How does a road bike cost 10k...

King_Pin_Rich
King_Pin_Rich Posts: 111
edited July 2016 in Road general
As the title says. What on earth goes into a road bike to warrant a 10k price tag! I was just casually looking at bikes online after the watching the TDF and saw some fancy Cervelo for 10k!
Bird AM Zero (On Order :D )
Canyon Nerve AM 7.0 (stolen :evil: )
Cube Road SL
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Comments

  • markhewitt1978
    markhewitt1978 Posts: 7,614
    10k what? Spuds, lettuces?
  • fenix
    fenix Posts: 5,437
    I'm sure people would look at your Cube and ask how a bike can cost £500 or whatever...
  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 27,346
    How can a car cost £1 million?
    How can a house cost £10 million?
    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
    I am not sure. You have no chance.
    Veronese68 wrote:
    PB is the most sensible person on here.
  • slowmart
    slowmart Posts: 4,516
    @OP high end/specification parts are expensive up front to develop and then manufacture which means that manufacturers want/need to recover their upfront costs and so a relatively high price point is set, taking into account the cost, perceived value by the user and price point comparison to the competition. This holds across a wheel to a frame set. The technology then trickles down to the mainstream and more cost constrained public.

    Add in the cost of marketing and sponsorship and then you've got a monster to feed in terms of revenue and business/cash cycles.

    And just because the list price is £10k doesn't mean most people pay list...
    “Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to cycle and he will realize fishing is stupid and boring”

    Desmond Tutu
  • mrb123
    mrb123 Posts: 4,821
    You can probably pay that for a handbag.
  • 86inch
    86inch Posts: 161
    MrB123 wrote:
    You can probably pay that for a handbag.

    Only £10K, i think you should treat MrsB123 to one of these... :-)

    http://www.hardlyeverwornit.com/item/74891/hermes-sellier-kelly-28cm-in-feu-orange?gclid=Cj0KEQjwte27BRCM6vjIidHvnKQBEiQAC4MzrVK-T1zKfn44wfYyJPPW7Mg5VJoUvqVTIylz5tmX41waAsWY8P8HAQ
  • singleton
    singleton Posts: 2,523
    Its all about diminishing returns and using more expensive materials to reduce weight etc.

    I bet you can spend a lot more than 10k on a road bike.
  • King_Pin_Rich
    King_Pin_Rich Posts: 111
    I can kinda see where the money goes in say a 5K full suspension bike where there are lots of mechanical items, but road bikes seem simple in comparison, I mean jeez how much are a set of top end rim brakes these days..
    Bird AM Zero (On Order :D )
    Canyon Nerve AM 7.0 (stolen :evil: )
    Cube Road SL
  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 27,346
    £500. Roughly. http://www.tredz.co.uk/.TRP-R970SL-Road ... wod5EcJfQ#
    Add on some cables for £44 and that is more than most would pay for a complete bike.
    http://www.wiggle.co.uk/nokon-nokon-uni ... 60534350uk
    Spending money is easy. :P
    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
    I am not sure. You have no chance.
    Veronese68 wrote:
    PB is the most sensible person on here.
  • rickeverett
    rickeverett Posts: 988
    Usually.... because they can. I.e. paying for a pretty name in a frame..

    Other times... silly over detailed research costs.


    End of the day. Bike of the year was a £1500 aluminium Cadd12.. up against a £10k Bianchi .

    If you can afford 10k on a road bike.. fine but is it 7 times as good?.. no.
  • 964cup
    964cup Posts: 1,362
    Let's build a Cervelo RCa:

    Frameset £6,500
    Crank THM Clavicula M3 SRM £2,495
    Bearings for above £100 (118€)
    SRAM eTap gear kit £1,180
    Enve SES aero bars £360
    Enve stem £229
    Enve seatpost £240
    THM Carbones Fibula brakes £971 (1146€)
    SRAM XG1190 cassette £223
    SRAM Red 22 chain £38
    AXLightness Leaf Plus saddle £260
    Lightweight Meilenstein Obermayer tubular wheels £4,199
    Vittoria Corsa G+ tubular tyres £166
    Nokon brake cable kit £60
    Lizard Skins DSP bar tape £30
    Speedplay Zero Nano pedals £600
    Velox 14 tubular tape £15
    Tune Wassertraeger bottle cages £76 (90€)

    That's £17,742; so your £10k bike is a bargain.

    (I'm cheating slightly - those are list prices - but it's an easy £15k all day long).
  • mrb123
    mrb123 Posts: 4,821
    86inch wrote:
    MrB123 wrote:
    You can probably pay that for a handbag.

    Only £10K, i think you should treat MrsB123 to one of these... :-)

    http://www.hardlyeverwornit.com/item/74891/hermes-sellier-kelly-28cm-in-feu-orange?gclid=Cj0KEQjwte27BRCM6vjIidHvnKQBEiQAC4MzrVK-T1zKfn44wfYyJPPW7Mg5VJoUvqVTIylz5tmX41waAsWY8P8HAQ

    Don't give her any ideas!
  • bristolpete
    bristolpete Posts: 2,255
    A friend bought an R5ca for £7k all in, with super record, enve etc as the bike shop needed to move it as listed at £14K gathering dust. A veritable bargain, but still a lot of dosh.

    I saw an meme the other day, a suzuki motorbike, £9k, a Madone 9, £9k. Who is robbing who ?
  • sheffsimon
    sheffsimon Posts: 1,282
    bristolpete wrote:
    A friend bought an R5ca for £7k all in, with super record, enve etc as the bike shop needed to move it as listed at £14K gathering dust. A veritable bargain, but still a lot of dosh.

    I saw an meme the other day, a suzuki motorbike, £9k, a Madone 9, £9k. Who is robbing who ?

    Nobody is robbing anybody. We're all grown-ups with responsibility for our own decisions.
  • King_Pin_Rich
    King_Pin_Rich Posts: 111
    edited July 2016
    964Cup wrote:
    Let's build a Cervelo RCa:

    Frameset £6,500
    Crank THM Clavicula M3 SRM £2,495
    Bearings for above £100 (118€)
    SRAM eTap gear kit £1,180
    Enve SES aero bars £360
    Enve stem £229
    Enve seatpost £240
    THM Carbones Fibula brakes £971 (1146€)
    SRAM XG1190 cassette £223
    SRAM Red 22 chain £38
    AXLightness Leaf Plus saddle £260
    Lightweight Meilenstein Obermayer tubular wheels £4,199
    Vittoria Corsa G+ tubular tyres £166
    Nokon brake cable kit £60
    Lizard Skins DSP bar tape £30
    Speedplay Zero Nano pedals £600
    Velox 14 tubular tape £15
    Tune Wassertraeger bottle cages £76 (90€)

    That's £17,742; so your £10k bike is a bargain.

    (I'm cheating slightly - those are list prices - but it's an easy £15k all day long).

    £76 for a bottle cage :shock:

    Wait, you forgot the £150 bottle!
    Bird AM Zero (On Order :D )
    Canyon Nerve AM 7.0 (stolen :evil: )
    Cube Road SL
  • haydenm
    haydenm Posts: 2,997
    King_Pin_Rich wrote:
    I can kinda see where the money goes in say a 5K full suspension bike where there are lots of mechanical items, but road bikes seem simple in comparison, I mean jeez how much are a set of top end rim brakes these days..

    Well same, but you can spend £10k on a mountain bike too. Road bikes might be 'mechanically' more simple but once you get to that level of testing and R&D the cost of actually bits and pieces is less of the proportion of the overall cost. The same is true for component technology which filters down to lower end products along the line, hence why any mountain bike worth £600 has hydraulic disc brakes which are far better than the brakes of a world cup DH bike from 15 years ago
  • CiB
    CiB Posts: 6,098
    964Cup wrote:
    Let's build a Cervelo RCa:

    Frameset £6,500
    ...
    Tune Wassertraeger bottle cages £76 (90€)

    That's £17,742; so your £10k bike is a bargain.

    (I'm cheating slightly - those are list prices - but it's an easy £15k all day long).
    Cyclist magazine did this a few issues ago, building the most expensive bike possible from off the shelf components. Came out at about £30k iirc.

    It's about recouping R&D costs, the inflated costs of low volumes at the top end of the market, and exclusivity - people with a lot of money are happy to pay a lot of money for that. Look at Lord Sir Alan Sugar and his 'nice' bikes. ;)
  • drlodge
    drlodge Posts: 4,826
    Its mainly frame and wheels that push the price up, unless you also spend on bespoke components. A made to measure carbon frame is ££££s. Both my Rourke and Massive Attack are nominal £5k bikes. A custom Massive Attack SL frame & forks is £3450 then add some for a really nice paint job...then add some really nice wheels and a good groupset etc and that's the thick end of £10k...and this frame is actually quite reasonable for custom geo. Parlee are £££s more.
    WyndyMilla Massive Attack | Rourke 953 | Condor Italia 531 Pro | Boardman CX Pro | DT Swiss RR440 Tubeless Wheels
    Find me on Strava
  • markhewitt1978
    markhewitt1978 Posts: 7,614
    It depends what you consider important. IME bikes keep getting massively better up to £1,000ish and then still a lot better up to about £2,500; then after that the differences are marginal at best, even up to £17k.

    Talking road bikes; obviously you may have a different idea of cost or think that cost doesn't apply at all.
  • mrfpb
    mrfpb Posts: 4,569
    Because the customer is paying for the free bikes supplied to professional teams in addition to the bike they take home.
  • arthur_scrimshaw
    arthur_scrimshaw Posts: 2,596
    King_Pin_Rich wrote:
    As the title says. What on earth goes into a road bike to warrant a 10k price tag! I was just casually looking at bikes online after the watching the TDF and saw some fancy Cervelo for 10k!

    What goes into a bike is only a part of it's final price tag, it's mostly because some people are prepared to pay that amount.

    Market forces innit?
  • nickbotfield
    nickbotfield Posts: 68
    964Cup wrote:
    Let's build a Cervelo RCa:

    Frameset £6,500
    Crank THM Clavicula M3 SRM £2,495
    Bearings for above £100 (118€)
    SRAM eTap gear kit £1,180
    Enve SES aero bars £360
    Enve stem £229
    Enve seatpost £240
    THM Carbones Fibula brakes £971 (1146€)
    SRAM XG1190 cassette £223
    SRAM Red 22 chain £38
    AXLightness Leaf Plus saddle £260
    Lightweight Meilenstein Obermayer tubular wheels £4,199
    Vittoria Corsa G+ tubular tyres £166
    Nokon brake cable kit £60
    Lizard Skins DSP bar tape £30
    Speedplay Zero Nano pedals £600
    Velox 14 tubular tape £15
    Tune Wassertraeger bottle cages £76 (90€)

    That's £17,742; so your £10k bike is a bargain.

    (I'm cheating slightly - those are list prices - but it's an easy £15k all day long).
    That bar tape is bloody lovely - worth it!
  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 27,346
    Are people really taking this thread seriously?
    Really?
    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
    I am not sure. You have no chance.
    Veronese68 wrote:
    PB is the most sensible person on here.
  • haydenm
    haydenm Posts: 2,997
    He was clearly baiting in his second comment I quoted but I was hoping someone might bite on my disc brake comment...
  • keef66
    keef66 Posts: 13,123
    We live in a (mainly) free market economy. Things are only worth whatever people are prepared to pay for them. Anyone interested in making a profit will charge as much as they think they can get away with. Sales volumes will influence profit margins / retail prices, as will the need to recoup R&D costs.
  • Man Of Lard
    Man Of Lard Posts: 903
    keef66 wrote:
    We live in a (mainly) free market economy. Things are only worth whatever people are prepared to pay for them. Anyone interested in making a profit will charge as much as they think they can get away with. Sales volumes will influence profit margins / retail prices, as will the need to recoup R&D costs.

    Personally, I was forced* to buy my bike. There was no free will about it. It was a bargain though.

    *ok - that's a bit of a fib
  • keef66
    keef66 Posts: 13,123
    Man Of Lard wrote:
    keef66 wrote:
    We live in a (mainly) free market economy. Things are only worth whatever people are prepared to pay for them. Anyone interested in making a profit will charge as much as they think they can get away with. Sales volumes will influence profit margins / retail prices, as will the need to recoup R&D costs.

    Personally, I was forced* to buy my bike. There was no free will about it. It was a bargain though.

    *ok - that's a bit of a fib

    As far as I'm aware HMRC are the only people who can force you to hand over cash. Did you buy the bike from them??
  • amrushton
    amrushton Posts: 1,312
    A colleague asked why Swiss Stop brake pads cost practically the same as the pads for the discs on his BMW1200 motorbike!
  • Man Of Lard
    Man Of Lard Posts: 903
    keef66 wrote:

    As far as I'm aware HMRC are the only people who can force you to hand over cash. Did you buy the bike from them??
    The Yorkshire is strong in this one :mrgreen:

    Bike shops can make £ spontaneously leap from most people's (at least most people here) bank account into the shop's account
  • bristolpete
    bristolpete Posts: 2,255
    All very vailid, but having worked in the industry, the real shock arrives when you see how much this stuff really costs and the staggering margin/profit involved from £500 bikes through to top end frames. Mind blowing actually.

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