About three years ago I upgraded from a cheap MTB bike to an upright dutch-inspired urban bike.

For the equivalent of about $300 USD on sale, I got an aluminium frame, front and rear mudguards, internal 7-speed hub, extended handlebars, and all-weather rollerbrakes. They’re nowhere near as powerful as diskbrakes, but they do the job.

The pie chart data is from a bike expenses spreadsheet I keep, was surprised actually to find out how little I’ve spent on maintenance, in comparison to completely optional accessories for the bike…

About my previous and current commuter

My cheap MTB had served me well for 4 years prior, despite being a bit neglected in the maintenance department. Don’t get me wrong - there was chain cleaning and re-lubing after wet weather, replacing diskbrake pads and all that stuff, but it wasn’t perfect and sometimes it was just plain tedious to do.

The upgrade made a lot of sense at the time, and after 3 years of owning the Dutch-inspired bike I’ve not needed to do much maintenance at all. However, it’s a little difficult to get parts for the bike outside of the Netherlands, worsened slightly by the original retailer no longer selling consumables such as the rollerbrake grease and internal gear grease. Despite that the bike has been rock solid, still shifts and stops like new. I’ll need to give the internal hub an oil bath at some point though - not looking forward to that…