$40 For what?

A chain. Bicycle chain. Specifically a 10 speed Wipperman nickel-plated chain which frankly could double as jewelry. I'm incapable of spending that much, I just had my friendly LBS owner build up a two year old Interloc with Ultegra-9 for racing. I picked up an SRAM chain for $17 on sale and was quite proud of myself, but in the days of Buycycling Magazine our thinking has shifted until two cents a mile for the chain wear seems OK. The really interesting thing is that even with $5000 bikes, $50 tires and so on it's still way cheaper than operating a car.

Which is weird. Regular guys would never layout big bucks on a two-wheeler with no engine, but not blink at $2500 annually for depreciation on a pretty ordinary automobile. Then there's the small matter of gasoline.