Gear Acquisition Syndrome: Do You Really Need All That?

Earlier I dropped off a couple of pals and they showed me their new recording studio. Conservatively I reckon £30,000 has been spent. These guys are average musicians who don't write material.

There is a surplus of recording studios here, so this is totally a vanity project.

This does remind me of a lot of mountain bikers I meet on the trails though, riding 2k+ Carbon full sussers with all the doodahs that they really just don't need for the riding they are doing.

You know the type, you find them in all manner of pastimes, fishing, music, motors, bikes and all that.

One of my pals once spent about a thousand totally 'silencing' a pc. I introduced him to the simple idea we used in a recording setup, isolating the pc in a booth. He has a cupboard next to his recording area, and could merely have moved the pc through there and reduced the sound below what he has achieved.

One of my favourite things to do when someone is showing off all their gear is to ask what it does. Invariably they have little idea.

Next to my workshop there is a chap who has every tool known to man, I reckon he has spent many thousands.

He asked me for a hand fixing the brakes on a Corsa the other day, he was literally clueless as a mechanic, but reckoned it was all on the internet now so he could learn.

Mountain biking is a pastime particularly rife with G.A.S. and all the gear no idea.

People are riding round on downhill rigs in the flattest of lands, others are building weight weenie machines coming in under 20lbs when they themselves are eating all the pies.

I know one guy commuting on a knobbly tired Kona every day.

I mention every time, why not get a second wheel set with slicks for the summer?

He won't, and his reasoning, "It's a mountain bike, it would look stupid with slicks."

Well, each to their own, but he looks silly to me plodding along when he could be flying.

I have to say, the worst of it are people whose kids don't have decent clothes and whose wives are having to make do with Iceland shopping while they brag about their 5k home cinema set ups.

Idiots!

You know what? Good Luck to them if it makes them happy. Certainly we need more happiness in the world if this forum's anything to go by.

You also know what? Takes one to know one

I recently built up a bike for a old friend, the spec was a nice bike to get into riding, he wasent sure if he was going do much so dident spend much, I managed to build up a voodoo with old deore parts. he took it for a few rides liked it and after a month bought a xt groupset for it. wise choice I thought then a week later he bought a 3k lapierre because his mate has one. he keeps posting pics on facebook of them doing 2ft jumps in the local forest, shin and elbow pads the works. im happy that he riding but hes not asked me out for a ride once. he wants to build a pump track in the garden next. I asked what is a pump track is and he showed me a pic of a bmx track?????

silly thing is I have 5 Bikes in the shed and no time to ride them

Hee hee Retrocat!

I have certainly indulged in the past, but I am very much of the make do and mend mentality these days. I would rather make what I have work than worry about what I don't have.

lumos2000":1dfkxybx said:

I recently built up a bike for a old friend, the spec was a nice bike to get into riding, he wasent sure if he was going do much so dident spend much, I managed to build up a voodoo with old deore parts. he took it for a few rides liked it and after a month bought a xt groupset for it. wise choice I thought then a week later he bought a 3k lapierre because his mate has one. he keeps posting pics on facebook of them doing 2ft jumps in the local forest, shin and elbow pads the works. im happy that he riding but hes not asked me out for a ride once. he wants to build a pump track in the garden next. I asked what is a pump track is and he showed me a pic of a bmx track?????

Click to expand...

Here is a pump track, Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On.

Quite. I guess I guess if the money spent on bikes could buy riding time that would be more useful, rather than buying yet another bike and sit dreaming about riding it whilst trapped in an office.

highlandsflyer":jzpfw33e said:

Here is a pump track, Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On.

Click to expand...

No doubt.

But The Love Walrus (gawd rest 'is soul, g'vnor) surely has to be the man for the music, for getting your freak on - if superficial legal comedy dramas, and John Cage taught us nothing else, they taught us that.

As to the syndrome - well I recognise it - I don't know whether I'm purely a product of my time, but I think it largely accounts for why I've never aspired for any truly top end bikes - upper middle class, me, all the way... but seriously, I've never been able to be comfortable with kit that clearly exceeds ability, skill or talent. Just seems all wrong to me.

That said, how much sense it makes for me to have 5 or 6 bikes - but then I like to factor in redundancy, and I'd prefer more variety on a theme, than a singular, or reduced number of selective things.

Who cares ?

It's up to them, whatever makes them happy It might be the only thing that makes them happy or allows them to take pride in something ... ?

I just let them get on with it and worry about other stuff that's related to me - using the things I like as distraction from the things I don't

WD

I care!

Consumerism is ruining the country, mark my words!

Britain used to be the epicentre of innovation, I reckon the trend to just buy everything stifles creativity.

Give me a ball of string, a block of wood and a pen knife and I will build you a future.