bike in Five Minutes".
Join a cycling club. Having loads of friends and contacts in cycling is a great
way of getting some good deals, and what better way than joining a cycling club?
Whether it's word of mouth secondhand deals or a club discount at a local shop,
you'll hear it there first. Check your drivetrain regularly. It pays to keep a
close eye on the condition of your drivetrain. If your chain begins to wear
out, it'll start doing irreversible damage to your chain rings and your cassette.
Replacing your entire drivetrain is really expensive, but it can be avoided by just
replacing your chain before it wears, which is much, much cheaper.
Just make the small investment of a chain wear indicator so you get the most life
out of each chain. Learn how to do basic repairs. While there are some repairs that
can only really be done by a professional bike mechanic, you'd be surprised at how
much you can do at home with a few inexpensive tools and a little bit of
time. Even better, you'll be back on the road even quicker than if you take it to
your local bike shop. And of course, you will save yourself money by not paying
someone else to do it. Go alloy, not carbon. It's easy to be tempted by the
latest, shiniest bits of kit, and those made from carbon fiber are the most
alluring of all. But carbon also has a price tag to match, so think before
splashing out. Is the alloy alternative as good? If there are only a few grams
difference, we'd say that alloy is the way to go. Think stems,
bars, and bottle cages as places to stay with alloy and save money.
Buy your cycling goods at specific points in the season. You seen your perfect bike?
Are you about to drop a serious sum of money on it? Well, hang on a second.
Bike manufacturers bring out new bikes every year, which means that they'll want
to offload the previous year's models. This equals discount. The main window of
opportunity is in September and October, and then again around March.
The same is also true of clothing. You just have to buy your winter kit in the
summer when you don't need it, and then vice versa, the gram, money ratio.
Many people spend money on their bikes in order to improve performance by saving
weight. It's an admirable goal. It will make a difference to your bike,
but you need to assess how much of a difference it's going to make,
and a good way to do that is to use the gram, money ratio. Divide the amount of
weight that the new product will save you by the amount that it will cost.
So, for example, if you can save 80 grams on your handlebars with some new carbon
ones which cost $300, divide 80 by 300, and you get 0.26 grams per dollar.
However, you could save 80 grams by swapping your butyl inner tubes for latex.
And then you'd save 4.44 grams per dollar, a much better-value weight-saving,
simple but effective. If you're somebody who's looking to save a large chunk of
weight on your bike, then the first thing you should look to upgrade are your
wheels. Of course, there are lots of different wheels on the market at the
moment, but there's something to suit