Lifespan of an Exercise Bike

My exercise bike broke down for the second time in as many months. Last time involved replacing an idler pulley--the hardest part about that was tracking down the replacement part on the internet. This time involves a broken-off bolt. To make matters much worse, I broke off a drill bit trying to drill it out. So I'm not sure what my next move will be.

The bike is six years old. My son was suggesting that maybe it was time to replace it. My first reaction was "you've got to be kidding, Seth, we need to have a talk about the consumer disposable culture!" But then I got to thinking...first of all, it was cheap, an incredible bargain. Surprisingly good, but certainly not club-quality.

Then I thought about how much use it has gotten, and what the expected usage is for a consumer exercise bike. In my cynical opinion, the expected usage is "hardly at all". Bike purchased, used a few hours for the first few weeks, intermittently for the next year, collects dust, sold very cheap at garage sale.

I, on the other hand, have ridden it regularly, and quite hard (8-9 on its max scale of 10), for the past 6 years. So you might say that I have ridden it 50% harder than expected, and 3X as frequently as expected. So you could argue that my 6 years of ownership is like 25 years of the average owner. A lifetime and then some, in other words.

All that being said, I am not ready to give up on it.