I stand corrected.  About the cost of bicycles, at least.

When I began this blog, I intended to write about inexpensive consumer products through the lens of a disposable razor that I intended to use as long as I could.  Among other topics, I wrote about the seeming expense of a new bike.  While many consumer products (watches, for example) offer superb quality at low cost, bikes still seem expensive.  In short, while a $5 digital watch keeps time as well as a $5,000 Rolex, the $149 bike you buy at Wal-Mart stinks.

Turns out that I was looking at the wrong end of the telescope.  Bikes have gotten a lot cheaper, just not in my lifetime.

According to economic inequality superstar Thomas Piketty, bikes cost one-fortieth of what they used to (see pages 88-89 of "Capital in the 21st Century").  In the 1880s, a new bike cost the equivalent of six month's of a typical worker's salary.  Today, it costs less than a week's wages.

I still hold out hope for some breakthrough material, design or process that cuts the cost of  a good bike.  I suspect that someone will find a replacement for the spoked wheel, which has a high labor cost.  Or, perhaps, someone will find a way to manufacture a frame in one piece.

Maybe Piketty's elites bought up the patents for these kinds of innovations to prevent the proletariat from pedaling to the barricades.

Cheap bike gear that fits like a glove

True Grip General Purpose Gloves: Cheap Biking Gloves

• Replaces: Traditional full-finger bike gloves such as these from Performance Bike.
• Cost differential: 2x-4x. 

• Available: I bought mine at Home Despot for $10.  They don't seem to appear on the website, however.
• Why I like it: When riding my bike in the city, I've always preferred full-finger bike gloves because you never know what you're going to have to grab or push yourself away from.  Usually buses, but sometimes...other things.
  
  Bike stores and websites such as Performance and Nashbar will happily sell you bike gloves with full fingers for $20 (at best) or more.  I've bought several pairs from them that range from good to lousy.  Since I almost always buy from catalogs, I never get a chance to try them on beforehand.
  
  I already stash a pair of mechanic's gloves in my camera bag to use in cold weather.  The ones I use have reinforced palms.  It occurred to me that someone must make something similar with padded palms, useful for absorbing handlebar shock.  Indeed, Home Depot had the True Grip brand and they fit the bill.  In addition to the cheap price, I appreciated the ability to try them on and find the right fit.
  
  Some tips:
  
• If you shop at Home Depot or Lowe's, look around.  While HD had name-brand Mechanix gloves front-and-center, I found these cheaper gloves in the locksmith department.
  
• In addition to padding on the palm, you probably also want padding on the thumb and some terrycloth on the back to wipe sweat away.
  
• I haven't used these in really hot weather yet, so I can't tell you whether the backs, which seem thicker than those on true cycling gloves, will be an issue.

Widgy Pry Bar

Widgy Pry Bar: Indispensable Keychain Tool

• Replaces: Ye olde trusty Swiss Army Knife.
• Cost differential: 2x.  And up, depending on how many tools your SAK has.

• Available: The always-entertaining CountyComm.com sells these small crowbars as well as a host of other useful tools, flashlights and pocket knives
• Why I like it: I have maximalist tendencies.  On any given day, I have a bottle opener, multi-head screwdriver, USB flash drive and one of these Widgy Bars (the Micro model) on my keychain.  And a flashlight.  And that doesn't count the other tools (SAK, another flashlight) that I generally have in my other pocket.  Why do I have all this metal on me?  Search me.  I think I carry them more as talismans against non-specific evil than anything else.
  
  But enough about me.
  
  Of all the stuff I carry, the Widgy Bar gets pulled out the most because it does the most.  CountyComm designed these as nail pullers and as mini-prybars.  You'd be surprised how often you might need to remove a staple or pry something apart (recently, I needed mine several times to open up some hooks used to secure a party tent; true story).
  
  But wait, folks, there's more.  With a sharp-ish edge, these tools will also open most packages.  In a pinch, the edge also works as a flathead screwdriver, albeit not the most handy one given the curved end.
  
  Naturally, a Swiss Army Knife does all these things and more.  However:

1. Most SAKs don't work well with keychains, meaning you have a greater propensity to lose them.
2. I've never had a problem getting my Widgy Bar through airport security, and if I did, it would cost me $10 to replace it (I could swear I bought mine a few years ago for $5, but I may be incorrect).
   
   Suffice it to say that if I only had room on my keychain for one tool, this would be it.

As always, what cheap products do you know that are worth buying?  Please share!

I spoke too soon

Two weeks ago, I recommended a cheap watch, the Casio F-105.  Perhaps I shouldn't have.

Here's a closeup under a brighter light

In case you can't see it too clearly, some water got inside my watch.  That should not have happened, as I was only swimming in a pool and I doubt my wrist got more than three feet under water.

That said, the thing still works fine and, in my experience, the water will eventually evaporate.  However, it hasn't lived up to its 100-meter water resistance rating.  I'm a little disappointed.

I'll give you a heads up if I find a better watch at the under $20 price level.

Uncle Sam wants YOU...to have a good, cheap sun hat (helloooo summer!)

U.S. Military Boonie Hats

• Replaces: That baseball cap that's not giving you any real UV protection.
• Cost differential: 2x.  7x when compared to Tilley hats.

• Available: Check your local army-navy store.  Some camping stores, including New York's venerable Tent & Trails carry them, too.  Of course you can buy them online, for prices under $10, but I'm not savvy enough about the differences between genuine military surplus and knock-offs to know whether you're really getting the best deal.  I've never paid more than $20 for one.

• Why I like it: I like the beach, where sunlight reflects every which way.  I have almost no hair on my head.  As a result, if I don't wear a good hat, my head starts to look like a lumpy tomato.  Any broad-brimmed hat will do the job, so why pay for space-age materials or dubious claims of added sun protection?  The military spent a lot of time designing this hat.  No need to improve on it much.
  
  If you've never worn a proper sun hat before, you might not know that they actually help you keep a little cooler by keeping the sun off your face and neck.  Also, this model, which has grommets on the side, lets a little air inside.  In fact, the very top of the hat has a thinner layer of fabric than the rest of the crown, which lets a little heat escape.
  
  Of course, the military look may turn some people off.  What can I say?  Get it in a neutral color like khaki or some weird camo pattern.  Or dye it.  Or stick pinko political buttons in the cartridge loops.  I used to wear mine with my "Hillary for President" t-shirt to drive people nuts.

As always, what cheap products do you know that are worth buying?  Please share!

Cheap watch that takes a beating

Casio F-105 Watch

• Replaces: Pretty much any watch you'd need to wear 95% of the time.
• Cost differential: 2x.  And up, depending on what you wear on your wrist.

• Available: You can usually find this watch, or something similar, at any mass merchandiser.  If you're an Amazon.com shopper, you might even find it for under $10 bucks (I did), cheap enough to be a throw-in if you're the type who lumps purchases together for free shipping.

• Why I like it: I've written before about this watch, but let me expand on it for a moment.  This watch has nearly every function you could reasonably expect--and actually use--from a watch.  It keeps quartz-accurate time, it has an alarm, a stopwatch feature and a pretty bright light.  It features a water resistance to 100 meters.  For you non-watch geeks out there, 100 meter water resistance means that it's good for every kind of water activity except SCUBA diving.
  
  What can't it do?  Obviously, not SCUBA.  It doesn't have a countdown timer or bezel (which dive watches do), a surprisingly useful feature if you deal with time limitations such as parking meters or food in the oven.  While the nightlight works well, an analog watch with glow-in-the-dark hands seems more handy to me.  However, I can live with it.
  
  You could argue that you can't wear it on dressy occasions, but I really don't care that much.  Jeez, the President of the United States used to wear a Timex digital watch.  Get over it.

Yeah, that's the 42nd President of the United States.
If he can greet Nelson Mandela with an Ironman watch,
you can wear a cheap Casio to a client meeting.

• Truthfully, lots of digital watches could do the job of this little Casio.  I don't have much experience with other brands, but I have never had any complaints about Casio.  For instance, they sell a similar model called the F-91W, which I've seen for well under $10 (not today, though).  Aside from its sinister reputation, it's pretty much the same thing as the F-105, but with a 50M water resistance rating.  It's probably suitable for pool use and it's cheap enough that you could simply buy a new one if it did leak.  Nevertheless, I like the added assurance of the 100 M rating.
  
  Your mileage may vary, of course.

As always, what cheap products do you know that are worth buying?  Please share!

A New Direction

So after writing pretty random things on this blog for the past two months, I've finally figured out what I want to discuss on the Cheap Razor Experiment blog: cheap stuff actually worth buying.

I'll update it when I have a new product to write about.  Better yet, I'd like my readers (both of you) to contribute ideas for products to write about.

Here's the brief: we'll discuss products that punch above their weight.

By that definition, I mean products that do the work of something that costs a multiple (let's start with 2x) as much either nearly or entirely as well.  Obviously, this category has fuzzy, very subjective boundaries.  I hate to quote Potter Stewart, but I think I'll know it when I see it.

What I'm not looking for is "best in class" or "as good as the best but 20% cheaper."  If it isn't a great product at a substantially cheaper price, I'm not interested.  Play the Kinks' song "Low Budget" over and over again until you get it.

God knows we all buy cheap stuff now and again.  However, these cheap things sometimes turn out to cost more than a more expensive product--you may need to buy twice or pay good money for something you only use once.  I'll try to avoid those products as well.

I owe a debt of gratitude to two sites for this idea.  Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools site uses reviews from consumers of products they like.  In fact, you can't get their newsletter without submitting a review.  Also, Lifehacker frequently features good, inexpensive products.  I'll try to stray away from Cool Tools'  tendency to highlight very specialized tools.  Similarly, I'll avoid Lifehacker's MacGyver tendencies.  However, I can't say that I won't tread paths they've already cleared from time to time.

I'll try to hew to a consistent format for the blog, including fields for:

• What it replaces
• Cost differential
• Where you can buy it (if it's not a mass-market item)
• Why I (or if you want to write, you) like it/brief review

Feel free to email me or leave a comment if you want to suggest a product or write something yourself. I'm happy to share credit.

Owing to the original purpose of this blog, I'd like to start with:

Schick Quattro Disposable Razor

• Replaces: Pretty much every other razor you can buy, but only if you use the simplest trick in the world.  After shaving, rinse the blade and wipe it dry on your towel.  That's it.

• Cost differential: 5x vs. Gillette or Schick cartridge razors.  And up.

• Available: pretty much everywhere.  Amazon has it for what amount to less than $2 per razor.

• Why I like it: As I said, if you rinse and dry your razor, you can use this blade for a long, long time.  I'm approaching 30 shaves over 2 months and haven't noticed any harshness.  In truth, the rinse/dry trick works with any multiblade razor.  However, I've noticed that after a few weeks, the head of a cartridge razor such as the Gillette Mach 3 will simply keep popping off.  The one-piece disposable doesn't have that problem.
  
  Considering that Amazon sells the Fusion for just under $10, disposables might actually make a lot of sense...as long as you don't actually dispose of them.  The value equation gets radical when you realize that you'll have to replace the cartridges on a Fusion more often than you'll need to buy a new disposable.
  
  I should say that I haven't tested every kind of razor, but I have been shaving for 25 years or so, so I feel I know what works.  Would a Gillette disposable work just as well?  Probably.  Does the Fusion have the same weak joint problem as the Mach 3?  Don't know, but I don't see how it would help Gillette/P&G to fix that problem.

If you have a different experience with razors, please share.  Also, as I said, I'm happy to take suggestions or reviews from others.  Let me know!