Bike Prices

Yukon Lad

Do bike prices really reflect the amount of money it costs to make them or the amount of technology that goes into making the parts cos every time i tell someone who doesn't bike that i spend 600 quid on a bike (cheap in biking terms) they are pretty shocked and when i tell them that what is considered as a budget suspension bike is 1 grand and that some XC suspension bikes cost nearly 8 grand they are completley astounded.

Is the price right?

Yukon Lad

noodleman

Not sure really but i know if you added up the parts individually and built the bike yourself it would cost way more than buying it off the peg. Thats what i tell the other half when trying to explain "its a bargain" :?

jadamson

hmm yer its probably because they ride around on there £80 ajnd think its fine for nipping to the shops...do what i did and take your friends with you on there bikes down the local trail and see how they cope.

Yukon Lad

jadamson wrote:

hmm yer its probably because they ride around on there £80 ajnd think its fine for nipping to the shops...do what i did and take your friends with you on there bikes down the local trail and see how they cope.

that would be a laugh (i did it with a mate once and he fell off a fair few times and knacked is bike but the bug bit and in a month he'd gone out and bought a new rockhopper) they say all of the fluid forming and all the work that goes in to the gear to make sure it works is in the hundreds of thousands if not millions but still i'm troubled about wether you get enough bang for your buck

Yukon Lad

grumsta

I do think some bike stuff is a rip off. One example is dot fluid for disc brakes - buy the exact same dot 5.1 fluid from a motorbike shop instead of a bike shop and its about half the price. I was slightly outraged the other day at paying 30 fecking quid for a new brake hose - but I really wanted to get my bike fixed that day so didn't have much choice.

supersonic

I think some bike specific clothes are.

But bikes off the peg are very good, hell you can pick up 9 speed bikes with light alloy frames, hydro discs and damped forks for 400 quid!

johnsav

jadamson wrote:

hmm yer its probably because they ride around on there £80 ajnd think its fine for nipping to the shops...do what i did and take your friends with you on there bikes down the local trail and see how they cope.

so true
my mate got a 90 quid full susser from motorworld ( of all places? ) last year and thought it was the bee's knees - this is until we went for a nice easy 10 mile ride. he couldnt wait to get a "proper" bike after having a go on mine for ten minutes!

Still, we all have to start somewhere i guess.

The Northern Monkey

Yup, bikes are cheaper to buy as a full bike than as parts. However you can spec the parts yourself.

as opposed to starbucks, where it costs £3 for a coffee and £2 for a 4cmx4cm peice of cake. for a fiver i could get cake and coffee to feed a few people in a supermarket.

supersonic

For a fiver I can fill two carrier bags at Aldi lol.

gbrnole

noodleman wrote:

Not sure really but i know if you added up the parts individually and built the bike yourself it would cost way more than buying it off the peg. Thats what i tell the other half when trying to explain "its a bargain" :?

I guess this is true if you look at the rrp prices for the parts. I build all my bikes from frame up and normally save a lot. Must have saved around 1k building my mojo up from shopping around compared to the similar level buiild kit offered.

gbrnole

Just out of interest whats the trade price bike shops pay for bikes as a percentage of rrp?What are the margins?

mats

lets put things in perspective. If you are a golfer you will probably pay up to £100 for a club and (I think) you can have about 14 clubs plus green fees, membership and ridiculous slacks and quite frankly gay ( no offence to gay people ) sweaters, it soon adds up. If you follow soccerball it will cost you £600? for a season ticket and about £50 quid each match day for beer and dry cleaning, plus you will have to buy each new strip that comes out which will be about one every three months at 40 quid a whip. so when you consider the cost of a new bike and the associted gear it's not really that expensive plus you need to consider that cycling is actually good for you and ultimately you will end up a healthier individuall.

p.s. I think golfers are all middle class, Nazi, mysoginistic,tossers.....just thought I would get that off my chest.

Cheers

The Northern Monkey

supersonic wrote:

For a fiver I can fill two carrier bags at Aldi lol.

all about the "under a £1 shop"

Nasi Goreng for 99p...usually £3 in tesco, and it wasn't out of date! we buy loads of stuff from there

Anonymous

i think some stuff is unnecessarily expensive and some folk spend alot more than is necessary on certain bits of kit. its the same as anything in the world, stick a high price on it and some mug will pay for it (seat posts and stems especially :oops: )

for the most part, bikes off the shelf are pretty decent value for money, it would be difficult to build a bike with brand new parts for the same money. the smart moves though is to buy a good frame and then stock it with cheap but good kit from second hand sources.

my mates think mtb riding is ridiculously expensive and to be fair, it is! but in most departments, you get what you pay for.

Anonymous

bigbenj_08 wrote:

Nasi Goreng for 99p...usually £3 in tesco, and it wasn't out of date! we buy loads of stuff from there

how ace is nasi goreng, we have ghurka chefs at work and whenever thay make it, it is amazing,

stu8975

It depends on what prices you mean? retail (what most people pay) and trade (what a shop buys them in for) are 2 very different things...a 1k bike may only cost a shop £550 maybe less. The cheap £100 things you see knocking about from halfords etc will only cost around 35-40 trade price (ive worked in a few shops).

Yukon Lad

suppose when you compare it to other things it isn't that bad but some of the clothing is a bit expensive and some parts are expensive as well, not bothered about paying a lot of money for protection like helmets cos if you do crash then you get a replacement policy but some other clothing is expensive (who buys one pair of shorts for 100 quid). But then theres stuff thats not tooo bad as well like a litre of brake fluid only costs you a tenner compared to a tiny 125ml bottle for a fiver and seeing as you can get DH bars which gee atherton once used and praised when he snapped his for only 13 quid thats pretty good

Yukon Lad