is that a bit harsh Trevor? I think Rowan's newly restoring it so not yet riding it. probably just watching the $$ leaving his wallet with understandable disbelief. all questions are valid
A bit blunt perhaps but the math still remains the same .
The cost per year of service is what is important unless you are trying to do the impossible, refurbish & sell old bikes at a profit.
Shocks, tyres, chains, sprockets, spark plugs , oil all service items that need replacing periodically.
And penny pinching on them is the sort of thing that is likely to get you seriously injured.
I sent out a mandate to all our machine examiners that a crack in a sidewall deep enough to see the chords is an instant fail.
And you should have heard all the screaming.
If a side wall has cracked that deep then you are not riding enough and the tyre will be too hard to ride on safely.
Shocks that are worn allow the swing arm to twist and again make the bike unpredictable at best and downright dangerous at worst.
This applies 3 fold if you are doing up an old bike.
Why jepordise the $ 1000 tank job or $ 600 wheel job let alone yourself for the sake of £ 80 extra on the shocks.
On top of that , none of us are getting any younger so we also risk spine damage, bowel damage from one way damping.
Been a long while since I owned a new bike but the car makers still recommend new shocks with every 2nd set of tyres and if bike riders changed them when they started to go bad as distinct from waiting for them to fail completely then the new Hagons would only be £ 100 and probably real Girlings would still be manufactured.
From memory ( always dangeruos ) I used to change shocks when I did sprockets which was on the 3rd chain because I ran 3 chains concurrently ( 5 on the SR but that was a work bike ) .
OTOH have been riding rigids for quite some time now so shocks are somewhat of a moot point.