<\/p>\n In general I\u2019ve been against this trend. But, last weekend, as I tried to find something in my overly-cluttered bike store I found myself thinking differently: \u201cIf everything had been as expensive ten years ago as it is now I\u2019d have a lot more space in here.\u201d<\/p>\n Latest Videos From In fact a bit of quick maths suggests that the increased cost of bikes and the consequent reduction in my ability to buy them would save enough storage space that I could get off with a smaller house. Financially I\u2019d actually come out in front.<\/p>\n The advantage is actually two-fold. First, as mentioned, you can afford less. Second, to upgrade you have absolutely no choice but to sell something you already own. This saves even more space. You can\u2019t conceivably afford to keep anything you don\u2019t use.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n National champion against the clock at all distances, Dr Hutch is also a best selling author, an aerodynamic consultant and TV commentator. He writes a column for Cycling Weekly every week<\/p>\n I\u2019ve only preserved one bike from my racing career as a memento \u2013 it\u2019s a TT bike that I won quite a lot on, and which was perhaps the prettiest of my race bikes. Its aesthetic qualities are, however, hard to appreciate because it\u2019s surrounded in its storage unit by a mighty collection of some of the best wheels<\/a>, bars, saddles, and random bits given to me by sponsors down the years that I hadn\u2019t intended to keep, but somehow did.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not a hoarder. But if the Hoarder Police raided my unit, they would have questions I\u2019d struggle to answer.<\/p>\n Why do I still have all these things? The problem is that when things were cheaper, their second-hand value declined to nothing even more quickly than modern equipment. If you were a sponsored rider looking to squeeze a bit more out of the deal by selling your team equipment, you had to do it very fast.<\/p>\n “My friend still looks back fondly on the year he broke his collarbone in mid-September and got to sell everything his team had given him a month earlier than usual.”<\/p>\n Dr Hutch<\/p>\n I\u2019ve got one friend who used to do well on Ebay, but insisted that speed was key. If the prize haul at a race included something like a pair of sunglasses, he normally had them listed for sale before he even got home. (\u201cExclusive pro-only promotional colourway\u201d was, he told me, the secret to turning ugly Italian sunnies with over-sized logos into a new video game.)<\/p>\n He still looks back fondly on the year he broke his collarbone in mid-September and got to sell everything his team had given him a month earlier than usual.<\/p>\n What to read next<\/p>\n For those of us a bit slower out of the blocks, the cash value of most things dropped below the it-might-come-in-useful-one-day value in a matter of months.<\/p>\n Leave it sitting for a year or two beyond that point, and you had things that no one would take even if you gave them away, like rim-brake tubular-tyre wheels. You find yourself at the local recycling centre asking a dude in a high-viz jacket what skip you should put carbon fibre in. That\u2019s pretty heartbreaking.<\/p>\n Which naturally means that I don\u2019t even do that with it \u2013 I just keep it. I tell myself that one day the value will go up again. Like an exquisite, chromed Cinelli frame from the 1950s, perhaps people will one day pay big money for old rim-brake aero wheels. And if they do, I\u2019m going to be so rich I\u2019ll be able to afford a modern bike.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/flexiimages\/4av7rcsjyn1645111080.svg\")
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