Independent buying guides
For riders deciding between frames, groupsets and a chain replacement interval. Every guide answers a single buying question, works the cost out per mile ridden with its formula shown, and dates each source.
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
How to choose
Fit first, then the frame, then the parts that wear. The budget split that survives three years, and the federal requirements a new bike already meets.
Photo: Parrot of Doom · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Budget and prices
Chain, tyres, pads, lube and a yearly service add up to about 12 cents a mile. The bike itself is usually the smaller half. Full arithmetic shown.
Photo: Ibrahim Husain Meraj · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Safety
A bike helmet meets a mandatory federal standard and is designed for one impact. What that means for replacement, and what the rules do not cover at all.
Photo: Jim.henderson · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Each calculator shows its formula, units and assumptions. Nothing is estimated for you in secret.
Adds up a kit list against a weight target and a body-weight guideline.
total = base weight + consumables (water litres x 1 kg + food days x food per day); share of body weight = total / body weight x 100
What a cross-border order really costs once shipping, duty and tax are added.
landed cost = (item price + shipping) + duty + tax, where duty = item price x duty rate, and tax = (item price + shipping + duty) x tax rate
Turns a price into a cost per use, so a dear item used often can be compared with a cheap one used rarely.
cost per use = (price + consumables over the whole life) / (uses per week x 52 x years)
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
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Photo: Wilfredor · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Weight, volume and what gets left behind.
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Photo: Infrogmation of New Orleans · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Temperature, weather and terrain, with real numbers.
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Photo: Parrot of Doom · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
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Photo: bukk · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Intervals, parts and what they cost.
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Photo: Jim.henderson · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Standards, warnings and the checks worth doing.
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Photo: Ibrahim Husain Meraj · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Every figure in a guide is taken from a named source, with the date it was checked. Where a number is an assumption or an example, it says so in the same sentence.
We do not run paid product tests, we do not publish reader reviews, and we do not claim to have handled every product mentioned. Where a claim needs a lab or a long-term test we do not have, the guide says that plainly.
Photographs are free-licence images from Wikimedia Commons or Openverse, credited to the photographer with the licence named. Charts are drawn from the figures printed in the same guide.
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