Firstly, I find that even spending £350 will only get a "budget" bike, an
attitude I quite frankly find absurd and pretentious - especially
considering
how many years of pleasure I had from my £109 BIKE bike. Any amount is a
budget,
and I think, quite honestly, I'll stick with rest of the population and
consider
anything over £250 an 'expensive' bike, and anything over £500 as
'specialised'
(or "nut-job" as someone I mentioned the existence of £1000+ bike to,
refered to
them).

I've had friends with that opinion. When they've tried the nicer stuff
though (bearing in mind my most expensive solo bike is still only 800 quid),
they've said "Oh yes, it is nicer, isn't it!".

Possibly my bikes are 'specialised', in that they're actually ridden almost
every day - something which doesn't happen to the majority of bikes sold.
Obviously this description doesn't apply to the readers of this fine
newsgroup, but we are in a minority.

Now you can get bikes from 200 quid up which suit this purpose (you could
probably force a 40 quid bike into doing this - but it'll be very tedious) -
however you do still get something for your money well into your
'specialised' territory.

cheers,
clive