The rising cost of biking….

Is it getting ridiculous? Just looking as Fresh Goods Friday;

Helmet: £140
Winter Boots: £219
Wheels £912
Trail Bike £1399 frame only (most middle range bikes between £2.3 -£3.5k these days).

I look at my current kit, prices from new:

ASR5 Race £2300
Helmet £60
Lake winter boots £70
Wheels £210 pair

And all that was from as soon as 3 or so years ago….

No.

Buy cheaper stuff.

Hope that helps.

Not really a direct comparison,

I don’t think its that bad, I’ve got loads of “budget” kit recently that’s loads better than it ever used to be.

Biking has gone up a lot in recent years, helmets are still available for £40 though. And plenty of wheel sets under £300 too.

It’s not as cheap to get into as it was, it’s up to the individual how expensive it gets though.

Is it getting ridiculous? Just looking as Fresh Goods Friday;

Helmet: £140
Winter Boots: £219
Wheels £912
Trail Bike £1399 frame only (most middle range bikes between £2.3 -£3.5k these days).

I look at my current kit, prices from new:

ASR5 Race £2300
Helmet £60
Lake winter boots £70
Wheels £210 pair

And all that was from as soon as 3 or so years ago….

There were still silly expensive components around 3 years ago, presumably you chose not to buy them then so you can make the same choice now and buy the cheaper alternatives?

Just because some kit is expensive doesn’t mean all kit is expensive, or that the top end stuff is required.

your ASR is still 3 – 4x more than most people spend on their bikes

companies always send their top end kit in for reviews though
so when you buy the affordable lower spec version you can convince yourself its virtualy as a good as the 5star one you saw in the mag

The fact is, people think they need the Enve rims and the xtr group set to be able to actually ride, fueled by the videos churned out by bike companies showing lads doing stunts we want to do in places we want to go to on bikes we wished we owned. Carbon this and that is all unnecessary.

You don’t need any of this – whether it be fashion led or just the latest and greatest. I don’t need £000k’s worth of bikes for me to enjoy riding, I’m happy enough on my old knacker riding in jeans and trainers. Let the idiots buy the expensive stuff…

Don’t be a sheep,

The ceilings have certainly gotten higher that’s for sure. Perhaps the manufacturers realised that some MTB’ers have money to burn and they can exploit them instead of maxing their prices out at a lower level. For everyone else, the middle of the road stuff is amazing.

I think if you’ve been riding long enough to remember what the ‘top of the range’ stuff was like in the 90’s you’ll be very thankful for the stuff that passes as ‘average’ these days.

Aspirational pastime innit dont have to spend much more than 500 quid to dick about in the woods effectively.

Is it this time of the year already?

2009
2010
2011
2012
2013

Unfortunately STW only appear to like expensive gear and thats all they ever review.

Last time I bought the magazine they had an article on lights, in which it said you cant buy lights for less than £100, and if you do you are basically a moron.

The same magazine had wheelsets in starting at £500 !! FFS

Unfotunately cycling is very much the ‘in thing’ of the moment, and people do appear happy to chuck stupid amounts of money at it. Supply and demand isnt it. Theres enough idiots happy to spend £1000’s on stuff currently, so they will keep producing it.

£60 for a helmet? You poseur !

A 20 helmet every ten years or so does me fine! (and thats only because Im fussy about how they look) £8 will buy you a perfectly good helmet made to pass the exact same safety standards

No one is forcing you to buy the latest gash fashionable accessories

The ceilings have certainly gotten higher that’s for sure. Perhaps the manufacturers realised that some MTB’ers have money to burn and they can exploit them instead of maxing their prices out at a lower level. For everyone else, the middle of the road stuff is amazing.

^this

Unfortunately STW only appear to like expensive gear and thats all they ever review.

^some of this

It’s not just STW though. A recent WMB article was comparing full sussers vs hardtails for climbing. 2 full sussers and one hard tail; 3 bikes “worth” the best part of £15,000 between them! Even the hardtail was over £3,000 worth! Daft.

On the flip side, my first helmet – a Spesh one – cost £40 nearly 25 years ago! There’s loads of good value kit out there, it’s just the top end stuff is getting ridiculous. Someone must have money to spend on these Santa Cruz carbon dream machines

some mag out there ought to do a review of bikes they purchased second hand for £500.

i cant afford new stuff and i`m not that badly paid!

It’s just fashion! Some folk want nice blingy stuff but it has nothing to do with biking. It’s like saying ‘going out is really expensive’ D&G jacket £1000 Y-3 trainers 250 etc. There is bikes, kit and clothing to suit almost any budget as in all aspects of life.

I feel sorry for this guy, new wheels in January and they are seemingly already obsolete.

Now that’s how to make mountain biking expensive 😕

they should start doing Top Gear “Star on a reasonably priced bike” segments, where a top xc or downhill star gets to ride the equivalent lap on a mid price bike.
And other segments where 2 or 3 journos get £500 to build a bike from the classifieds then ride a famous 100miler or 12/24 hour race or a bikepacking adventure.
they could then set fire to them/ drop them off cliffs, block up trails etc in hilarious manner.
Would at least show that it is the riders more than the bikes that make cycling fun and that you can have that fun at a pretty reasonable price.

Thanks for that ian ,I could almost hear the collective sigh from all the lurkers ,as they clicked on that link 🙂

It’s not the rising cost of biking ,it’s the rise in some peoples thoughts of what they think they need/must have .

some mag out there ought to do a review of bikes they purchased second hand for £500.

MBR sort of did this a couple of years ago except they did the Top Gear Adventure thing of deliberately buying unsuitable or unsafe bikes and then, when they turned out to be useless, smugly informed readers that cheap bikes were useless and if you wanted to do “proper mountain biking” you needed to spend £££s…

Rising – yes

Disproportionately – no

Back when I started (arround 2000-2003) riding MX-comps were the minimum most people would considder a ‘good’ suspension fork (IMO they’re still a great fork if a little flexy and heavy, but the damping is streats ahead of some modern forks). they were arround £170 from most online shops. I’ve just bought some Marzochi Corsa SL/RC forks new for £270, and there’s plenty of Reba/Revs, etc in similar price range. A 30% price rise in 10 years is under inflation (and the forks are probably better).

FS bikes were £2k+ minimum, I remember the Giant VT being a huge deal in the MTB mags as it was a FS bike, that actualy worked, for £1200. I’d day the £1200 bikes now are certainly as good/comparably specified, and inflation means it’s more like a £1700 bike at least.

Where there has been development is in the super high end, so the markets been distorted. There were very few £3k+ frames on the trail 10 years ago (or £2k back then with inflation). It’s not that the bikes now cost more, it’s just that a more expensive market now exists (or maybe it always did but very few bought into it) in addition to the low/mid range.

some mag out there ought to do a review of bikes they purchased second hand for £500.

Bike (a french mag) did a series of challenges a few years ago, a few of them revolved round cheap bikes. On one of them the journalist had to ride the Mega on a bike bought from the supermarket, changing nothing but the tyres. He finishes around the 200 mark and the bike survived.

forks are **** stupid money

Top end stuff has got expensive.
Like a £1000 set of forks.
But the forks you can get for £300 are amazing compared to a few years ago.

forks are **** stupid money

The price of forks is the main thing that put the brakes on my ‘custom build’. Just couldn’t swallow paying nearly a grand for anything decent when a full bike offers such better value.

I feel sorry for this guy, new wheels in January and they are seemingly already obsolete.

Now that’s how to make mountain biking expensive

Ha Ha I saw that earlier and thought the same thing. I bet people are queuing up to give him £1800 for a second hand set of wheels.

Part of the problem is that our expectations of what we want to ride keep going up and up.

Your gentle blue run at a trial center is what a downhill race course looked like 15 years ago.

Your red run is what a downhill race course looked like 10 years ago.

And now we all want to ride the black run, and do 5ft drops to rock gardens. And we can on a £3000 bike.

On the other hand, I have a lot of fun on a £500 ss and a £1000 full susser, and find my limits* on not-so-demanding terrain.

* I have super skillz, just don’t like to flaunt them

Like me old grandad used to say…if your willing to pay the price…then thats what its worth.

Either dont buy it…or find a cheaper alternative.

My 1997, rigid P7, with v-brakes, LX and XT cost 1000 quid.

A 600 quid bike nowadays would have decent enough suspension forks and disk brakes. Not as nice to look at though

some mag out there ought to do a review of bikes they purchased second hand for £500.

It’d be about as useless as Edam cheese though. Either a bikes as good as it was when new, or it’s FUBAR’d by the previous owner (or shades of grey inbetween). Unlike cars or motorbikes which all get used much the same and therefore suffer similar issues. You couldn’t review a £500 s/h bike and say the drivetrain was worn and therefore it’s useless, the only things differentiating s/h bikes are the same things differentiating them when new.

forks are **** stupid money

Like I said, there’s loads out there for <£300 new, Rebas and Revs, Marzocchi, etc. And Fox have always been stupid money, I remember Vannilla R’s being £280 in the sales 10 years ago (so with inflation ~£450 today). So if anything Fox are cheeper today!

My ’92 Breezer retailed at around £800, if memory serves. Rigid fork, 7-speed, canti brakes. That’s about £1400 in today’s money.

I conclude that the cost of a quality bike has fallen substantially.

And other segments where 2 or 3 journos get £500 to build a bike from the classifieds then ride a famous 100miler or 12/24 hour race or a bikepacking adventure.

I suspect that many people with a “habit” would be able to pull a good portion of a bike out of the parts bin and proclaim “I only had to buy grips, cables and pedals, so I’ve got a fantastic, race ready hardtail, and I’m £75 under budget!!!”

I’ve been cycling on quite a budget quite happily. £400-ish hardtail does everything, and I bought an enduro bike for around 1000 all-in, sold it a year later for 800 and bought a fully capable high spec DH bike for 900.

Who buys wheels for £900? It’s not the price of biking that’s rising, it’s your percieved value of bike components that’s increasing, along with your available capital and willingness to spend it. BIKING is almost certainly getting cheaper.

I think stuff at the higher end has got more expensive – forks are the things that really get me and I blame Fox. The original 36 was a bit of a revelation but came with a high price tag that people were happy to pay. The cynic in me thinks that Sram and Mazocchi saw this so started to make more expensive forks. Can the new Pike really justify the massive hike in costs? Hopefully X Fusion will start to make the big players rethink their pricing strategy.

High end bikes are crazy money these days – the number of bikes that cost more that £4,000 is mental, But then again, there must be a lot of people that can see the benefit or they wouldn’t exist.

From a spec point of view, bikes like Rockhoppers are going backwards from a peak four years or so ago.

The only plus side is that teh lower end stuff is actually really good – my Deore brakes are genuinely very good and looking back the extra cost of XT’s on my other bike is hard to justify. The new Deore stuff actually looks pretty good these days too.

Don’t get me started on the cost of tyres though…

Mostly i ride single speed rigid so that helps keep costs down – its had a new chain, bottom bracket, one set of brake pads and a rear tyre since new in 2006 and is still fine

If you want to keep up with the storm troopers then that fine but I ride mostly on my own these days and as such have no one questioning my lack of taste/skill

Is it this time of the year already?

2009
2010
2011
2012
2013

: )

MTB cost me about ~£200 this year on material stuff and maybe 8-10x that on trips – flights, food on the way, etc. Happy with that ratio. Some years it’s a similar ratio but half the cost. Edit – oops forgot about the loop bars I bought. That makes a difference ..

Kryton57 – Member

Is it getting ridiculous?

no, it’s still getting cheaper.

20 years ago, i struggled and saved to buy a £400 kona fire mountain.

I just checked, you can get the new Fire mountain for about £500. But it’ll be lighter, it’ll handle better, it’s got disc brakes and adequate suspension forks. In real terms, it’s about half the price.

it might come as news, but it’s possible to go mountain biking without kashima coating, carbon rims, and clothing hand made in Sweden.

bikes are ace, they’re cheap, they’ve never been cheaper, and they’re getting even better!

🙂

The price of forks does seem a little silly, but again, 20 years ago the price of a set of rockshox/manitou/pace forks was £300, the forks you can get now for £300 are much much much better. (and in real terms, they’re half the price)

hell, the forks you can get for £150 now are bloody great really,

The entry point for suitable bikes has not really changed (about £3-400). But an entry bike now will be more capable than 10 years ago. There are more opportunities to spend much more, as the market has matured. But good basic kit need not be expensive.

If anyone thinks cycling is expensive, go to Decathlon. Triban 3; especially the one with carbon forks for £300.

Saw a 7500 Bronson in leisure lakes a couple if weeks ago and asked them will anyone buy that bike and they said they had sold 2 the week before. Week after some guy was picking his up, he was in a very smart suit with a big gold watch.

TiRed – Member

The entry point for suitable bikes has not really changed (about £3-400). But an entry bike now will be more capable than 10 years ago.

Absolutely. What people actually mean when they say “Bikes are so expensive” is “I only look at expensive stuff”. I bought a £350-ish bike in about 1991 and another one in 2009 or 10, the difference is ridiculous. The 91 bike had some nicer parts (the hubs are still going!) but there’s absolutely no area of performance where it’s as good.

And though you might think “Why not use this progress to make a cheaper good bike”, £350 was a lot more money 20 years ago.

The only thing that really poses an issue for me is tyres –

You have the 40/45 quid and up tyres that generally work really well for their designed purpose.

Then you have the 15-20 quid tyres that are stupid heavy and generally downright rubbish.

Why is there no middle ground? Why can’t we get a tyre that is 25-30 quid and offers the grip of the 45 quid plus tyre, at the expense of not having a superlight tyre.