Any Other Expensive Hobbies?

[chris gifford]

I dont own a leica, but I saw this thread and could not resist. I do

bicycle racing, once I buy the inital bike i dont need much other stuff, yeah right! My most expensive clothes that I have ever bought ($90us for a Jersey and $120 for shorts) are for the bike and they dont even look good when i wear them out for the evening. Not to mention you want to get another bike/ helmet/ shoes/ trainer/ bar/ gel/ cyclo computer, its like a lense or camera body in photography, if I get the latest and greatest I surely will take better pictures or win the next race. But in reallity its not the equipments fault for losing the race or taking bad pictures. The other thing that makes bicycle racing so expensive is there is not alot of return if you decide to sell something for an upgrade.

[andy_piper2]

Used to fly small planes - may take it up again once the Leicas are paid for.

 

Frankly, the cost (although not insignificant) is easier to handle than the time investment.

 

But $100 per hour 'wet' rental flying once a week, you can easily rack up the cost of a whole Leica system every year.

[andrew_buzzell]

Does drinking count?

[adrian douglas]

Hell, you guys should try living in Japan, it's the most expensive hobby of all. Drive to the beach, it's 3 miles, costs you both time and money, sometimes 2 hrs and them about US$10 just to park the car for an hour. If you want to go further afield say to the mountains to go snowboarding then your looking at around US$250 for tolls, another 200 for gas, 30 odd for parking for the day, 60 for a lift ticket, which you lose if you go out of bounds, and then a bit more for food. I'm sure you would have to pay for just walking out the door if the government and the companies could work out a way to track 125 000 000 million people.

 

On the plus side used camera gear is plentiful and pretty cheap, except Leicas of course.

[themaz]

The most expensive hobby I have is target shooting - especially since I use a .458 Magnum that hits REALLY hard in the both the wallet and the shoulder. Reloading the shells cuts the wallet part a lot but does nothing for the shoulder damage.

 

Photography used to be expensive until I dusted off the film tank and got a good film scanner. Now it's dirt cheap, especially since I have a couple of good Nikons and lenses and don't need to add anything to the kit except a good super-wide lens.

 

Video gaming is pretty costly too. Keeping the old P.C. updated to run the latest games and get good performance is a constant and is expensive. Gigabytes of RAM and SCSI drives are expensive, even if you are in the business and get them wholesale!

 

By far the most expensive hobby I ever had was boating. Purchasing a boat, then gassing it up, maintaining it, keeping the cooler full, and finally having to junk it because of a shore power failure letting too much water build up in the bilge was just too much for me. I'll do it again someday - AFTER making a few million bucks.