Is mountain biking now a rich man's/woman's sport?

I mean, a starter bike for £600 (that can be ridden hard’ish and won’t konk out) then the gear and tackle on top. It’s not exactly helping to increase the popularity is it?
Who do you blame?
My first GT was £279 20 years ago….that’ll be the inflation then? Or are manufacturers aiming for the affluent entrant to the world of MTB and ignoring the frugal newbie, because they will buy second hand?
It just seems a dear sport from what it used to be.
(Says all this after visiting a Lapierre dealer last week and wanting a carbon spicy…dream on) 🙄

I bought my wife a new full suspension giant yukon for £400 last year. It’s about the same weight and better spec than the rift zone I bought in 96(?) for £1300.

A guy passed me on the Dyfi riding the exact same bike as the wife’s. I reckon he came top 30%.

I can’t see anything to complain about.

yes thread closed.

I think pound for pound it’s cheaper than it was 20 years ago when you take inflation and disposable income into account. The top end has always been expensive, but you can get a good bike for well under £500 with a bit of shopping about.

Not at all, why only last weekend my butler and gamekeeper were admiring my bike and expressed a desire to “have a go” as they put it.

It’s not the cheapest thing in the world to get a OK bike but £ per smile it’s good value and apart from a few parts now and then it’s free.

Also it’s a leveller the best kit does not equate to the best rider. Rich people I know prefer golf to getting covered in mud in the woods.

I think the lower end is no less affordable than it was 10, 15 years and the bikes are miles better. But the top end carbon bikes from brands like Trek, Specialized etc, they’re stratospheric. You could get a custom steel hardtail and have change for a Pitch.

Polo, yachting etc are rich mens sports, not riding a bike.

Like any sport theirs your cheap side and the expensive side. Been on both sides, now tend to be somewhere in the middle.

Yes it is and thank God, all the poors can stick to their football and what have you, and leave us nice middle and upper-middle class people to enjoy the countryside. Mountain biking is perfect for getting away from the be-tracksuited plebians we all have to encounter in daily life. If anything I want it to get even more expensive, the higher the barriers to entry the better.

Nope, you can have fun on a £300 bike, an average person’s weekly take-home pay. In ’97 my GT Karakorum was £600 – rigid forks, 7 speed. Cycling is cheap if you want it to be, and it can be done almost anywhere; there’s no need to join a club or travel to take part.
It’s a very democratic sport.

Are you being all ironic RJ, or just a git?

mountain biking is only as expensive as you make it. As a kid I used to love dicing around in the woods on my raleigh sabre, saving up my pocket money to buy anodised blue cantilever brakes (to match my Tranz X riser bars), like wise I used to play football every night with my mates, in the road. kicking anything that would roll (tennis balls were popular)

Mountain bikes can be silly expensive, but so can footballs/boots/kit/going to matches. I appreciate its not in the same league price wise but it needn’t be expensive for the sake of it. One of the best riders I know rides a bike that cost £450 5 years ago. If you’ve got the money then spend it, but you don’t need to to ride.

Until it got nicked, I was still having fun on the bike I bought for £525 6 years ago, which was reduced to £400 not long after I bought it.

Most people I know who ride have ‘normal’ jobs, earning ‘normal’ wages.

In 1987 my mate bought a brand new fresh off the boat Hard Rock for 400 quid from York Cycleworks. Pauper spec an all. Today, same bike with discs and decent entry level groupset: 450 quid. Anyone know what the inflation rate has been overall over the last 23 years?

Its only expensive if you bow to the dirty world of everyone telling you what you should have. You are considered out of date, not with it, way behind if you don’t have a phone with 200 pointless apps, one of which tells you when to breath.

The truth is, you can spend £300 on a bike and still have loads of fun. Then you get into it buy a magazine, and they tell you you need to spend at least £700 to get a lighter bike. Then you look down and wonder where your feet are and come to the conclusion that 3lbs off your bike is not really worth £400.

Fortunately there are muppets out there who have loads of money and little sense and what to shave 3grammes off a stem for £100 – their old stem goes on ebay which is now full of good equipment at a low price.

It takes all sorts.

randomjeremy, £1825 to watch 11 millionaires you’ve never met kick a ball around a field several weekends a year.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1300279/Ipswich-Town-expensive-season-ticket-Manchester-United-Liverpool.html
You could buy a bike for that.

I suspect it’s just like golf or fishing etc – kids can do it for next to nothing, as could anyone. However middle class tossers like, um, me get to spend loads on it and then have less fun too as we compare ourselves and our stuff to everybody else

No,

A good mountainbike is a luxury item but it is by no means a rich mans sport. I would have thought your average guy in the street could take up biking if they really wanted to. They may have to give up other luxuries (like having the latest phone, a sky subscription, football season ticket, drinks down the local 2 nights a week etc.) but I think they could do it. Especially if they then cycled instead of driving. Most of my bikes and trips are funded through not needing to own a second car.

Cars- now there’s something that’s really expensive.

I think as per the above, we all tend to live in the world of top end bikes and kit. I got back into mountain biking about 18 months ago on a second hand trek 6700 from ebay. A bit of shopping about and I’m now sat on a Giant Anthem X1, full XT, Revelations and hope hoops. I’ve spent about £1400 in total (including the first bike). To put that into context, I bought an Orange Clockwork frame in 1995 for £300 from Stiff cycles, I was earning about £10/week then for a paper round! For me I’m on cheaper kit now than then and damn it’s better!

Couple of years ago I bought a second hand Hardrock for £140 – had to spend another £30-40 on bits to get it working smoothly, but most people could afford that with fairly minimal hardship. I rode that bike on pretty much all the same stuff I ride now on my Pitch, and had a great time (until it got nicked).

My mate follows Glasgow Rangers every home and away game also to Europe he reckons he’s £4000 p/a for the privillage I don’t spend anywhere near that on biking and I’m out 3 times p/w

Cycling isn’t a rich mans sport at all.

It’s when you get into it, like with any other sport, that it gets expensive.

But yes, to get the decent kit now, you have to spend the dollar. Cycling isn’t cheap any more!

Look at other outdoor sports, a kayak, diving kit, climbing rack, surfing kit, hang glider etc etc
It’s all expensive!

My first mountain bike was a £240(?) Peugeot Tim Gould “replica”. It weighed 38lb. I had loads of fun on it, and I’m still enjoying razzing around in the woods on bikes 18 years later.

It did its job, and I’d imagine a similar amount of money would get you a better bike now, especially if you bother correcting for inflation.

So no.

Anto 164 – Thats the point – someone tells you what is considered decent and you go and buy it. Its shocking that the decent stuff costs loads of money.

However, what is meant by decent? I am fairly sure that if people out there downgraded their carbon bar to an Easton 30 bog standard bar, they are not going to die in a horrible fireball at the bottom of a mountain.

It is a decent bit of kit, fairly light and mine has always managed to move the wheel in the direction I want and it fits grips on it and everything. But somehow I should feel inadequate because I didn’t spend enough money! Shame on me.

Good on you for not getting caught up in it all. I am, I can’t help it. I’m a tart.

I got 6 months riding fun out of a £300 CLAUD BUTTLER and that was day in day out use guiding and instructing novices on the same bikes. All the bikes including the one id been smashing around are still fully functional if a bit tatty.

Its less of a rich mans sport more of a everyman sport that has got carried away so far up its niche arse its comical.

I dont think going to go football matches really is a fair comparision 5 a side fee would be more reasonable.

I pay £2.50 twice a week to play 5-a-side every now and then I’ll get to play in an 11 a side is more expensive.

It all adds up though if the your only expense MTBing is the bike and you cycle from home. In some ways it can be quite cheap after the inital outlay.

Mind what I write above might be the equivalent of doing races etc which are more expensive I suppose the football equivalent is just turning up down the park which is free!

It’s a hobby for most of us and it keeps us fit. Other people play golf, pay expensive memberships to fancy keep-fit places and whatever!! I spend what I think could be to some people too much money on bikes because I like them/riding them, but that is all I do for hobbies/fitness stuff!
Each to their own then! 😉

backhander

You tart.

You are not the only one, I was having a spot of lunch at Rutland Water once after scooting round on my second hand ‘dale F500 and I overheard this chap talking to his mate about how his front forks are now carbon shaving a couple hundred grammes off his previous forks. His mate looked in awe.

I couldn’t help notice that this blokes hyper expensive saddle failed to properly support his ludicrously fat arse. He must have weighed 17stones at least and here he was jabbering on about saving grammes off his front fork.

Like I said, it takes all sorts.

If it is, I need to have a SERIOUS chat with my bank!

Guilty as charged but I’m only 14 stone with a reasonable waistline so it could be worse 😀

Hmm I’m having a tough month of it and its starting to feel a bit pricey. Its just bad luck but my used once FS bargain bike has just blown the shocks at both ends in 2 weeks. The forks I might have done myself but the rear shock

I think getting a good durable, reliable sub £500 pound bike is harder than it was

But the thing that nw one here has talked about is your kit relative to other peoples. Yes entry level bikes are amazing in many ways but in the mags and on the trail you see alot of expensive kit and that changes perceptions of what you need. On here its common to talk not just about one posh bike but several. “I’ve the Ti 29 er for the flat stuff and a five for gnarr looking fore something in betwwen now”

I use to Windurf and I remember reading that the tech is now cheaper and more versatile than ever. One board 2 sails will do loads of stuff, more than 3 sails or even 4 just a few years ago…

But if the people on the same lake have 6 brilliant sails and 3 brilliant boards they are almost always better off than the guy with less kit.

I think 2 things sort of killed it for me. One was using expensive higher kit and realising I could sail much better with it. The other was asking the guy who blasted past my every week, as he had the right board and sail, how much he spent on kit. He said over £3000 every year.

So Windurfing has great entry level kit but is now less popluar than it was in the 1970s by a huge margin

So yes I think that Mountain biking and even road cycling breaking free of recreational cycling to become a small elite bubble

Rock climbing is loads cheaper at the top end

If you spent £1000 ish would probably buy you everything you need such that you could climb every weekend for the next 2 or 3 years any where in Europe and never ever be able to say that you needed better kit or that if you spent more you could have got up a harder route. From thee on you’d only be topping up the odd rope. Ropes aren’t much more than shock builds

You can reduce your climbing expenses if your partner and you each have one rope

But Forks at £900+ Lottery winners sport now!

£900 for fork? Yes, is too far!
Cars! £2000 to £1000000?
Extremes in everything then! 😯

No, I buy a bike every ten years (on my 3rd). Last bike cost about £3k, and will probably cost £500 per year to keep rolling. So annualised cost £800.

Compares favourably to a season ticket or a golf club membership, or hanging out in a pub for your leisure.

The collecting of bikes that goes on round here is a bit obscene, and will skew the replies this thread gets. It’s a rich mans sport if you buy bikes and don’t use them because of internet forum addiction. Mind you, that’s consumerism and a social issue, not mountain biking.

No its not a rich man’s sport. As many have said an entry level bike £300 is so much better than it was 10-20 years ago. You can ride the mountains and have as much fun as anyone on a £4-500 hardtail.

I bought my first new mountainbike in my life last year. I’ve been riding since 1990 and never had new. I’ve scrimped and saved and got by and most importantly had fun.

Now? Now as in it’s just happened??? If so, then no…it’s been a rich man’s sport for the last 10 years and then some…bike companies are creaming themselves at how much money they can make from stuff…mainly because the MTBing population are daft enough to pay for it…yes, it’s almost always been a rich person’s sport…

I don’t think it is entirely. As said above, what you get at the bottom end for the same nominal sum of c£400 is waaay better than what we were getting 15 years ago.
Sometimes it feels like I’m spending loads on bike kit but if I wasn;t spending it on bikes I’d probably be driving a more expensive car, going on a pricer holiday, buying more clothes etc.