4 ms·

I'm not a particularly outdoorsy person, but being a frugal person, I have noticed that a lot of outdoors activities really do "require" an investment. Equipmen

by allenu 5y ago

I'm not a particularly outdoorsy person, but being a frugal person, I have noticed that a lot of outdoors activities really do "require" an investment. Equipment can be expensive, as can ski passes or trips. Once you hang out in those circles (as the article states), you don't want to have cheap gear. It's as with anything, I suppose, but with gear, there's always more and better things, which never interested me. I remember talking with coworkers about bikes and one was recommend bikes to another coworker who wanted to get into cycling and he was recommending some pricey options. I remember thinking that if you want to get into cycling, you really don't have to spend a lot. Cycling shouldn't be about the gear itself. It should be about, well, getting out there and cycling. But for some people, half the fun is spending money on the toys. That same coworker admitted a few weeks later that he bought himself yet another bike, one that was several thousand dollars. Meanwhile I was stressing with my $1200 bike purchase as that felt like a lot of money.

dr_dshiv 5y ago
Also, outdoorsy stuff is where many rich kids spend their money. So there are poor models to follow wrt money.
catillac 5y ago
It’s true that a lot of things take an investment but I don’t think you should be so prescriptive about some things like when you say: “Cycling shouldn't be about the gear itself. It should be about, well, getting out there and cycling.” People can of course enjoy a hobby or activity and get something out of it that’s not the thing you think they should be getting out of it and that’s awesome. It’s okay if the fun is in spending the money, and it’s okay if you have a $1200 bike and don’t care about that stuff. They’re both equal ways of approaching any given hobby.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  True, but if you regularly spend $1200 on a bike you don’t need maybe you shouldn’t complain about not having money?
munk-a 5y ago
For seven thousand dollars you can get a computer that will make a saint weep (you can get something about 99% as good for like two grand if you build it yourself or four if you bought it prebuilt). Computers are insanely cheap joy boxes when compared to nearly every other form of entertainment - for that cost you're getting a piece of hardware that will be nearly top-of-the-line for three years or so now-a-days, and probably passably performant for a decade. So I entirely agree that, working in a field where video games are seen as a reasonable and normal past-time, the cost of renting skies for a weekend can seem outrageous. Money is freaking weird - food and essentials are also a complicating factor here though. I like to eat well so my food budget is about 150$/week which is about three times as high (for two of us) as my parents paid for three of us.
- mulmboy 5y ago
  Computers are not joy boxes for a lot of people, or at least not joy boxes with any depth.
- allenu 5y ago
  Yeah, money is definitely weird. I suppose it's all about what we value. I have coworkers who have bought Teslas but when they talk about furniture, they'll buy super cheap things that, to me are poor quality and will fall apart easily. They treat it as purely a utilitarian item. To me, I'm okay with my crappy little 10 year old car as it gets me from A to B, but I want to spend a little more on furniture because I like the beauty and joy it brings me in my home.
vondur 5y ago
Yes, I'm a Mountain Biker and have been for quite sometime now. I've had people ask me about getting into Mountain Biking on the cheap, say sub $500. I've told them to try hiking, it's far cheaper.
- munk-a 5y ago
  Snowshoeing is also quite an affordable thing to get into if your climate allows!
- qqqwerty 5y ago
  You can get a suitable hardtail for less than $500 on Craigslist pretty easy. I have been riding a bike I got for $100 for over 5 years. I dropped another $100 on a new set of brakes just to be safe. And most beginners would probably be better off starting on a cheap hardtail anyways. They should be starting off on easier trials where expensive gear is overkill, and hardtails are much less maintenance which means they will spend less time wrenching and more time riding.
  - vondur 5y ago
    I agree with the sentiment, but even with that many people get "ugradeitis" when they hit the trails and see all the cool looking expensive bikes. It's crazy to see how many high end mountain bikes here in Southern Orange County CA.
monoideism 5y ago
Back in my 20s, having spent HS and part of college running track and cross-country, I’d pass guys all the time in their bikes that cost more than my car in my $200 used bike that didn’t even have clipless pedals. Those days are long gone now, but it was highly satisfying to see the look of panic on athletic, rich banker’s face when some punk kid in a t-shirt, shorts, and cheap bike passed him going up a hill.
thechao 5y ago
Biking expenditures are nuts. I feel like I'm splurging if I don't let the soles wear off my sneakers before getting a new pair. I've only just begun regularly swapping them out — every year whether or not they need to be — because my feet feel fucking old if I don't.
zwog 5y ago
You really don't need expensive gear. My first long distance hike was 150km through scotland (West Highland Way) and I spent about 80€ for a pair of used hiking boots. The rest was borrowed from friends and I've used my family's old camping tent. Sure, I could have saved about 3kg if I had bought newer, lighter gear. Maybe I would have made fewer stops, maybe I would have been a day faster or even two. But why, the sole idea behind the trip was to walk outside. On my first day I met another solo hiker and he was kind of a gearhead - or showboat - because most of the time he talked about how light his gear is and what functions it has and apparently it was most important to him that I know how expensive it all was. Same with bikes: if your goal is to ride a bike almost every bike that fits to the person riding it and us technically in good condition works.
- allenu 5y ago
  I totally agree. I once did a half marathon and during training, and the half marathon itself, I used some cheap shoes I bought from Payless. My friend that I did the run with was shocked when I told her that on the day of the event. It didn't seem like a big deal to me. I guess for a lot of people, gear really is a part of whatever hobby they're into. I used to be interested in photography and was showing some photos to some friends. They weren't anything amazing, but I was proud of them because I was starting to learn to compose photos and recognize good lighting. The camera I used wasn't anything special, though. Of course, one person who saw the photos immediately asked "What kind of equipment did you use?"
emerged 5y ago
I’ve had years of joy and fitness cycling with cheap equipment. I’ve also had years of even more joy and fitness and goal achievement with relatively expensive equipment. You weigh out what it’s worth to you for what you get out of it. You make the careful choice relative to everything you care about holistically and strategically. The polarized ideas that you need to spend very little or an extreme amount are equally reductive. You should spend the amount you have carefully negotiated with yourself and your priorities. For cycling in particular, you don’t need much to start out with. Slowly over time you may increase in fitness and time investment, community, goals. From there it becomes worth investing more IMO.
creato 5y ago
The thing with these things is that when you do it a lot, the cost of ski passes or bikes or whatever is not that high. If you ski 50-100 days, a $500 or $1000 ski pass is much cheaper than most forms of entertainment (that's less per day on lift access than it costs to go to a bar). The way these kinds of things get expensive is if you buy all the passes and equipment but then only actually use it a few weeks a year. I know a lot of people that do not make much money that have ski passes and nice equipment because their priorities are different.
0xEFF 5y ago
Gear is fashion in this situation, complete with the yearly refresh to avoid looking unfashionable.
_carbyau_ 5y ago
Particularly with cycling, I always wondered why people would say justify their love of cycling with statements including fitness, self challenge, enjoying the outdoors. I haven't heard any say they wanted to be regional champion. If you compete with yourself, then changing your gear makes it hard to measure if you are getting better. Sometimes I think we compete with others when we don't need to.
- emerged 5y ago
  Fitness / goal oriented cyclists have objective means to measure progress, for example pedals or cranks which measure your actual power output. This combined with your body weight is a ubiquitous measure of progress. More expensive bikes are more comfortable and may boost your speed a bit depending on circumstance. To assume that people who decide to invest a bit in a healthy, fun activity are ignorant of such basic metrics seems pretty cynical. I would urge you to dig deeper because there is an enormous amount of value in this type of investment.
Vaslo 5y ago
I feel like sports are like this too. I see friends spending thousands of dollars on going to sporting events, sports paraphernalia, etc. Just seems like so much when you can watch free at home. I know I know, it’s the experience - but just hard to understand. I guess they probably look at me spending hundreds on pc stuff and think the same thing.
boring_twenties 5y ago
> Once you hang out in those circles (as the article states), you don't want to have cheap gear Having been hanging out in ski bum circles for quite a few years now, this doesn't seem to be the case to me. Most of them buy their gear used via ski swaps, craigslist, etc. People with blatantly expensive gear like Arcteryx are routinely mocked. We like to joke that if you don't have duct tape on your ski clothing, you're nothing but a poser who must have just flown in from NYC that morning.
jcheng 5y ago
> Cycling shouldn't be about the gear itself. It should be about, well, getting out there and cycling. But for some people, half the fun is spending money on the toys. I love getting out there and cycling (just got back from a ride in fact). I also love geeking out about bikes and bike gear, and I’m not sure why you say it “shouldn’t” be half about that. Why shouldn’t it? I appreciate the engineering that goes into them, the latest theories as to how to make bikes better, the design and aesthetics, the component choices and all the tradeoffs involved. Surely on Hacker News of all places, we’re allowed to geek out on such things? If you love cycling but refuse to allow yourself to appreciate how cool bikes are (regardless of age or price, btw), maybe you’re missing out on half the fun!
- qqqwerty 5y ago
  For some folks part of the motivation for getting outdoors is to escape the ills of modern life, and one of those ills is consumerism. As outdoor sports/recreation has turned into a fairly large and profitable industry, for those of us who are not a fan of the commercialization side of things, it has become increasingly difficult to ignore/escape. Trails are packed with folks in shiny new gear, outdoor media is filled with ads, etc... I by no means begrudge someone who enjoys geeking out about gear. I occasionally indulge. But for the most part I like to get my equipment as hand me downs or on craigslist. And I try to keep that equipment running as long as possible. I find that repairing stuff scratches my engineering itch and that going minimalist with gear helps me focus on the experience more.

by allenu 5y ago

dr_dshiv 5y ago

Also, outdoorsy stuff is where many rich kids spend their money. So there are poor models to follow wrt money.

catillac 5y ago

It’s true that a lot of things take an investment but I don’t think you should be so prescriptive about some things like when you say: “Cycling shouldn't be about the gear itself. It should be about, well, getting out there and cycling.” People can of course enjoy a hobby or activity and get something out of it that’s not the thing you think they should be getting out of it and that’s awesome. It’s okay if the fun is in spending the money, and it’s okay if you have a $1200 bike and don’t care about that stuff. They’re both equal ways of approaching any given hobby.

Aeolun 5y ago
True, but if you regularly spend $1200 on a bike you don’t need maybe you shouldn’t complain about not having money?

munk-a 5y ago

For seven thousand dollars you can get a computer that will make a saint weep (you can get something about 99% as good for like two grand if you build it yourself or four if you bought it prebuilt). Computers are insanely cheap joy boxes when compared to nearly every other form of entertainment - for that cost you're getting a piece of hardware that will be nearly top-of-the-line for three years or so now-a-days, and probably passably performant for a decade. So I entirely agree that, working in a field where video games are seen as a reasonable and normal past-time, the cost of renting skies for a weekend can seem outrageous. Money is freaking weird - food and essentials are also a complicating factor here though. I like to eat well so my food budget is about 150$/week which is about three times as high (for two of us) as my parents paid for three of us.

mulmboy 5y ago
Computers are not joy boxes for a lot of people, or at least not joy boxes with any depth.
allenu 5y ago
Yeah, money is definitely weird. I suppose it's all about what we value. I have coworkers who have bought Teslas but when they talk about furniture, they'll buy super cheap things that, to me are poor quality and will fall apart easily. They treat it as purely a utilitarian item. To me, I'm okay with my crappy little 10 year old car as it gets me from A to B, but I want to spend a little more on furniture because I like the beauty and joy it brings me in my home.

vondur 5y ago

Yes, I'm a Mountain Biker and have been for quite sometime now. I've had people ask me about getting into Mountain Biking on the cheap, say sub $500. I've told them to try hiking, it's far cheaper.

munk-a 5y ago
Snowshoeing is also quite an affordable thing to get into if your climate allows!
qqqwerty 5y ago
You can get a suitable hardtail for less than $500 on Craigslist pretty easy. I have been riding a bike I got for $100 for over 5 years. I dropped another $100 on a new set of brakes just to be safe. And most beginners would probably be better off starting on a cheap hardtail anyways. They should be starting off on easier trials where expensive gear is overkill, and hardtails are much less maintenance which means they will spend less time wrenching and more time riding.
- vondur 5y ago
  I agree with the sentiment, but even with that many people get "ugradeitis" when they hit the trails and see all the cool looking expensive bikes. It's crazy to see how many high end mountain bikes here in Southern Orange County CA.

monoideism 5y ago

Back in my 20s, having spent HS and part of college running track and cross-country, I’d pass guys all the time in their bikes that cost more than my car in my $200 used bike that didn’t even have clipless pedals. Those days are long gone now, but it was highly satisfying to see the look of panic on athletic, rich banker’s face when some punk kid in a t-shirt, shorts, and cheap bike passed him going up a hill.

thechao 5y ago

Biking expenditures are nuts. I feel like I'm splurging if I don't let the soles wear off my sneakers before getting a new pair. I've only just begun regularly swapping them out — every year whether or not they need to be — because my feet feel fucking old if I don't.

zwog 5y ago

You really don't need expensive gear. My first long distance hike was 150km through scotland (West Highland Way) and I spent about 80€ for a pair of used hiking boots. The rest was borrowed from friends and I've used my family's old camping tent. Sure, I could have saved about 3kg if I had bought newer, lighter gear. Maybe I would have made fewer stops, maybe I would have been a day faster or even two. But why, the sole idea behind the trip was to walk outside. On my first day I met another solo hiker and he was kind of a gearhead - or showboat - because most of the time he talked about how light his gear is and what functions it has and apparently it was most important to him that I know how expensive it all was. Same with bikes: if your goal is to ride a bike almost every bike that fits to the person riding it and us technically in good condition works.

allenu 5y ago
I totally agree. I once did a half marathon and during training, and the half marathon itself, I used some cheap shoes I bought from Payless. My friend that I did the run with was shocked when I told her that on the day of the event. It didn't seem like a big deal to me. I guess for a lot of people, gear really is a part of whatever hobby they're into. I used to be interested in photography and was showing some photos to some friends. They weren't anything amazing, but I was proud of them because I was starting to learn to compose photos and recognize good lighting. The camera I used wasn't anything special, though. Of course, one person who saw the photos immediately asked "What kind of equipment did you use?"

emerged 5y ago

I’ve had years of joy and fitness cycling with cheap equipment. I’ve also had years of even more joy and fitness and goal achievement with relatively expensive equipment. You weigh out what it’s worth to you for what you get out of it. You make the careful choice relative to everything you care about holistically and strategically. The polarized ideas that you need to spend very little or an extreme amount are equally reductive. You should spend the amount you have carefully negotiated with yourself and your priorities. For cycling in particular, you don’t need much to start out with. Slowly over time you may increase in fitness and time investment, community, goals. From there it becomes worth investing more IMO.

creato 5y ago

The thing with these things is that when you do it a lot, the cost of ski passes or bikes or whatever is not that high. If you ski 50-100 days, a $500 or $1000 ski pass is much cheaper than most forms of entertainment (that's less per day on lift access than it costs to go to a bar). The way these kinds of things get expensive is if you buy all the passes and equipment but then only actually use it a few weeks a year. I know a lot of people that do not make much money that have ski passes and nice equipment because their priorities are different.

0xEFF 5y ago

Gear is fashion in this situation, complete with the yearly refresh to avoid looking unfashionable.

_carbyau_ 5y ago

Particularly with cycling, I always wondered why people would say justify their love of cycling with statements including fitness, self challenge, enjoying the outdoors. I haven't heard any say they wanted to be regional champion. If you compete with yourself, then changing your gear makes it hard to measure if you are getting better. Sometimes I think we compete with others when we don't need to.

emerged 5y ago
Fitness / goal oriented cyclists have objective means to measure progress, for example pedals or cranks which measure your actual power output. This combined with your body weight is a ubiquitous measure of progress. More expensive bikes are more comfortable and may boost your speed a bit depending on circumstance. To assume that people who decide to invest a bit in a healthy, fun activity are ignorant of such basic metrics seems pretty cynical. I would urge you to dig deeper because there is an enormous amount of value in this type of investment.

Vaslo 5y ago

I feel like sports are like this too. I see friends spending thousands of dollars on going to sporting events, sports paraphernalia, etc. Just seems like so much when you can watch free at home. I know I know, it’s the experience - but just hard to understand. I guess they probably look at me spending hundreds on pc stuff and think the same thing.

boring_twenties 5y ago

> Once you hang out in those circles (as the article states), you don't want to have cheap gear Having been hanging out in ski bum circles for quite a few years now, this doesn't seem to be the case to me. Most of them buy their gear used via ski swaps, craigslist, etc. People with blatantly expensive gear like Arcteryx are routinely mocked. We like to joke that if you don't have duct tape on your ski clothing, you're nothing but a poser who must have just flown in from NYC that morning.

jcheng 5y ago

> Cycling shouldn't be about the gear itself. It should be about, well, getting out there and cycling. But for some people, half the fun is spending money on the toys. I love getting out there and cycling (just got back from a ride in fact). I also love geeking out about bikes and bike gear, and I’m not sure why you say it “shouldn’t” be half about that. Why shouldn’t it? I appreciate the engineering that goes into them, the latest theories as to how to make bikes better, the design and aesthetics, the component choices and all the tradeoffs involved. Surely on Hacker News of all places, we’re allowed to geek out on such things? If you love cycling but refuse to allow yourself to appreciate how cool bikes are (regardless of age or price, btw), maybe you’re missing out on half the fun!

qqqwerty 5y ago
For some folks part of the motivation for getting outdoors is to escape the ills of modern life, and one of those ills is consumerism. As outdoor sports/recreation has turned into a fairly large and profitable industry, for those of us who are not a fan of the commercialization side of things, it has become increasingly difficult to ignore/escape. Trails are packed with folks in shiny new gear, outdoor media is filled with ads, etc... I by no means begrudge someone who enjoys geeking out about gear. I occasionally indulge. But for the most part I like to get my equipment as hand me downs or on craigslist. And I try to keep that equipment running as long as possible. I find that repairing stuff scratches my engineering itch and that going minimalist with gear helps me focus on the experience more.