Cervelo R3

monty_dogcp

I think people are confusing direct material and labour costs and not including the cost of the facility to make it in, the management, rent, electicity for running it as well as all the design, quality, test of sometime certification of a product, which often is 5-10 times the direct costs. If helmets only œ5 to make, how come everyone's not doing it in their shed? - this just displays a complete lack of knowledge about design, manufacture, marketing and distribution. In terms of the Chinese/Taiwanese leading the field in composites - it's only because of western companies making significant investment in order to reduce their only variable costs. When you can can build a big factory without intereference from NIMBYs, planning restrictions environmental campaigners and fill it with people happy to work for 50p/hour, or course it's attractive. The only problem is how do you stop the night-shift making knock-offs and passing the 'trade-secrets' to their mates down the pub. For Colnago, they have a long-term association with ATR who make many of the composites for Ferrari and their experience certainly pre-dates those Johnny-Come-Latelies in Wisconsin, for example.