Why is it that cycling is getting so expensive

john-e-big-guns
Posts: 489
Esp; Tyres...I get through a set each year and cannot belive I have to pay over £50 for a set and thats with a good discount..even drinks bottles
I'm up for a new set of wheels and have a budget of £350-£400 and having looked at a few sets around this price and TBH they all look p**** poor quality finish i.e. hubs/spokes
I have over the years spent a few 1,000 on equipment,frames,wheels all good quality and its lasted but things are out of date in 12mths
Are we just paying for next years techology[through the nose or through our pocket]all the time
I'm up for a new set of wheels and have a budget of £350-£400 and having looked at a few sets around this price and TBH they all look p**** poor quality finish i.e. hubs/spokes
I have over the years spent a few 1,000 on equipment,frames,wheels all good quality and its lasted but things are out of date in 12mths
Are we just paying for next years techology[through the nose or through our pocket]all the time
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Exchange rates. Things are more expensive to import now.0
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Never paid for drinks bottles.0
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johnfinch wrote:Exchange rates. Things are more expensive to import now.
More like 'Rip Off Britain'0 -
To say we're supposed to be in deflation cycling goods have gone the other way big style.
To me there seems to be several options.
A) Buy lower end stuff.Win the lottery or some other-such random bit of good fortune.
C) Become so good at racing some sponser chucks great stuff at you for nowt but hard work.
D) Take up conkers, that's dead cheap. Only need a conker,bootlace, armoured gloves, upper body kevlar protection, some spectral toughened glass safety goggles and a tin hat. :?About £300 all in.
Tail end Charlie
The above post may contain traces of sarcasm or/and bullsh*t.0 -
Frank the tank wrote:D) Take up conkers, that's dead cheap. Only need a conker,bootlace, armoured gloves, upper body kevlar protection, some spectral toughened glass safety goggles and a tin hat. :?
About £300 all in.
I use to ride to Newstead from Sutton as a young lad to collect conkers...too much H&S for that game0 -
Exchange rates have been to blame, but the £ is on the up and is expected to continue to strengthen for the rest of the year. Hopefully we'll start to see prices come down a smidge in the next few months.0
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APIII wrote:Exchange rates have been to blame, but the £ is on the up and is expected to continue to strengthen for the rest of the year. Hopefully we'll start to see prices come down a smidge in the next few months.
We won't.
Shops / importers pay for kit upfront at whatever the exchange rate was at the time, so we're probably locked into these prices until the next product year comes around. Also I expect shops will have ordered slightly less this year in expectation demand will be down - i.e. there may be fewer end-of-range bargains
This has been coming for a while as the pound has been over-valued against other currencies with the financial services sector etc. making our economy looking stronger than it really was. The correction has probably been too big, but I don't expect us to go back to £1 buying €1.5 or $2 - so cycle kit is going to be more expensive for a bit0 -
Cycling is in a growth mode, esp.the high end kit and manufacturers are NOT going to lower their prices. They'll charge what the market will bear. If Shimano can sell all the Dura Ace it can make, why is it going to charge less?M.Rushton0
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mrushton wrote:Cycling is in a growth mode, esp.the high end kit and manufacturers are NOT going to lower their prices. They'll charge what the market will bear. If Shimano can sell all the Dura Ace it can make, why is it going to charge less?
Because Japanese companies are suffering more than most. Japan exports as a whole dropped something like 45-50% in the first quarter this year due to the strength of the yen making them uncompetitive. It's the same with camera equipment. Nikon had to increase their prices on lenses by 15-40%, but they have seen a drop in demand as people inevitably buy less. Shimano may sell all they make, but if they have any sense they'll be producing less to match demand.
Anyway as I said, the pound is strengthening. Not to the level we saw 12-18 months ago, but companies with a high rate of turnover should start passing that on this year. I'm thinking of retailers like Wiggle et al, not the lbs where stock may take longer to shift.0 -
There's also an increase in demand for cycling related goods.
It's a cheaper alternative in a recession to driving, it's green, and, apparantly, it's the new golf...Note: the above post is an opinion and not fact. It might be a lie.0 -
Posh Shimano or Campagnolo hubs built with Mavic rims and good swaged spokes, will cost barely more than half your budget. In my judgment they are perfect wheels for anybody. Not long ago, such wheels would have been the envy of the local bikescene; now they are "training wheels"..!
Top quality tyres are commonly available at 10-15 pounds. Unless you particularly want to carry spares with you, there's no compelling reason for folding bead tyres.
They hawk us overpriced gear because we are fool enough to pay for it.0 -
i totally agree about the wheels, a top quality set of maivc open pros on dura ace hubs can be bought for £229 from jf wilson (wilsoncycles.co.uk) they will last years!Carbon fibre, it's all nonsense. Drink beer. Ride a steel bike. Don't be a ponce.0
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I agree. I looked at the same spec bike I bought a couple of years ago and it has gone from circa £500 to circa £600. That is a huge % increase.
Cycling is so expensive partly beacuse there is the demand from some people to buy this ridiculously overpriced stuff. I read somewhere that the average spending power of the cyclist community was higher even than golfers.
Cycling clothing is probably the worst in terms of price, especially as it doesn't last as long as say wheels.
It makes me laugh in general about prices though as they never come down, even when the manufacturers costs go down. A typical one would be the train companies who try and justify price rises in line with inflation. If we see negative infaltion, would they put their prices down...Contador is the Greatest0 -
balthazar wrote:Posh Shimano or Campagnolo hubs built with Mavic rims and good swaged spokes, will cost barely more than half your budget. In my judgment they are perfect wheels for anybody. Not long ago, such wheels would have been the envy of the local bikescene; now they are "training wheels"..!
Top quality tyres are commonly available at 10-15 pounds. Unless you particularly want to carry spares with you, there's no compelling reason for folding bead tyres.
They hawk us overpriced gear because we are fool enough to pay for it.
You try and buy a pair of Campag hubs, only Record on the market these days, Campag do not seem to manufactor hubs anymore..and Campag is what I've run for years
I'm building my own wheels[as I've done in the past] with a good spec0 -
john-e-big-guns wrote:Frank the tank wrote:D) Take up conkers, that's dead cheap. Only need a conker,bootlace, armoured gloves, upper body kevlar protection, some spectral toughened glass safety goggles and a tin hat. :?
About £300 all in.
I use to ride to Newstead from Sutton as a young lad to collect conkers...too much H&S for that game
Are you local to me then mi duck?
I have relatives in Bettshanger (sp) (Kent) It makes Newstead look like Las Vegas.Tail end Charlie
The above post may contain traces of sarcasm or/and bullsh*t.0 -
Cycling is certainly on the up.
Where I work we are already 28% up on last year, and last year was a monster year for us.I think our store will see near to £3 million turnover this year on cycling alone.
Our prices have gone up a bit but not as much as most manufacturers have, this is mainly due to us being in control of all our production.0 -
Frank the tank wrote:john-e-big-guns wrote:Frank the tank wrote:D) Take up conkers, that's dead cheap. Only need a conker,bootlace, armoured gloves, upper body kevlar protection, some spectral toughened glass safety goggles and a tin hat. :?
About £300 all in.
I use to ride to Newstead from Sutton as a young lad to collect conkers...too much H&S for that game
Are you local to me then mi duck?
I have relatives in Bettshanger (sp) (Kent) It makes Newstead look like Las Vegas.
Me too. I used to work in Sutton (Stibbe-Monk) designing knitting machines and was a member of Sutton-in-Ashfield Sailing Club for years.
On cost. Surely, at the top end it can be very expensive but it doesn't need to be as expensive as that. The wheels I built last year cost about £150 (Mavic Pro rims on Shimano 105 hubs with DT ss spokes) and the whole bike cost around £1000.
However I could simply have continued with my 15 year old 653 hand built frame either as it stood or upgraded it a little. Or re-built the re-enamelled 1949 Mercian frame sitting in my loft. Bikes can be made to give perfectly good service almost indefinitely. There's no need (only a desire) to ride the very latest equipment. Most of my longest rides (up to 400km) have been on the old Mercian frame and only my newest machine has the luxury of indexed gears.
GeoffOld cyclists never die; they just fit smaller chainrings ... and pedal faster0 -
I think bikes are a lot better value than they were a while back. I found some old cycling weeklys from the 80s - and the ads in that were similar prices to those today - apart from the silly stuff such as carbon bars etc...0