
Some folk are just really fond of serious bike porn, enough justification to run a dogma with millenstein tubulars for the sat morn coffee run. It's like a thick gold chain around your neck.
I've mixed it with our more silver haired, Eastern Suburban folk, and some I know are like this.. Hell there a whole group ride based around being the slower guys doing an easy, non hilly ride, but the quality of machines isn't anything to sneeze at

Sure they aren't the quickest around but they are passionate about it. Some volunteer for the Heffron crits and are active memebrs of their respective area CC's.
Generally, the guys who are rude about the whole "Uber bike" bike things are guys who buy the bike for status points and the pose value in Paddington/King Cross after the ride.
Anyway, take your dyed in the wool I-ties. Love a bit of the whole colnago/pinarello/ducati/ferrari thing cos its the pride of the national identity, and that accounts for sales!
Here in aus, aside from the obligatory southern cross sticker or tattoo and holdens..what brands do we have that we'd
truely love to flaunt.
Can't say theres a poster of an MStar or Apollo hanging on my garage wall at home.
On that note I propose a solution - Dick Smith's Aussie Bikes.