Ask HN: Share a product you loved using in 2023

And yet, I've been riding the same 100€ bike for 8 years.

This summer, I splurged on the perfect all-rounder for my needs: drop bars, disk brakes, Alfine 11 in-hub gear and belt drive. The difference is night and day. I wish I did it sooner.

I tell everyone who moved to Berlin that a bike is the best investment they can make here. This city and its surroundings are meant to be discovered on a bike.

> The difference is night and day. I wish I did it sooner.

Especially if you're not so hardcore and only occasionally cycle! The difference between a $100 and $1000 bike is HUGE. $1000 to $5000? Not so much.

IMO the sweet spot is getting a lightly-used bike at a professionally managed bike swap sale where professionals and mechanics are actually looking at the bikes being sold, not just rusty things off Craigslist. Often times some rich person will buy way more bike than they need, don't end up using it much, and then letting it go for 3-4x less just to free up space. But to a beginner-intermediate cyclist they are still amazing machines.

There's soooooooo much technology that goes into them, everything from the drivetrain to the materials to the aerodynamics to the brakes... it can make a huge huge difference in comfort, especially over long distance.

Fit is another big thing: adjusting the bike with small tweaks (saddle, handlebars, stems, etc.) can change it from "painful" to "dreamy" depending on ergonomics.

But all in all, a good bike is probably the single best investment I've ever made. Cheaper and way more fun than paying for either a gym membership or a doctor.

When my pressure cooker died, I replaced it with a multi-purpose machine that also included air frying capabilities, and I gave it a try. I was pleased to discover that my prior skepticism was misplaced. It's not perfect for everything, but it heats up fast, and it really shines in a few areas (e.g., making fries, reheating fries/pizza, cooking seasoned chicken, etc).

When I was a kid we didn't have potable water all the time (we had to boil everything that came from the faucet) and it would frequently go out (we'd fill up bathtubs just in case).

More recently, as a young adult I did some trailwork in the woods for a few months. We ran a long length of hose along a river and just used gravity to provide running water and piped it through a slow filtration system. Got maybe a gallon or two a minute, enough to do dishes and wash hands and slowly fill up water bottles, but that's it. No showers or laundry.

It would frequently clog and we'd have to go and figure out why, in the rain or smoke or dead of night. The filtration also wasn't perfect and the entire crew got cryptosporadium and was out for a good week, keeled over in pain one after the other.

Potable running water has probably saved more lives than anything else...