BIKES the price of!!!!!!!

Just to throw my two penneth into the ring...

I last bought a bike in 2003. Merlin Malt 1 with mixed LX and Deore kit, Marzocchi MX Comp (100mm air-sprung) fork and Deore V-brakes. The bike cost me £420 including upgrading to the Marzocchi fork.

8 years later and I find myself having to replace it (not through choice I hasten to add!). Browsing Merlin's site, the 2011 Malt 1 is listed at £650 but with a 10% online discount bringing it down to £585. It has Deore kit and a 100mm RockShox coil fork (which should be at least equal in performance to the 8-year-old LX and Marzocchi stuff), but now also includes the Deore 595 disc brakes.

Now when I upgraded my old Malt 1 to a Hope M4 front disc brake in 2004, it cost me a grand total of £170 including a replacement disc-compatible front wheel - bringing the total cost of the old bike up to £590. Of course I probably don't actually need to upgrade the new one as the 595 brakes seem to be very highly rated.

Hence I'd say the specs of the 2011 Malt 1 and my upgraded 2003 Malt 1 are pretty closely comparable - and yet despite those 8 years in between the price of the newer bike is actually a fiver less!

I think this is the case with a fair few bikes from various manufacturers - the price may have crept up but the bike is actually better-specced than it's equivalent from 8 years ago. Wish I still had a few MBUK mags from back then to check, but I reckon we'd have struggled to find a decent entry-level hardtail with hydraulic discs all round for under £600.

(Shame they've no Malt 1's left in stock... ah well - good excuse for me to look at the Malt 2 or even the 3 instead!)

Holy thread resurection Batman!

I have to agree that the price hike is justified...

Point 1:

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.

I fully agree and appreciate what you are saying regarding the costing side of the business (employees, research etc...), however, you also have to appreciate this is not a stale market; there are millions more riders these days than 10 years ago which brings more money to the industry.

Point 2:

yeehaamcgee wrote:

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.

Its human nature to be greedy; of course we all want stuff we can't have and if there's a way to get it for free or a lot cheaper, most (not all) will. This also applies to greedy business people; more company profit = more money in their pocket = better car / house / whatever... They are simply not willing to take a hit on profit margins because of their greed, yet most people at the bottom of the chain (potential customers) are being hit harder than ever these last few years with low (if any) salary increases, increasing living costs etc....

Smaller high end brands such as Yeti etc. do not fall into this overall model as they focus solely on production of high end bikes and do not have high volume sales so they do have to pass these manufacturing costs to the buyer.


However, taking both points into account (which is what most people see) you also have to appreciate (as you sort of mentioned) that these advances in technology eventually trickle down the production line to the cheaper product lines. Take the current SLX versus the old LX line and its price has remained fairly constant, yet the product itself has got far better.

Therefore, companies such as Shimano are taking a bit of a hit on the profit margins of their lower cost equipment to keep the prices more constant but are not willing to do so on their higher end ranges which is why their price has appeared to have in some cases almost doubled over recent years.
It seems fair enough to me that the higher end products have a high end price tag to go with it.

The same rules can be said for all technologies.....