So I have “new” bike (subjectively) about 9 months. And I spent about 2000 € on it (bike, and some accessories - rack, bags…) and I can tell that it is lot of bike for not that much money.

So now when I look back I can’t see it as “expensive” bike, just as reasonably priced for its purpose. I use it every day to commute and as bikepacking/touring bike so now it has ~6000 km.

So how much are you willing to spend on bike?

Edit: So I read your comments and I probably need to clarify little bit.

• I use the bike for everything instead of car so even nicer more expensive bike for me is justifiable.
• I also think that the bike industry is bonkers right now about shiny new expensive things.
• For me there is few types of riders and all parties try to upsell them some shit, there aren’t any 500€ bike with flat bars and rigid fork where I am. All of the bikes at this price point have shitty suntour fork, bad saddle, useless pedals and shitty tires. From my perspective they are expensive on the parts that don’t matter and cheap out on stuff that matters. If someone sell something like that (flat bar gravel with quality parts where it matters) it would be gamechanger.
• I had to build my bike, nothing like that (full steel gravel/bikepacking/do it all bike) wasn’t on the market/second hand market. It add to the price a bit. And it was about month before the prices get down to reasonable levels after pandemic.