[fabsroman]

Too many things are about money nowadays, and I blame most of that on TV.

50 years ago, hunters just grabbed the gun out of the closet, put on some old warm clothes, and went hunting. Nowadays, I have a checklist to go hunting.

The same thing goes for cycling. After being away from the bicycle racing world for 18+ years, I decided to get back into it this year. 18 years ago, everybody used steel frames for our bikes and there were only a couple of component manufacturers. Almost all the racing was road racing, and we used the same bike for road races as we used for time trials. In my last year or two of racing, they started to introduce aluminum and carbon fiber frames and time trial specific bikes. Now, there is mountain bike racing which requires its own bike, and cyclocross racing which requires its own bike.

Today, almost every manufacturer offers the same type bike in steel, aluminum, carbon fiber, and titanium. They say that each one of them has different ride qualities. Well, I bought an aluminum frame and a carbon fiber frame from the same manufacturer in the same geometry, bought all the same components for both bikes, and guess what, I cannot feel the slightest bit of difference between the two bikes, except that the carbon fiber frame cost $2,000 more than the aluminum one and it looks nicer and more expensive.

Today, there are heart rate monitors and wattage monitors to tell you how hard you are going and the amount of power you are putting out. The wattage monitor for the rear wheel is $1,000. I haven't bought one yet because I am trying to avoid it. Ended up buying a heart rate monitor/GPS cycle computer though for $300. Never had any of this stuff 18 years ago.

Also bought a time trial specific bike too, which is more aerodynamic and faster than a road bike, but why can't the racing organizations just outlaw these bikes for amateurs so that the poor folk won't be penalized. Also bought the aero disk wheel, which I can also feel the difference with, but that thing was $1,400.

All the marketing is utterly nuts. If I told you how much my bikes cost and how many I have, you guys would have a cow. Kind of like me telling my cycling friends about the number of guns I have and how much they cost.

By the way, if you cannot tell yet, after my family, my next two passions are hunting/shooting and cycling, and the marketing guys have gotten me pretty good in both categories. However, I am at the point with hunting where I feel like I don't need anything more than a farm. Two years ago, my wife gave me the green light to replace my SBE with the new SBE II. I had talked myself into that purchase because of the recoil reduction system and the larger trigger guard on the SBE II. Lucky for me, I thought twice about it and decided not to spend $1,400 on another gun when the one I had was working just fine. Then, I almost talked myself into the Benelli Sport II because of the recoil system, but then thought twice about it because I shoot my Beretta 391 pretty darn well. As of right now, I'm not buying another gun unless it is leaps and bounds beyond what I already have or it fits a niche that I don't already have (e.g., AR10 & AR15). I'm also not going to buy the newest and greatest camo pattern that seems to come out every year. Killed 100+ geese for several years with my current camo, so it cannot be all that bad. Killed 50+ deer with my current camo/hunters orange, so that cannot be that bad either.

Lucky for me, I am running out of things to buy and I am refusing to buy all the brand new hyped up stuff out there. Still haven't bought a scent-lok suit either.