Is the 2012 Orange Five SE a rip off at £4600?

hoodlum-z

Compare an Orange Five SE at £4600 to a Whyte 146 X at £5000 and the Orange looks incredibly steep considering the Whyte is Carbon and has two-grand wheels!

The Orange frame set is only £1400 with shock, so if the floats are roughly £700 that makes £2100 for frame, shock and forks. Are you seriously telling me that the rest of the parts add up to £2500?

You usually save money buying a fully-built bike instead of buying the parts on their own, but it seems to me that you could buy the parts seperately and it should come in under the ridiculous price that Orange is asking.

Rip-off Britain, eh?

The Whyte on the other hand looks an absolute bargain. Yes, I know that it is hard to call a five grand bike a bargain, but when it's competitors are 7-grand plus it genuinely is.

And I'm not dissing Orange as a brand, or how they ride, because they have a loyal following and get rave reviews. Just that they don't appeal from a value perspective. Also, their guarantee is rubbish. People go on about how reliable they are - so why not give a lifetime warranty? 3 years on a full-suspension bike simply isn't good enough. The Orange Five SE looks an awesome bike and I'd love it in my collection, but...

Maybe with lower prices and a better guarantee I'd be more inclined to support Orange. Until they improve, I'll stick with my Cannondale and if I find five grand laid about I'll splash it on a Whyte.

paul.skibum

If you look back about a week there was a long rambling thread on Orange and VFM - find it, copy and paste all responses to this. Thanks.

MountainMonster

I love it when people just rant for the sake of ranting. Don't like it, don't buy it. No point slandering a company because you don't feel the bike meets your exact price needs.

tom_howard

Balls, im at work, so no comfy chair, beer, or popcorn

Have fun kids. Play nice.

cooldad

hoodlum-z wrote:

Blah blah blah

Yes.

Northwind

Course it is, though I eagerly await the arrival of the fanbois to say otherwise

Mountainmonster- what's slanderous?

MountainMonster

Calling their bikes a rip-off, saying the guarantee is rubbish because some companies offer a life-time are both slandering.

Basically your just whinging for the sake of whinging.

Dobbs

Forks = £700
Frame = £1400
Rest of stuff (priced on CRC) = £2100
Total = £4200
So, yes it is overpriced in the way that you could buy all of the parts cheaper and build it yourself. To many it is still worth the price tag but it is disappointing from Orange IMO.
Personally, I'd save the £400 and build it myself (or have a shop do it for £100) and the 5 is still well priced as a frame only option.
EDIT; the upgrades are a complete and utter rip off.

supersonic

Many bikes this year are very expensive, and with a quite a few options is better going frame only and building up.

I still thinks frames are expensive though! When you can get a whole bike like this:

http://paulscycles.co.uk/products.php?plid=m1b2s1p1504

For 600 hundred quid (and this is a superb frame), then you can see that the prices for new stuff at the minute is just madness.

bails87

MountainMonster wrote:

Calling their bikes a rip-off, saying the guarantee is rubbish because some companies offer a life-time are both slandering.

Basically your just whinging for the sake of whinging.

Slander is a malicious falsehood, apparently, neither of those things are malicious falsehoods. So it's not slander.

t0pc4t

furthermore slander is verbal, in print it would be libel

agg25

I'd rather build up a sweet ass Yeti Sb-66 for that monies

lostboysaint

The fanbois queue up for the new Five SE.

Northwind

MountainMonster wrote:

Calling their bikes a rip-off, saying the guarantee is rubbish because some companies offer a life-time are both slandering.

They really aren't. Ironically enough, deceitfully accusing someone of slander is slanderous (or libellous, though I'm not sure this counts as "in print") but stating the bleeding obvious is allowed.

Usually when people slag off the value of the Five it's compared to the competition, and that's more a matter of opinion. In this case it's overpriced compared to the Five! Which is genius really, if they manage to sell any, which they probably will.

cooldad

SE means you can charge more, legally. It stands for 'Stoopid Eejit'.

MountainMonster

Hmm, if you guys say so. I should probably stop drinking in the day, it appears I say some dumb shit.

Anonymous

Rip-off Britain would apply if the prices are massively overcharged here compared to some other country (usually US), though generally factoring in VAT and duty it's not such a rip off. Or rather it's the gov who rip us off.

A rip-off in general just based on it's a high price to pay is down to whether people are prepared to pay it and think they are getting value and/or quality for the money.

With bikes, it's down to the frame value, guarantee & service, as the components are generally fixed values. Sure you could just consider a frame a frame and think a £1k frame is better value than a £2k frame because it's £1k cheaper. It may be, or it may be the expensive one is better quality, different geometry, different ride, different use, or whatever.

Depends what you are prepared to pay though. People continue to pay insane amounts of money for houses and you could argue they are a rip off. Likewise people buy BMWs at stupid prices when a Fiat Panda would do, and if all you want is a car to get from A to B, the BMW is a rip off.

Though if the components are being sold for more than the off the shelf price then you have to wonder, but the same happens with cars.

Of course I'm justifying here my impending spending stupid money on a particular bike, which some would say is a rip off, but I don't care, so my point of view is skewed.


Oh, and in the car world, often SE or LE is often a crap car they are trying to offload to mugs, sometimes with some gay name attached to it.

supersonic

It does depend how much you want to pay, but just look at Canyon bikes. Or any from Germany really. They are much better value than what we are paying here.

BMW vs Panda, sure, but the Teocali is probably a better frame than the Orange;-)

Richie63

£4500 gets a lot of build it yourself bike. Have some fun and go down this route. Some real quality kit out there if your want to shop around.

The Northern Monkey

hoodlum-z wrote:

Is the 2012 Orange Five SE a rip off at £4600?

yes.

Brocklanders023

Anyone spot a troll :roll:

Why not just post on the other Orange bashing thread instead of starting a new one? Not getting drawn back in to this endless loop

cooldad

There can never be enough Orange bashing threads.
Should always be at least one on the go.

Time to start another flats vs SPD I think.

hoodlum-z

Guys, some of your comments are dead funny. And I'm not being sarcastic there!

Why am I whinging for the sake of whinging? If I am then the person who said that is just whinging for the sake of whinging at a whinger who is whinging! So you are just as sad as me if not sader!

Everyone loves a good whinge. That is why you are whinging at me.

For the record, I'm not an Orange basher. Rather someone who is disappointed in Orange for not offering better value. Maybe their hands are tied rather than they're just greedy Yorkshire men or Lancashire men or wherever they're from.

The Orange Five SE looks nice, probably rides nice, but it is a blatant rip off. That isn't a reason for Orange lovers to get mad at me. Get mad at Orange for ripping you off!

And I also noticed another Orange rant on another website, but just because someone has spoken about something does that mean you can't ever speak about the same thing again?

Imagine. Football? No, don't you dare talk about that, it has already been spoken about seventy trillion times. Didn't you know, fool? And bikes... don't get me started!!! They're now up to 60 quad-zillion in the Universe of conversation.

The best piece of advice is to build your own Orange. Whoever said that high 5. Yes, CRC is the best option for your parts with a splash of Merlin and the other cheap companies that do good deals. Wiggle not included or Evans cos they are both RIP offs too. Well, from what I've seen of their prices. CRC are always cheaper.

Maybe I am a daft whinger who talks rubbish, but you don't have to take any notice if you are that superior, eh, lads?

I might be daft but this is logic. If you buy online always go for the cheapest. But if you are buying for convenience, then perhaps you have to pay a few quid extra for the privilege of getting something instantly from your LBS. The premium is in the convenience factor, so plan ahead and buy online and spend the premium on beer, bingo or birds. Or birds + beer + bingo all at the same time.

By the way, thanks for some of the replies because they did make me laugh. Cheers.

*AL*

hoodlum-z wrote:

I am a daft whinger who talks rubbish

This.

allen.coulson

bails87 wrote:

MountainMonster wrote:

Calling their bikes a rip-off, saying the guarantee is rubbish because some companies offer a life-time are both slandering.

Basically your just whinging for the sake of whinging.

Slander is a malicious falsehood, apparently, neither of those things are malicious falsehoods. So it's not slander.

Agreed on the slander (libel actually). This is a forum it is about opinion and hopefully Orange will read it. Are they going to take the op to court and argue the value Proposition ? No chance.

Brocklanders023

Have not done the sums but sure you lot are right. Not all cheap online gear is good though. I had a bad experiance with some forks that were listed as 'brand new'.

Anyway, I'm an Orange fanboy and have been since 1990 so unlikely to change. Would I spend £4600 on a 5 SE (or any other bike)? Probably not. If I had about £2800 to spend on a bike what would I get? 5 Pro every day of the week.

Richie63

Brocklanders023 wrote:

Have not done the sums but sure you lot are right. Not all cheap online gear is good though. I had a bad experiance with some forks that were listed as 'brand new'.

Anyway, I'm an Orange fanboy and have been since 1990 so unlikely to change. Would I spend £4600 on a 5 SE (or any other bike)? Probably not. If I had about £2800 to spend on a bike what would I get? 5 Pro every day of the week.

Everyday of the week ....................don't last long do they

Brocklanders023

Eeeeerrrr, yes. Had a couple of 5's since 2006 and never had a single problem with the bits Orange made (inc bearings, bushes, frames etc). The Shimano or Fox gear though.. That's another thread. :roll:

cooldad

Brocklanders023 wrote:

Eeeeerrrr, yes. I don't have a sense of humour. :roll:

Brocklanders023

Ah, right, much like the Patriot thread this is were any pro Orange comment is classed as 'biting' where as any anti Orange comment is 'clever', 'fact' or 'cool'. How long before someone jumps up and tells me I'm an idiot for not buying a German mail order bike I can't test, buy or even look at? :roll:

cooldad

That is a fair point.
It's just a tradition though - lime string liver and oranges.