chain 15-30, pads 15-25/pair, cables, tyres
Advanced options
wet, gritty miles wear drivetrains 2-3x faster
bus/train fares and car running costs: 20-45p
The chain checker is the whole economy in a GBP 6 tool: chains stretch with wear, a stretched chain quietly eats the cassette and chainrings it runs on, and replacing a GBP 20 chain at 0.5-0.75% wear saves the GBP 80-150 drivetrain that a chain run to death takes with it. Commuter maths: at 1,500+ miles/yr in British weather, budget a chain a year and pads a year: it's still pennies per mile against any alternative transport. The pre-winter service beats the spring one: you're paying for the bike to survive salt season, not recover from it.
What The Bike Service Calculator Works Out
- Annual upkeep: one shop service plus the parts you expect to buy this year. A basic safety check is about GBP 45, a standard service GBP 80 and a full strip-down GBP 150; a parts year adds a chain at GBP 15-30, pads at GBP 15-25 a pair, cables and the odd tyre, landing a 1,500-mile commuter around GBP 140.
- Cost per mile: upkeep divided by miles ridden, in pence. It works out at 9-10p a mile on typical inputs against a 20-40p floor for any motorised or fare-paying alternative.
- The chain-wear economy: a GBP 6 chain checker catches stretch at 0.5-0.75%, so a GBP 20 chain is replaced alone rather than taking the GBP 80-150 cassette and chainrings it has quietly been filing to fit its own elongation.
- DIY vs shop split: punctures, pads, chain cleaning and replacement are 20-minute video-taught jobs that make up most of the annual labour. Full indexing, hydraulic bleeds, bottom brackets, wheel truing and anything torque-critical on carbon belong with the shop.
- Shop services per year (advanced): zero if you do everything yourself, two for a heavy commuter who wants a pre-winter service (to survive salt season) and a spring one.
- Share of miles ridden in the wet (advanced): wet, gritty miles wear drivetrains two to three times faster, so the parts bill is scaled up by 1.5 times the wet share. A year-round British commuter at 40% wet miles should budget 60% more for chains, cassettes and pads.
- Consumables, insurance and locks (advanced): lube, degreaser, tubes and tools typically add GBP 20-50 a year; specialist bike insurance runs GBP 50-150 depending on value, and a Sold Secure Gold lock is GBP 40-100 once.
- All-in annual and monthly cost (advanced): services plus parts plus wet wear plus consumables plus insurance, with the monthly set-aside and the all-in pence per mile.
- Saving vs alternative transport (advanced): the same miles at the per-mile cost of your alternative (bus and train fares or car running costs at 20-45p) minus the all-in bike cost. For most commuters this is several hundred pounds a year.
- Upkeep as share of bike value (advanced): annual all-in cost as a percentage of what the bike is worth. 10-25% is normal for a commuter; above that, the serviced-with-receipts resale value is doing the rest of the work.