How much to spend on a bike, and where the curve flattens

The number that matters is what leaves your account in the first month, not what is on the price tag. A bike bought at the top of your budget and then ridden without a lock, lights or its first service is a worse purchase than a cheaper bike with all three. Decide the total, subtract the kit, shop to what is left.

Then spend to the top of the band where capability stops changing, and no further. That point moves with the kind of riding, which is why a single figure is useless. The order in which things arrive is not: brakes that work in the wet, a frame that clears the tyres your route needs, gears that shift under load, less weight, and finally stiffness and finish.

Three prices change what a bike can do rather than how it feels. Everything between them is incremental.

Two notes on that table. First, the brake generalisation has honest exceptions: of the seven bikes here on mechanical discs, two are expedition tourers at €1,899 and €1,999 that chose cables deliberately, because a cable can be fixed with a multitool anywhere and a hydraulic line cannot. Price is not the only reason a spec looks old.

Second, the thresholds move by category. Mountain bikes here run €500 to €5,299, because suspension is expensive and cheap suspension is worse than none. City bikes span only €549 to €1,299, because there is little left to buy. Pick the category before the number, and read what a groupset tier actually buys before paying for a better one.

You can watch the flattening happen in the catalogue rather than take it on faith. The lightest road bike here is 8.1 kg at €2,599. The Canyon Endurace 7 is 8.9 kg at €1,899: 800 g heavier for €700 less. The Boardman SLR 8.9 is 9.3 kg at €1,000, lighter than a €2,199 endurance bike from a bigger brand, because it spends on the frame and not on hydraulics or a dealer network.

Across the nine road bikes here the spread is €1,000 to €3,299 and 8.1 to 10.1 kg. Two kilograms for €2,300. On a climb, 2 kg on a 75 kg rider-and-bike system is worth roughly 2% of your climbing speed — real, measurable, and less than a week off the bike costs you. That is the curve: steep to €1,500, gentle to €2,500, flat after.

What keeps improving past €2,500 is worth naming, because it is not nothing. Suspension damping genuinely gets better with money, and keeps getting better past €4,000. Electronic shifting does not need cable adjustment. Wheels get lighter at the rim, the one place weight is really felt. None of it makes a bike do a job it could not do before.

A bike loses most of the value it will ever lose in the first two or three years — the usual rule of thumb is a third to a half by year three, and slow decline after. Nothing about the frame changes in that time. You buy the same aluminium and the same calipers for roughly half, which is the largest saving available anywhere in this decision.

The catch is that you inherit the wear, and wear is where the money hides. Four checks cover most of it.

1. The frame. Look along every tube in good light for cracks, ripples or lifted paint, especially around the head tube and bottom bracket. On carbon, press hard along the tubes with your thumb. Any damage at all is a walk-away.
2. The drivetrain. A chain checker costs less than a chain. If the chain is worn past the gauge, assume the cassette and possibly the chainrings go with it, and subtract €100–150 from what you are willing to pay.
3. The wheels. Spin each one and watch the gap at the brake or frame. Side-to-side wobble is a truing job; a hop is often a bent rim. Rock the rim sideways to feel for hub play.
4. The bolts. Assume nothing has been torqued correctly. Budget a shop safety check before the first real ride, with stem, bar and seatpost bolts set to the torque printed on the part — on carbon, a torque wrench is not optional.

If you cannot do those checks and have nobody who can, the used discount is not a discount. A new bike at €700–1,200 brings a warranty, a first service and a frame you know was never hit by a car. For a first bike that is worth the premium.

Three costs are certain, and people budget for none of them.

The kit that is not optional

Lights front and rear, a lock proportionate to where the bike is left, a pump, a spare tube, a multitool. A helmet if you want one. Rarely under €150, and a city lock worth having can be a third of that alone. Add mudguards if you ride in winter: a bike that sprays you is a bike you stop riding in October.

The first service

New cables stretch and new spokes settle, so gears that were perfect in the shop turn vague at six to eight weeks. Shops typically charge €40–80 or include it in the sale. Ask which before you buy: a direct-to-door bike €200 below the shop price is not cheaper once you add a build check and a first service.

The chain-and-cassette cycle

A chain stretches as its pins and rollers wear. Replaced in time it is a cheap part fitted in ten minutes. Left too long it wears hollows into the cassette teeth, a new chain then skips on it, and you buy both. The rule of thumb mechanics use is to replace at 0.5% elongation on modern 11- and 12-speed drivetrains, or 0.75% on older 8- and 9-speed — a €10 chain checker tells you which side of the line you are on. Riding in winter grit can halve the interval, and a dry chain wears several times faster than a clean, lubricated one.

The straight answer: only once you have bought everything else, and mostly for reasons that are not weight.

The catalogue looks damning at first glance — 11 carbon bikes at a median of €3,299 and 9.6 kg, against 38 aluminium at a median of €1,499 and 12.6 kg. But that comparison is dishonest, because the aluminium group includes €549 city bikes and 27 kg e-bikes while the carbon group is entirely performance road, gravel and trail bikes. Compare like with like and the gap collapses: the cheapest carbon bike here, the Cube Attain GTC Race , is 8.8 kg at €1,999, while an aluminium endurance bike at €1,899 is 8.9 kg. One hundred grams, one hundred euro.

Where carbon does earn its money is shaping. A moulded frame can be stiff where you push and compliant where you sit, which an aluminium tube cannot do as precisely, and it can be made aerodynamic without weight. If you race, that matters. If you do not, the €1,500 you saved buys wheels, tyres and a bike fit, all of which you will feel more. There is a fuller account in the frame material guide , and the five questions or the finder will tell you whether you are in the group for whom it is even a question.