wow cool. i was on a bike ride last night with 5 middle ages dudes who are average chubby bozos and they all had 10-20K bikes, and kept asking me if I was 'doing ok' because my bike is only worth 1K. because how could anyone possible ride a bike that isn't uci level?
i have met way more people with very expensive pro level stuff than I do people without, but I live in a very rich city where people buy Rivians R1s and never drive them as a leftist eco crunchy flex. maybe you live in a poor place, where I live folks are buying 10K bikes every other year because they don't want to be caught on an 'old bike' w/o all the latest and greatest upgrades and my bikes are 'retro' because they are more than 5 years old and people are 'concerned' for me because they are so old and I must be financially struggling.