BIKES the price of!!!!!!!

Anonymous

jonnyashworth, quit being a douche, he's talking sense, and deep down, you know it.

CharlieH

Just be thankful your not full time photographers too. In the last 2 years I've seen most of my replacement gear DOUBLE in price!!! A lens I bought for £1000 2 years ago was replaced with a very similar model last year with a rrp of £2000.
This has been blamed on the weak pound against the Japanese Yen and I suspect many of the bike companies would also say the same.
Eg, I bought an Slx crankset 18 months ago for £67, new from a major online retailer. The same retailer now sells the same crankset for £129. If the bike companies have also seen a huge increase in the price of components then it's obvious they would have to increase prices massively, just to make the same profit

clodhoppa74

time to look at build qauility of components and not just brands, really.

you always pay more for brands because fo the work that goes into maintaining it (teams, advertising, sponsorship, r&D etc).

essentially i can have as much fun on my cheapish vulcan that i'm upgrading as things break/wear out as charley can have on his. it's the legs that need the work.

when you're younger and more skint you just want to get out and do something, so entry level is what you get/get given. then, when you really start to earn your own you can blow it on whatever, be it bike or car or drugs or loose women.

i don't think saying that 19 year olds won't get into the sport because of the expense. if you take cars, the citeon saxo was an entry level hot hatch, folk were happy driving that about unti they could afford more expensive cars. it's not like they thought 'well, i can't afford an m3, i'll not drive'.

Fudgie

supersonic wrote:

Yeah, the costs get passed down the line and multiplied as each sector takes it's cut.

Say manufacturer A in Taiwan sees his costs for a bike go from £500 to £600, and he wants 50% profit when selling to the distributor. Distributor now paying £900, not £750! So an extra £50 there. Now the distributor wants 50% profit. He charges the bike shop £1350, not £1125. Now the bike shop wants 50% profit. He charges just under £2000, not £1675 (or whatever). So that 100 quid extra materials cost means we end up paying 300 quid more.

supersonic's excellent inflation example also explains how a £600 product can cost the buyer £2,000. To take it further, there will be a sales tax (VAT) added to the final amount, including all the tranches of profit, bringing the cost up to £2,400. The money to buy that will usually come from taxed income meaning that the buyer will have had to earn £2,880 before tax. Which is something like 200 hours work on the national average wage. So (unavoidably) the government is also taking another two tranches of profit from the final purchase price.

In purchasing my Whyte, I had a less than satisfactory experience for my hard-earned money so I welcome the opportunity to buy direct from the manufacturer. They still get their profit and I don't have to waste any of my precious money (with tax and vat added) to pay middlemen who often do nothing for it.

So, in summary, the manufacturer's profit is fair, as are shipping and delivery costs. Taxes are (generally) unavoidable. But now with Canyon in the market the other demands on one's hard-earned income, when buying a high quality bike, are now optional.

Thewaylander

Fudgie wrote:

supersonic wrote:

Yeah, the costs get passed down the line and multiplied as each sector takes it's cut.

Say manufacturer A in Taiwan sees his costs for a bike go from £500 to £600, and he wants 50% profit when selling to the distributor. Distributor now paying £900, not £750! So an extra £50 there. Now the distributor wants 50% profit. He charges the bike shop £1350, not £1125. Now the bike shop wants 50% profit. He charges just under £2000, not £1675 (or whatever). So that 100 quid extra materials cost means we end up paying 300 quid more.

supersonic's excellent inflation example also explains how a £600 product can cost the buyer £2,000. To take it further, there will be a sales tax (VAT) added to the final amount, including all the tranches of profit, bringing the cost up to £2,400. The money to buy that will usually come from taxed income meaning that the buyer will have had to earn £2,880 before tax. Which is something like 200 hours work on the national average wage. So (unavoidably) the government is also taking another two tranches of profit from the final purchase price.

In purchasing my Whyte, I had a less than satisfactory experience for my hard-earned money so I welcome the opportunity to buy direct from the manufacturer. They still get their profit and I don't have to waste any of my precious money (with tax and vat added) to pay middlemen who often do nothing for it.

So, in summary, the manufacturer's profit is fair, as are shipping and delivery costs. Taxes are (generally) unavoidable. But now with Canyon in the market the other demands on one's hard-earned income, when buying a high quality bike, are now optional.

We Don't pay tax to the middle man, VAT is an end TAX generally the only person who pays it is the end user, the middle man pays it over and reclaims it.

VAT only has an effect at the end of the chain, so Sonics descriptions are more accurate. PS i'm a VAT accounts guy

Fudgie

Thewaylander wrote:

We Don't pay tax to the middle man, VAT is an end TAX generally the only person who pays it is the end user, the middle man pays it over and reclaims it.

VAT only has an effect at the end of the chain, so Sonics descriptions are more accurate. PS i'm a VAT accounts guy

I knew I'd get it wrong somehow - I always do!

But my point about the end buyer having to pay VAT on the total sum - is that right? Despite what the middlemen do with it? So if there weren't a middleman putting the final price up I'd be paying less VAT? I think ...

jonnyashworth

I have always been a big believer in buying second hand bikes but am starting to think twice about this now. I watch ebay pretty closely at a popular range of bikes and what they sell for in the auctions and have been for about 12 months now (always the same bikes). I have noticed that these bikes seem to be steadily fetching more and more... probably due to the time of year and the price of new bikes.

I think if I were in the market for a new bike now I would almost certainly buy a canyon now instead of building my own as they seem to be incredible value (really cant wait to ride one). I am looking forward to seeing how long it takes for a 2011 canyon to come available on ebay and how much it fetches.

GHill

Fudgie wrote:

But my point about the end buyer having to pay VAT on the total sum - is that right? Despite what the middlemen do with it? So if there weren't a middleman putting the final price up I'd be paying less VAT?

Right. Without the middle man the overall price would be lower, so less VAT would be paid.

mac_man

jonnyashworth wrote:

Condascending MUCH?

Thanks for the lesson. What is it you do? Very succesful no doubt! Perhaps you could come and take a look over my buisnes's books and give me some pointers where I could save a bit on tax or overheads?

I remember the Hope article...

Basically they reckoned they could do a bike for less than half the price of a mainstream brand superbike by basically making everything themselves and cutting out the middleman. Pretty much the main thing stopping them is the fact they don't do tubing so can't make frames, bars or seat tubes in-house.

It was they who also made the point that motorbikes contain far more parts than MTBs and that certain niche motorbike brands don't exactly make thousands of the things yet the prices of the finished items are more competitively priced than MTBs, given the amount that goes into them.

Could all be bollox though.... just look at the price of Hope gear generally... hardly budget now is it?

Eyon

Looking at the raw basics though of how much bikes actually cost, it is absurd. I understand where the money goes, with R&D, raw materials, several levels of markup, the ever increasing price of energy and shipping, the machines needed to manufacture, wages, factory teams and the lot, but the actual amount you get for your money is a bit of a joke.

Decent not too expensive not too cheap full susser is now £2500.
Yet you can buy a car for £8000 brand new these days.
A decent motorbike for about £6k.

Value for money, a mountain bike is very very poor. But it is a small market, supply and demand is tiny, and profit margins are higher than the above two industries.

I dont like price increases and I cannot see why they go up so dramatically year on year (I paid £1400 for my Anthem X3 2010 in the sales, the equivalent this year is £900 more), but we are the mugs who pay for it at the end of the day!

Anonymous

Eyon wrote:

Decent not too expensive not too cheap full susser is now £2500.
Yet you can buy a car for £8000 brand new these days.
A decent motorbike for about £6k.

a £2.5K full susser will be near the top of the range. an £8K car won't be.

You can pick up a full suss bike for under a grand and some really good ones for £1K.

njee20

You can pick one up for £150, it'll work, in the same was an £8k car will.

If you want to pootle from A-B it'll be fine, if you want to start doing more serious riding, or start doing track days and ragging around the Nurburgring in your Kia Heepakrap it won't last!

Anonymous

The Kia Heepacrap is actually a decent little car

Thewaylander

Fudgie wrote:

Thewaylander wrote:

We Don't pay tax to the middle man, VAT is an end TAX generally the only person who pays it is the end user, the middle man pays it over and reclaims it.

VAT only has an effect at the end of the chain, so Sonics descriptions are more accurate. PS i'm a VAT accounts guy

I knew I'd get it wrong somehow - I always do!

But my point about the end buyer having to pay VAT on the total sum - is that right? Despite what the middlemen do with it? So if there weren't a middleman putting the final price up I'd be paying less VAT? I think ...

A company registers for VAT generally and then we can reclaim all VAT we paid, and we are responsable the collection of VAT for HMRC.

Net effect of VAT for a business is basically 0 bar some tcash flow timing issues. It's only end users that actually pay VAT - cosumers

njee20

The Kia Heepacrap is actually a decent little car

Agreed, almost as good as the Ssang Yong Pylashite!

Back OT, I'm in the 'bikes were kept artificially cheap for a long time' camp. In 1999 an XTR chainset/BB was £325, the first HT2 one in 2003 was £320, in 2007 it was £240, and that was retail - what else actually dropped 20% in that period? The fact they're now £400ish is par for the course, same goes on bikes.

Doesn't make it any harder to swallow mind.

supersonic

There does seem to be light at the end of the tunnel - well, with Shimano parts at least as the new 2012 XT looks to be cheaper than the previous effort.

njee20

And it has stabilised. I think it was the fact everything leapt up so quickly that made it hard to swallow. I remember about 5 successive Madison brochures having huge increases, whilst Europe seemed (and still seems) to have less 'knee-jerk' price changes.

supersonic

If we think about it, the price of some bikes in 2007 was amazing when you look at what you were actually getting. The GT Avalanche 2.0: hydroformed alu frame, damped adjustable sus fork, hydro brakes, Shimano Alivio drivetrain, and quality finishing kit. £399 rrp! Less than a mid range Fox fork!

njee20

Definitely, I had a 2007 Fuel Ex 9.0 - full carbon frame, Float TALAS RL fork, X.0/XT throughout, Juicy Carbons and tubeless wheels for £2500. The OCLV frames are now £3k!

SDK2007

I think 2008 bikes were the last to not increase in price on the previous year.

I bought a 2008 Spesh Enduro SL Pro Carbon for £2700, a year later it went up £700 for the same bike.

jonnyashworth

So in conclusion............ Bikes are bloody expencieve (at the moment) and probably wont get cheaper as the market strives to advance technologically.

But hats off to Canyon for bringing direct bikes to the fore and doing a great job of it.

Changing the subject a little is there any more word on whats happening with superstars bikes? any press release dates? etcetc

neil_sheehan2000

Don't know if anyone has mentioned this already (I'll admit I got a bit bored and skipped a couple of pages), but YT Industries are another German brand who seem to offer really quite good looking bikes for the price:

http://www.yt-industries.com/shop/index ... rie&cat=21

jonnyashworth

No your the first. Just been having a goon look at the wicked 150 all mountain bike and it looks decidedly like a zesty with a bloody good spec for 1600 euros.

nozzac

So anyone know how UK bike prices compare to Europe and the USA?

The Spiderman

The price rises of the last few years have made me think less about upgrades and actually getting down to the business of just riding and enjoying my bikes.

My mtb hasnt had any upgradeds for 2 years,because I can`t justify the minimal performance benefit versus the cost these days.So instead I just ride the bugger!

Anonymous

Went through the components on my GT i-drive and worked out it's hard to spec it to under £1k. The frame itself must have been dirt cheap and little mark up on it. Whilst not expensive components, they weren't crap budget components either. Basically best they could get for the price.

Quite shocking considering it's Halfords who did it at the time. One thing big chains are good at, even if their staff are monkeys.

NozzaC wrote:

So anyone know how UK bike prices compare to Europe and the USA?

Mainly just in taxes, that's all. Though they're big on cheap deals. Saw some good price Trek stuff in outlet stores that were perhaps £500 cheaper than UK.

Problem was working out the import costs and potential VAT & duty hit would wipe it out. When I was out there thought of bringing one back. Would have had to invest in a bag/box to do it, pay a fortune for the luggage (now sports equipment is largely extra cost now on most airlines), and make it look a bit used to avoid HMRC kicking up a fuss at Heathrow (along with trying to convince them I'd bought it in the UK and taken it out on holiday), and thus avoid VAT/duty.

Growmac

I did the calculations on bringing a Trek EX7 back for my gf. Once you did it legally (I travel a lot and can't afford HMRC to have a problem with me) it only worked out about £100 cheaper than buying in the UK. (20% VAT, 14% import duty, £200 to bring it on the plane).

Canyon was about £700 cheaper, better specced in places, legal, easy, and well reviewed, so we went that route instead. Sorted.

njee20

A lot of brands aren't cheaper in the US any more - it used to be 1:1 dollar:pound prices, an S-Works Epic is now £6000/$9500, so pretty well the same!

Shaggy_Dog

Toasty wrote:

Bring on more companies like Canyon! Fantastic work

Yes and no, people like us (forum dwellers, people who know a fair bit about bikes, etc) can really benefit by buying direct as we can probably do most maintenance at home and know exactly what we want.

HOWEVER, the vast majority of people buying bikes know two tenths of f*ck all about bikes, how to maintain them and what to buy and need the service of a good bike shop.

People always baulk at how much my bike costs "you can buy a car for that" is the usual response, well, I don't want a car, I want a bike and I want a good one and I'm prepared to pay good money for it if it rides exactly the way I want it to and (in days gone past when I didn't work in a bike shop) I get good service from the people I buy it from.

android125

I paid a small fortune for my Merida and Ive had it for 6 months now and I love it. Im glad I paid that much because Ive got a beautiful piece of kit that goes well and puts a smile on my face. I know i could have bought a car for the same money but it would have been some crappy 2nd hand thing that somebody else didnt want.

You get what you pay for.
I did