Are Mountain Bikes Too Expensive?

With some of the carbon frames such as the ibis mojo sl and santa cruz blur lt setting you back £2200-£2300, and a set of forks around £650, it certainly seems that way 😥

They aren’t unaffordable, If they were, they wouldn’t sell, and they’d be going out of business, and that isn’t happening as far as I know.

Are they expensive? Yes.

if it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad……..

I believe some mountain bike frames are available in materials other than carbon? Steel perhaps? can anyone confirm this?

surely the question is…

do uk mountain bikers spend more on bikes than is necessary.. when comparing bikes on the start line of euro regional national dh and xc events compared to similar in the uk I would say yes

MisterGnar:

I believe some mountain bike frames are available in materials other than carbon? Steel perhaps? can anyone confirm this?

I have heard rumours, but thought it was just the mutterings of mad men.

there are cheaper models available

Only if you choose to pay full whack for the latest dream machine every 5 minutes…..

A 3 grand bike isn’t 3 times as good as a 1 grand bike, and as I found out this year a £1000 bike that does what you want can be better than a £2700 bike that doesn’t….

Bikes will be a lot more expensive come June/July/August. Grab a bargain now while you can.

just don’t buy expensive ones!

Just moaning because I don’t think I can really justify those prices
Probably keep my bike of the last 8 years rather than pay for what I believe would be a worthwhile upgrade
And yes I realise that if the market decides on a price then by definition that price is considered the right price 🙂

what are you riding now? just buy a good bike in the region of 1000-1500, something from spesh, giant, trek, etc, yes it’ll be common but they are all great bikes these days.

going to try the zesty, and if I like it buy the cheapest one

“PeterPoddy – Member
Only if you choose to pay full whack for the latest dream machine every 5 minutes…..

A 3 grand bike isn’t 3 times as good as a 1 grand bike, and as I found out this year a £1000 bike that does what you want can be better than a £2700 bike that doesn’t….”

[South Park] Pitch love Mr Garrison……[end South Park]

i bought a £400 bike recently and it is as much fun as my £2k susser.
horses for courses n all that….

I think! 🙂

Cheers Pete. I should have known someone would crop up with something like that!!
😆

Bikes themselves aren’t that expensive to produce but hype and marketing is.

#
garlic – Member

Bikes themselves aren’t that expensive to produce but hype and marketing is.
Posted 1 minute ago # Report-Post

Go hug a tree hippy 😉

Just as bikes aren’t really fun, the riding is, and you can do that on anything from a few hundred pounds up.

Why are you moaning? So you can’t afford some super-whizzy carbon superbike. So? I can’t, but I’m not moaning on a forum about it. Top-end bikes have ALWAYS been expensive, but too expensive? Compared to what? A top-end set of golf clubs? A hang-glider? A motor bike? If I had the money I’d buy a £7250 Scott full-susser and think nothing of it, but I haven’t so I’ll carry on enjoying my lovely 853 Inbred SS and my Inbred 567, both of which probably came to half what the Scott costs but I’m not losing sleep over it.

CountZero 😆

Funny, I just posted about my Rock Lobster 853. I bought the frame with a Reba Team fork for £400, last summer. Bargainacious!

I spose proper decent bikes are ‘spensive’, compared with other things, but what about ‘value for money’? I’d say spending £2k on a nice bike is a hell of a lot better investment, and value for money, than buying an iPhone, or whatever.

When I worked in bike shops, I wanted all the top of the range stuff, and could get it a lot cheaper than most people. Now, I have the bikes I need, and don’t really want another one. Ittud be nice to have a full susser, but I can live without it. Had I some disposable right now, I’d actually buy some nice clothes, as I jolly well have not done that in a while. Sod bikes.

Good bikes have never been cheaper, in relative terms.

Well, maybe a year ago, but you can get a good FS trail bike or a great hardtail for a grand.

If entry level frames were over £2k and basic forks £650, I might be able to agree.

You know what really bugs me? The price of Lamborghinis. I don’t actually need 0 – 60 in 3.9 seconds and a 600bhp V10, a golf would suffice for my needs but **** it, those bloody supercars expensive.

I suggest building up a bike from parts. Maybe start off with a good 2nd hand frame then add a mix of new and used parts. This way you spend up into the £2-3k but you don’t really notice your are spending it 😉

They are cheaper than having a girlfriend!

They are cheaper than having a girlfriend

No they’re not.

But then I only go for cheap girls

I think more of an issue is the relative cost of an OK starter bike. With disc brakes an suspension forks becoming sort of standard entry bike are 500 and over. Thats more of a threat to the furure of the sport

I’m speccing out a couple of custom builds at the moment & my impression is that prices have definitely risen since I last did this (in 2005). The really painful ones are shimano components, and in particular, the price of forks seems to have gone through the roof. A couple of grand on a top of the line frame is about swallow-able, but to pay almost half that on a set of forks is a tough one to swallow, particularly when all we seem to hear about these days is how unreliable forks appear to be. Oh well, good job I’m working overtime as I’m typing this (and the rest of the BH weekend)…I’ll need the money 🙂

Everything eklse is slowing down or going down but mtb kit seems to be rising faster than ever. I know the yen etc is supposedly driving this but whilst people are prepared to pay the daft prices they won’t come down. Deore chainring gone fro 8 to 13 quid in the last couple of months. 5:10 shoes gone from 55 to 75 quid in the last year. Pure profiteering I say. Good job Aldi do it different 🙂

I think you get a lot more mountain bike for your money than a road bike.

A 3K for a MTB will get you a very nice full suss or a uber smart hard tail, technology wise and build wise how can a road bike cost so much?

Roadbikes cost a fair bit too but glad I don’t have to service the dam forks on those.

My rebas need doing soon. Every 21 hrs? good thing bike companies don’t make car bits/-Change your shocks every 2k…

It’s odd that you can spend far more on a road bike than you can on an MTB when a £3000 off the shelf road bike will be illegal for racing as it’ll be too light!

I don’t think they’re too expensive, prices haven’t risen for a long time, sadly it all came in one hit this year, which made it rather harder to stomach!

A good friend of mine as just spunked £8500 on a pretty bog standard motor-cycle, another has a kit car build going that again isn’t anything like top spec, and that’s going on £12K already.

My missus loves the fact that I cycle…

Generally, they all make about the same percentage markup from trade to retail prices. There’ve been a few brands that make silly money due to clever marketing, but in general if something’s too expensive, other brands will undercut it. But it’s still a shock to see that some Shimano prices have doubled! What gets me is that some kit seems not to last so long these days. I’ve just worn out an XT cassette, and in the past Deore or LX versions used to last years longer. If they want to sell me another they’re gonna have to prove the top end stuff is gonna last a lot longer as well as being slightly lighter.

Roadbikes are silly money, but last waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay longer than mountain bikes.

If you don’t crash. Easier to wash too…