What %age of pretax income did you spend on your ebike

[kmxtornado]

I pray this poll doesn't start a war or hit a nerve. That's not my intention. I saw something similar on BROL (bentrideronline) and it was interesting to see the results of what people spent on their rides relative to what they make. I suppose it's especially interesting for recumbent and ebike riders b/c the hobby is so expensive and lots of us who get into it, really get into it. Another interesting commonality btw the two is that many riders ride not just out of pure fun but b/c they have a medical need of some sort. There's definitely a lot of variables out there, but we might get a good idea generally speaking.

So that people don't get upset at me.....

THE UNDERSTOOD VARIABLES:
- Obviously if you're younger, perhaps still in college or high school, you may not have a "regular income."
- Maybe you're retired which changes up the number quite a bit.
- Tax rates and income levels are definitely variable throughout the world. (e.g. US vs. non-US or urban vs suburban)
- Some simply have less disposable income b/c they have kids. I'm sure there's tons of other reasons.
- Obviously people ride for different reasons and have no reason to spend above a certain amount.

BUT WHAT IF I....?:
- If you own more than one e-bike, just vote based on your first one and your financial situation at the time.
- If you're married or have dual household income, count only yours.
- If you've spent less than 1%, just put yourself in the 1% category. I forgot to include a sub 1% option. Sorry.
- If you've used an existing (old) bike, go ahead and omit the value of the bike as part of your total cost w/kit.
- If your mod isn't a conversion but a straight up new prebuilt ebike, then use the cost of it as you bought it.

[SamTexas]

Where is the "0 to 0.99%" option?

[kmxtornado]

Ooops, you're right. I don't have admin rights so unfortunately I can't add that on there. Grr, I probably should've put an "other" option to cover stuff like that. Thanks for mentioning it. Although I can't edit the poll, I'll update my original post to bring that up.

[Kingfish]

This is a difficult question because I spend a lot of coin that is related to study and not towards construction or production of components and product. Being that this is my primary mode of transportation, maintaining my electric horse is rather important. And then there are the epics to consider... Ah! The next road trip

~KF

[bigmoose]

Just a heads up... if you add extra choices to your poll it erases/resets all the votes submitted to date.

[biohazardman]

My first bike was cheap. A used craigslist hard tail and a GM kit then some better batts later on. So just 2.3% of my income spent on it that year. It's in the second year things went crazy for me. A new full suspension bike with lots of mods, BMC v2 motor and enough a123s to get me around put me at just over 5% spent on the new addiction. Now that's nuthin compared to some around here who won't even admit they have an addiction. I really need to build another bike so the voices will calm down for awhile. Since the voices, after two builds have more knowledge as to what I want it's going to cost me dearly I'm sure. Good to see we have someone at 50% maybe I'm not really addicted yet?

[amberwolf]

You need to add a 0-1% option, as I spent much less than 1% on my first ebike (DayGlo Avenger), and AFAICR still less than 1% on CrazyBike2 in it's first incarnations (though it has seen some actual purchases for things since then, I spent almost nothing when I built it and made it work).

[SamTexas]

Where is the "0 to 0.99%" option?

I was thinking of you, amberwolf and the Indian guy (numberone something) when I posted the above.

Who voted more than 50%?!!! I hope that was a mistake or a joke.

[Lebowski]

Money, not a lot, but man, the hours, the hours !

[Drunkskunk]

Do you mean how much did we spend to build it originaly?

Or how much have we spent on it total, all years up till now?

Or how much just this year (2011)?

[kmxtornado]

Total.

Just a heads up... if you add extra choices to your poll it erases/resets all the votes submitted to date.

Yup, hence my apologies for not including the sub 1% category. I just updated the post and indicated in the text to select 1% even if you're sub 1%. Thanks for the heads up.

This is a difficult question because I spend a lot of coin that is related to study and not towards construction or production of components and product. Being that this is my primary mode of transportation, maintaining my electric horse is rather important. And then there are the epics to consider... Ah! The next road trip

~KF

You just reminded me that people use this as their primary mode of transportation in which case the number understandably gets higher than most. If the rule of thumb (if there is such a thing. At least this is what I read online somewhere) for cars is 15-20% of your monthly take-home pay (including gas, maintenance, payments, and insurance) or 1/2 of your annual pretax income, then most categories in the poll would still look very attractive if a bike replaces a car.

I'm not at all surprised that there are people in higher than 1-3% categories since it often times takes quite a hardcore rider (hobbiest) to take the time to register for a forum and participate in stuff like this. In other words, this poll may give us a good general idea of ebikers on the forum, but that's about it. If we polled all ebikers in general (including those not on the forum if we were somehow able to do that), I'm sure the number of people in lower %age categories would be a lot lower. This is with my assumption that hardcore riders tend to spend more. I know that's at least true for me with my rides.

You need to add a 0-1% option, as I spent much less than 1% on my first ebike (DayGlo Avenger), and AFAICR still less than 1% on CrazyBike2 in it's first incarnations (though it has seen some actual purchases for things since then, I spent almost nothing when I built it and made it work).

Sorry dude. My fault. I should have added a sub 1% category. Maybe a moderator can help me add that w/o deleting the other results.

[amberwolf]

No way to do that that I'm aware of. And not worth it considering the maybe 2-3 results you'd get on that, at most.

[Icewrench]

The first 2 years after learning of ebikes I spent like a drunk sailor.
Now there are 5 ready to ride ebikes in the basement and a pile of bikes batteries controllers bms boards chargers motors waitng to be built.

[kmxtornado]

Or waiting to sell? Hhaha.

[SamTexas]

... And not worth it considering the maybe 2-3 results you'd get on that, at most.

Don't be too sure. There are at least 2 votes so far, yours and mine.

Anyway, I don't see a lot value in this survey. Why tie income to the ebike's value? Why not just the cost of the ebike? That way people at the two extremes can freely brag about their masterpiece without revealing their income.

[kmxtornado]

The value (if any) is to indicate how much we're willing to part with our hard earned cash to get cool stuff like ebikes. As I pointed out earlier, there are quite a few hobbies (this included) where hardcore enthusiasts spend quite a bit. The term "quite a bit" is obviously relative. Relative to what? Relative to our ability to pay. I realize this is a generalization and some have more savings and therefore the intent isn't as accurate. Perhaps net worth would get the point across a bit better.

It's just interesting to see how involved we are in our projects. Perhaps this type of poll would be more informative if the product purchased was of a higher dollar amount (or closer to our annual take home pays) like cars. Cars a lot more common and I definitely see a huge range in spending relative to income levels for these purchases. Monthly finance or even lease payments plus vehicular expenses can be as high as 50% of monthly take home pay! OMG. I have some friends that personally splurge over $2k/month on cars and I doubt their income levels are 10x mine. Makes me glad my payments are over.

I do admit that there are so many flaws in this poll and so many variables that perhaps it's pointless. Still fun to participate and see how people interpret it and comment on the poll topic though.