BIKES the price of!!!!!!!

jonnyashworth

this thread is obviously a knock on from a certain tyer thread. But before I go into a massive rant about the price of bikies and their comparable weight to to 4X4's and how the cost of these two machines isn't proportionate based on theis comparisson I mean My hilux weighs 2000kg yet my anthem is about 11 so realistically that means .......er........um.........carry the three....... YEAH why doesnt my bike cost £121 when new????? THATS OUTRAGEOUS!!!!!!!

Okay on a slightly more serious note someone did point out in the TYERS thread that
"I think it's because the pursuit is largely 20-40 year old guys who have jobs and "spare" cash to lavish on their hobby. The marketing guys and magazines etc are is constantly pushing the small technical advances convincing people they need The Best"
NozzaC

This goes for everything in this industry, and the biggest outlay is generally on our bikes. So surely there must be scope to make them cheaper (superstar I hope your listening if your going to make bikes now). A huge proportion of the cost of bikes is in the R&D and changing the manufacturing process so surely if a company was to roll out a bike that had exactly the same frame for about 4-6 years instead of 12 months the price would plummet??? giant did it with the anthems in 09-10 and there bikes never suffered from the price hikes that many others did.

I'm not saying I dont want advances just that it would be nice if manufacturers offered a no frills (but still quality) line.

Im sure if the 08 fuel ex frame was still being made and available with half descent components for £750-£850 there would be alot of them about on the trails!

Okay rant over
If I carry the wood would you be good enough to bring the nails to my crusifiction?

toasty

Slightly ranty, but completely agree :P When mid range full sussers are sat at £2.5k, its getting obscene and seems to be going up drastically faster than everything else.

2008 Zesty 314 - £1599
2009 Zesty 314 - £1899 +19%
2010 Zesty 314 - £2150 +13%
2011 Zesty 314 - £2399 +11% (by now we're £100 more than a 2009 514)

The problem is actually worse than it appears here too, the groupset has pretty much dropped a full rung over those 4 years.

Overall inflation in the UK is floating at around 4-5%. Genuinely can't think of anything similar, prices are almost due to double after 6 years.

It's getting tough getting new people into the sport when they'll need to spend £500 to get anything entry level, when this figure used to be nearer £300 a few years back.

Bring on more companies like Canyon! Fantastic work

Greer_

schweiz

Toasty wrote:

Slightly ranty, but completely agree :P When mid range full sussers are sat at £2.5k, its getting obscene and seems to be going up drastically faster than everything else.

2008 Zesty 314 - £1599
2009 Zesty 314 - £1899 +19%
2010 Zesty 314 - £2150 +13%
2011 Zesty 314 - £2399 +11% (by now we're £100 more than a 2009 514)

The problem is actually worse than it appears here too, the groupset has pretty much dropped a full rung over those 4 years.

Overall inflation in the UK is floating at around 4-5%. Genuinely can't think of anything similar, prices are almost due to double after 6 years.

It's getting tough getting new people into the sport when they'll need to spend £500 to get anything entry level, when this figure used to be nearer £300 a few years back.

Bring on more companies like Canyon! Fantastic work

The weak pound hasn't helped...although the strong CHF is making my purchases in the UK cheaper than ever!!

KieranHardman

If you think that is bad, try buying a bike in Switzerland.

Here there is a €700 difference in whether you buy Specialized Stumpjumper FSR here from a Specialized concept store or if you buy the same bike from the Munich Concept store some 200 miles away.

2 year old ex-demo Lapierre Zesty 714s sell for £3600 and brand new are nearly £4.5k!

To top it off, Canyon are not allowed to ship to Switzerland due to copywrite infringements and bike companies themselves are telling stores not to ship out of their own countries...

toasty

schweiz wrote:

The weak pound hasn't helped...although the strong CHF is making my purchases in the UK cheaper than ever!!

Indeed, I completely agree, I'm not saying the companies are ripping people off. Just that it's a shame really and it's going to cripple newcomers to the sport in the long run. I'd have had a few work colleagues joining in were decent starter bikes still £300 I'd imagine.

I started playing squash recently on a side note, full carbon racket, made out of funky nanotube carbon, £21. Yet a handlebar, made out of the same stuff, with no cover/strings etc, £100.

jonnyashworth

Looking at the info on the zesty prices above if a 314 was selling for £1599 in 2008 surely if they put a basic block colour on the bike and kept everything the same or even went for a mid range slx groupset and sold the bike direct only "build it yourself" option this would mean the R&D cost would have been swallowed up in 2008 when the bike was new, the production line wouldnt have had to have been broken down and re jigged for all the frame changes and there would be no retailer profets to hike the price. Even with inflation, surely witrh all these overheads being taken away they could sell the bike for £1250 (probably less just look at canyons buisness model and their bike prices and they must be spending a fortune on magazine brybing cough er I mean advertising).

toasty

I don't think the R&D budget is as big as people expect really, put a fat axle and tapered headtube on is pretty much the same recipe as every other manufacturer at the moment, aside from that it's not hugely changed. The real R&D is done by riders claiming on the warranty, so they can see which bit needs toughening up.

The big hit is definitely the cost of components and frame production going up, due to the economy change. I bought an XT chainset from Merlin back in 2008 for £90 looking at my previous orders, they're £150 now. On-One used to sell their Taiwanese made Inbred frames for £99, the new stock are all £170-£200.

schweiz

KieranHardman wrote:

If you think that is bad, try buying a bike in Switzerland.

Here there is a €700 difference in whether you buy Specialized Stumpjumper FSR here from a Specialized concept store or if you buy the same bike from the Munich Concept store some 200 miles away.

2 year old ex-demo Lapierre Zesty 714s sell for £3600 and brand new are nearly £4.5k!

To top it off, Canyon are not allowed to ship to Switzerland due to copywrite infringements and bike companies themselves are telling stores not to ship out of their own countries...

Prices in Switzerland are always going to be higher. The minimum wage is about CHF 3300/month, given that is based on 13 months pay a year, that's nearly £32,000 a year for stacking shelves in a supermarket!! My LBS charges CHF 90 (£67) per hour for labour! We pay for the higher wages through higher prices, but in turn we are all paid more!! Currently, difference in the €/CHF or £/CHF price is exaggerated by the weakening of the € in the last 12 months. Bikes currently in the shops were ordered more than 12 months ago at a fixed price by the importer so that will set the retail price today, not the curent exchange rate.

I bought my Cube MTB a few years ago and the LBS I bought it from price matched CRC, so if you don't like the price in Switzerland, ask for discount or buy abroad.

I do agree however that having a crappy brand called Canyon in Switzerland already, which stops the import of German Canyon bikes, is a PITA!

I also agree that ex-demo prices are crazy though. 10-20% discount for a used bike!!

sniper68

2008 Enduro Expert-£1999
2011 Enduro Expert-£3399
It will only stop if we stop buying them

toasty

...just...need....one....more...

Anonymous

Toasty wrote:

I don't think the R&D budget is as big as people expect really, put a fat axle and tapered headtube on is pretty much the same recipe as every other manufacturer at the moment, aside from that it's not hugely changed. The real R&D is done by riders claiming on the warranty, so they can see which bit needs toughening up.

Hold your horses. The larger manufacturers will have to prototype a few designs first, which will cost enormously, in terms of tooling and jigs. Once they have the design down, they will then test it for strength, durability etc. That's all research.
Even seeing the effect of changing the tube butting will be costly, as at that stage, it's all very low-volume tooling.

Then, we have to factor in the increasing costs of Taiwan manufacture. It's still cheaper than virtually anywhere else (whilst still offering amazing quality), but as the country gets more and more work, then it gets more expensive - their economy will begin to grow into a western scale one, then the cost savings of manufacturing there won't add up anymore.

toasty

Indeed, we were talking about Lapierre. I didn't say R&D budgets would be nothing, I just doubt there's millions flying around between each year Certainly not enough to give a noticable hike in prices.

The manufacturing price hikes I definitely agree, infact I did in the next sentence.

Anonymous

Toatsy, try this...
Design a bike, then find an engineering firm who can knock up a prototype frame for you to test. Repeat about a dozen times.
It won't be millions, but it'll be far more expensive than most expect.
Now try turning a profit on it, whilst also employing people, and supporting pro athletes. Now try marketing it.
All in a very niche field, where you'd be lucky to sell (for example) about a tenth as many handlebars as somebody like Slazenger (spelling?!?) sell a particular model of squash racket.
And the frame had better be strong enough - the problems due to a broken squash racket = angry customer. Problems due to snapped frame could potentially be a family wanting recompense for their deceased freeriding relative.

schweiz

yeehaamcgee wrote:

Toatsy, try this...
Design a bike, then find an engineering firm who can knock up a prototype frame for you to test. Repeat about a dozen times.
It won't be millions, but it'll be far more expensive than most expect.
Now try turning a profit on it, whilst also employing people, and supporting pro athletes. Now try marketing it.
All in a very niche field, where you'd be lucky to sell (for example) about a tenth as many handlebars as somebody like Slazenger (spelling?!?) sell a particular model of squash racket.
And the frame had better be strong enough - the problems due to a broken squash racket = angry customer. Problems due to snapped frame could potentially be a family wanting recompense for their deceased freeriding relative.

+1

for some reason, I don't often find myself agreeing with yeehaamcgee but....

As an Engineer, a proper Engineer who makes sure aircraft are safe to fly, not an 'Engineer' that comes to replace a circuit board in your washing machine, my internal charge rate is over US$100/hour. That's just for my time which consists of salary, amortised cost of real estate and IT, training, paid leave etc. before tax and before profit. So the external cost of my time is closer to US$200/hour. Then add any materials have been bought and fabricated, jigs and tooling made, more salaries for design engineering, project management, production, sales and marketing, personnel department, accountants, contract lawyers, administration, warehousing staff, quality control. Then add insurance, tax, provision for warranties...I could go on!

The problem is that things are becoming too cheap, we expect more and more for less and less. At some point it will end. Tesco might be able to sell a t-shirt for £2 but think of what is required just to get a plain white t-shirt to a store from growing the cotton plant, spinning, weaving, bleaching, design, manufacture, transport, sales and marketing and probably more that I’ve not even thought about.

Anonymous

True. People just don't see value in anything anymore, and expect to just GET things.
A common one I see is when people are asked about illegally downloading CDs, films, or games, their response is commonly "But I can't afford £14 for a DVD".
How does that justify stealing it exactly? Just save up until you can, then.

Anyway, as a side note. It's worth mentioning that all of the £300 bikes on the market today are better than the £300 saracen i owned in my early teens. And whilst that Saracen did me fine, and was even taken up snowdon, round Coed y Brenin etc, i wouldn't recommend that someone do the same with either an identical, newer version of it today, or with the modern £300 counterpart.
They COULd do, sure. The only reason i did it on that bike is because it was all I could afford at the time.
So, whilst bikes ahve progressively got better, we also expect more from them as long-term riders. We no longer perceive a £300 bike to be the same quality as we did when we were riding similar machines.

cee

yeehaamcgee wrote:

And the frame had better be strong enough - the problems due to a broken squash racket = angry customer. Problems due to snapped frame could potentially be a family wanting recompense for their deceased freeriding relative.

Ahaha...I saw that episode of casualty where the squash racket snapped, and stabbed the fella through through the neck...he died....just saying!

Of course the rest of what you said is more or less on the money.......

Graeme.C

Price fixing doesn't not help........... :shock:

toasty

yeehaamcgee wrote:

It won't be millions

Boom! We agreed :P

I wonder what most people do guess the R&D price would be, would be interesting seeing how the guesses vary. Bike companies all obviously want to give the impression they've spent millions, cover everything in acronyms and make videos with intelligent looking people. It's amazing how many names a 4 bar can have, as I say, tapered head tubes and fat axles are this years amazing design.

thepha5e

by the way, superstar are developing bikes at the moment. saw one at the london bike show, 150mm travel, revelation, nice kit, about £1400 iirc

toasty

Could be interesting, higher than I expected price wise though bizarrely. Given the cost of the Nukeproof Mega recently, similar sort of importing/rebranding type company.

Anonymous

Toasty wrote:

yeehaamcgee wrote:

It won't be millions

Boom! We agreed :P

I wonder what most people do guess the R&D price would be, would be interesting seeing how the guesses vary. Bike companies all obviously want to give the impression they've spent millions, cover everything in acronyms and make videos with intelligent looking people. It's amazing how many names a 4 bar can have, as I say, tapered head tubes and fat axles are this years amazing design.

They also need to hire creative writing staff to come up with bullshite problems for THEIR 4-bar or single pivot to solve, whilst ignoring the fact that all others try the same thing.
Or, in some people's case, pretend their single pivot is NOT actually a single pivot. (Trek, I'm looking at you!)

ddraver

Fair points yeehaa but the interesting part of the OP was that if you just designed one bike and kept it the same (as much as possible given that other companies will upgrade their bits too), You would save on the R&D costs resulting in a bike being sold cheaper over 3-4 years.

Keeping with Trek, how much has, for example, the Trek Fuel EX frame REALLY changed (with the exception of the dropout thingum) over the last 3-4 years when the bike
was GBP1000 less

toasty

As with my reply, I don't think the R&D has much of an impact on that price hike, a small fraction maybe. They upgrade axles and tapered headtubes like everyone else (although earlier than most!), they've got their posh longer shock too.

Anonymous

Like I said, R&D is not the end of the story.
If you want an older bike for very little money, just go out and buy one. There's plenty around.

jonnyashworth

That is precisely what I have done. I bought a 2009 remedy 9, had it powder coated replaced the chain and rear cassette, frame bearings, hub bearings, servising forks as we speak, put a reverb on, a chain guide on and a set of new pads all in it owes me £1600 inc new tyers run tubeless. Okay it has taken a few months but its been worth it, it weighs just obe 29 pounds and I would say the equivilent Lappierre 916 (I only use lapierre because I feel its more akin that the current remedy) is £4750 thats £3000 more. Surely if I can build a bike like that with my basic knowlage for £1600 a major bike company can too and sell it for a reasonable price?? Hell I would put a five year guarantee on my bike and a year on all the components and sell it for £4750 if someone would pay it I suppose!!!

Any takers?

right I'm off to get the wood and the nails now anyone got a hammer? I might struggle with my other hand

Anonymous

Old stock always gets cheaper though. You'd be complaining a lot more if it didn't, I assure you.

jonnyashworth

Off the point!

Anonymous

jonnyashworth wrote:

Off the point!

No, it really isn't. You can buy a brand new, not pre-owned 2009 model bike, for next to nothing. It's preceived value has gone down.
If the bike manufacturers had kept making the exact same bike, then it's perceived value would not have gone down.


On a side note, one of the things that irks me a little is the expectance for people to release a enw product every year, whether or not it's justified. And then if someone doesn't do so, people lament it, saying that their competitor's stuf is more up to date. This is in general, with most things, by the way, not just bikes.
It's as if designing something well in the first place is not such a good thing, as releasing tiny incremental updates each year.

jonnyashworth

I fully expect adiscount on older models but thats not what I'm on about. I think if you could buy say an 09 anthem x2 of 08 zesty 315 of 09 fuel ex8 for arounf a grand not (new) people would but that choice isnt given to them!

Anonymous

jonnyashworth wrote:

I fully expect adiscount on older models but thats not what I'm on about. I think if you could buy say an 09 anthem x2 of 08 zesty 315 of 09 fuel ex8 for arounf a grand not (new) people would but that choice isnt given to them!

Could you spit out the cotton balls and repeat that with a little less spittle? Because I'm not sure what you're trying to say at all anymore.