I've been looking at Thorn bikes from afar for over a decade but never thought that I could justify owning one (as I 'm not into off-road touring through distant parts of Asia). .... The bike is arriving on Friday and I'm anxious about whether I've made the right decision or whether spending such a lot on an untried bike was a mistake.
Thorn gives you the option of Plan B because they know that almost no-one takes it.
I think you can rest easy. In the last ten years I've bought three different expensive, rare and wonderful bikes sight unseen, from people I'd never met, who speak different languages, and in my case from several countries and two ocean crossings away (I live in Ireland). In not one of those cases did I have any intention, need, or, in some cases, capability, of using the bike to the fullest extent envisaged by the designer and builders. In no case was I disappointed. You can see the three bikes, in order the Gazelle Toulouse, the Trek Cyber Nexus, and the Utopia Kranich, at
http://coolmainpress.com/BICYCLING.html I bought them because I wanted them. I daily, as I ride my comfortable Kranich, thank my lucky stars I didn't cheap out and buy the cheap bike for a tenth the cost which is all that my few thousand kilometres a year really justifies if you just look at the thing as a bike. But I'm an artist and a critic, so I just say blandly, "The health of my psyche requires me to ride a work of art." Hell, it worked when i drove even more extravant cars.
Actually, my psyche is armour-plated -- I stopped caring what people think on my thirteenth birthday -- and it's the comfort that's worth the extra money, but if I tell people that they try to buy my bike off me, and some can waste a lot of my time by being persistent once they discover how long the waiting lists are for a new one and how difficult it is actually to get the bike here.
The benefits of that comfort includes being alive. I'm not joking. On a cheap, uncomfortable bike, I would long since have stopped riding; more than one of the physicians on my cardiology team have expressed the opinion, some enviously, that it is cycling which keeps me alive. You don't need a better reason than that!
So, contrary to the advice received above, enjoy your bike -- and welcome the rationalisations for the expense that are certain to occur to you!
Mel Brooks said, "If you got it, flaunt it." It's not a bad reason. But I like Henry Royce's reason better: "The quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten."
Andre Jute
101 Reasons for Indulging Yourself
