[Closed] Bike prices... fact or fiction?

But It'll be no where near a works factory race bike. The pushbikes are.
It does make you wonder sometimes though doesn't it.

If you want metal, get yourself an old s/h car - be at least a tonne there.

If you want metal, get yourself an old s/h car - be at least a tonne there. .. ❓

 

what are you comparing top end vs top end, budget vs budget or 2nd hand entry level vs top end???

OP I suggest that with this knowledge you start your own bike brand, you'll clearly make millions.

Oh dear...

New CRF450 - £8300

New Saracen Ariel 141 - £1099 (OK it's half price in the sales)

Aside from the engine there's probably a comparable number (and complexity) of parts in there. And you wont get a half price CRF in the sales (but you might get s FUBAR one s/h).

what are you comparing top end vs top end, budget vs budget or 2nd hand entry level vs top end???

For example..
Santa Cruz Tallboy LT Carbon XTR AM 29er Mountain Bike 2014 = £6799.00
New 2013 Honda CRF250R EXTREME with custom graphics kit = £6,649.00

oh.. & cynic-al = don't be a dick

 

is the motorbike carbon?

the alloy X01 version of the bike is £4500, there are also a huge number of bikes at lower prices

mikewsmith, my point is.. what you get for your money. If you had £3000 in your pocket & blew it on an mtb, you would get a lot less than if you spent the same amount on an mx bike. Looking at mx bikes over the last few weeks has me questioning the price tags put against a lot of mountain bikes.

I think the point folks are trying to make is that for instance the Tall Boy you mentioned with XTR etc would be raced a pro level. The Honda with graphics kit wouldn't, a quick google shows that pro MX bikes are $30K upwards, I saw mentions of $40K for forks and one bike at $300K.

Would the Honda mentioned not be more comparable to a Rockhopper say?

Don't forget, despite what people think, you don't actually need top end XTR unless you're racing at the top, deore will do. Most people perfectly bringing the cost of a decent MTB down by quite a margin.

YoKaiser your kidding yourself if you think a stock carbon Tallboy with xtr is ridden at pro level. Yes it 'could' be, but most deffinately wouldn't without considerable tweaks & upgrades. Pushing the price higher than £6799. At the end of the day we (myself included) are paying over the odds because we are daft enough to do so & the bike companies know it.

Totally agree with the op

There still is a point here though- second hand, decent (equivalent) quality, you do still get a lot more for your money with mx than you do with mtb bits.

It's amazing, all that money to be made in the bicycle industry and still it's dominated by small companies, big corporations like Honda and BMW haven't got involved and made a killing.

The answer is obvious - big companies are stupid.

Yes it 'could' be, but most deffinately wouldn't without considerable tweaks & upgrades.

I also see plenty racing at a very high level on bikes that cost a lot less than that.

For a comparison the £6,600 Bronson C
Cost: £6,619
approx weight: frame only 4.85lbs
KIT SPECIFICATION
XX1 AM 27.5 - 2014
Rear Mech SRAM XX1
Front Mech n/a
Shifters SRAM XX1 R hand trigger 11spd
Crankset SRAM XX1 34T
Cassette SRAM XX1 10-42
Chain SRAM CN-XX1-A1
Brakes Avid XO Trail Carbon w/180/160mm rotors
Bars Thomson Carbon Riser 730mm
Stem Thomson Elite X4 50mm, 70mm or 80mm
Grips Lizard Skin Peaty lock on
Headset Hope
Seatpost Rockshox Reverb Stealth
Saddle WTB Volt SLT Ti
Wheels WTB Frequency Team i23 TCS rims laced to Hope Pro2 hubs
Tires Maxxis High Roller 2 2.3" EXO Tubeless Ready Kevlar
Tubes Stans Sealant

The only upgrade left to full on Pro is the Enve wheelset for £1,600, what would you change on that bike?

As somebody pointed out how much would you be spending on a MX bike to race in a world series event? How often would you be rebuilding engines? How much does the oil cost and the filters and the bits that snap off and the gear to ride it?

There is choice out there to buy at whatever level you want staying with SC as they seem to be the go to for "Look how obscene the bike prices are" brigade the entry level heckler is £2,600 is that a rip off, is that too much?

Friends of mine race in European supercross and compete in mx des nations on virtually stock bikes

A salient point on this subject was made on bikeradar the other day by someone

The market for £6k mountain bikes is a tiny fraction of the market for a £14k motorbike (or more accurately, the market for engines in a range of motorbikes and possibly cars, which share the same research and testing).

An analogy might be that a top-end record player costs more than the most expensive DVD player, despite being technically far simpler. But that is partly due to demand for DVD players outstripping record players massively, allowing the manufacturer to 'scale' the cost and also use parts for CD players and other items, further off-setting design and tooling costs.

Yet, despite possibly being the most advanced DVD player the world has ever seen, it can never and will never be able to play records.

I agree that £6k is a lot of money and I would never buy a bike for that money, but I like the fact that someone who wants to, can. And that the design technology will help my future mountain bike be better.

[url=http:// http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/article/friday-five-a-side-this-weeks-best-new-bike-gear-38826/ ]here[/url]

Sancho - Member
Friends of mine race in European supercross and compete in mx des nations on virtually stock bikes

bencooper - Member

It's amazing, all that money to be made in the bicycle industry and still it's dominated by small companies, big corporations like Honda and BMW haven't got involved and made a killing.

The answer is obvious - big companies are stupid.

That will have more to do with profit, not profit margin. 💡

A simple law of economics at play here - economy of scale.

It is true that when you think about the technology and number of moving parts that need to be machined, tooled and assembled, motorized vehicles are remarkably good value compared to our bikes upon first glance.

However, look at the scale of manufacture and the reasons quickly become evident. Motor manufacturing has evolved to a highly automated, production line process because of its scale. How many bikes does Santa Cruz make compared to the number of cars or motorbikes that Honda makes? Relatively speaking, bicycle manufacture is still a cottage industry.

A fairer comparison would be to ask why the mega Taiwanese brands such as Giant and Merida (who own and make Speciliazed amongst others) are not significantly cheaper than the boutique brands since they come the closest to operating large scale production line methods and purchasing power in the bike industry.

You can get a whole car for about the price of the mx bike quoted above. Does that mean the mx bike is over-priced and a rip-off?

After all, the car has seating for 5, four wheels and tyres, doors, a floor, a roof, a ventilation system, somewhere to store stuff, windows, locks, a dashboard..Etc etc.

Motorbikes are a real rip off when you look at it like that!

Sorry OP I don't see why I'm being a dick.

You are saying bikes are overpriced yet you don't seem to know how to make them cheaper.

People buy them at the price they are. I think that means you are talking shit, yes?

I don't see why I'm being a dick.

and

I think that means you are talking shit

Do you see the connection between these 2 quotes, and why the OP might have taken offence?

All he said originally was:

You get a hell of a lot more for your money with a second hand four stroke mx bike

An observation, not a statement that he had spotted a million pound opportunity, or the solution to the disparity that he had observed.

Keep it friendly chaps. It's just a bike forum!

Oh is this the fun game where we compare completely different products and industries and don't get why there is a difference?

Sancho you will have to define virtually stock, otherwise I don't believe you.

As said though, comparisons between top end bikes and mid/entry level MX bikes are daft and irrelevant.

Have you seen how much diamonds cost? Blur LTs are cheap. In fact the Tata Nano makes MX bikes look expensive - is there a thread on MXtrackworld about that?

Supply and demand, innit?

More cars are built than mid- to high-end motocross bikes. Bulk cost of materials goes down, = cars are cheaper.

More mid- to high-end motocross bikes are built than high-end mountain bikes. Bulk cost of materials goes down, = motocross bikes have a comparable cost.

More people buy cars than buy motocross bikes than buy high-end mountain bikes.

We seeing a pattern yet?

I'm intrigued. What is a high end motocross? I've only ever bought motocross bikes available in dealership show rooms which are the same everywhere. There are no low end or top end mx bikes available to the public. If you want an mx bike comparable to that of a pro rider then you buy a standard mx bike and spend another 30k on suspension, bolt ons and engine work.

... But regardless, johnellison is right. It's just supply and demand. There are also only 5 big players in mx bike manufacturing so the sales are very focused.

But It'll be no where near a works factory race bike. The pushbikes are.
It does make you wonder sometimes though doesn't it.

It's just different markets. Motocross bikes are sporting equipment.

Bicycles are fashion accessories. The fashion consumer actively want to pay as much as possible regardless of function. Then pay even more to stick shiny bits on them.

KTM make motorbikes and mountain bikes. There top end MTB is about 4K.
So not exactly cheap is it

Crackers that someone mentioned a 4k bicycle as though its normal to pay anywhere near 4k for a bicycle. Its not. Yes I've got friends who spend x on a stereo etc however alot of people who spend 'x' on a bike literally disproportionately spend a worrying amount on a bike over other things in their lives.

Some things are cheap some are expensive. Some things are over priced some are a bargain. Choose which is best for you and use it. That is all.

Whenever I work on my car, I'm amazed at the low standards of manufacturing. Some parts are precision engineering - the engine, air conditioning, stuff like that*, but lots of it is just bashed together. Plate steel, injection-moulded plastic, pop-together parts.

Whereas pretty much every part on a bicycle is made to a high tolerance. If your seatpost is 0.1mm out, it won't work. If your bottom bracket threads are not perfectly straight, your BB bearings will wobble and wear. That consistent high level of manufacturing quality, combined with low numbers, make it expensive.

Sometimes I get people asking me to make them a copy of a production bike. They're astounded when I tell them that it'll be 2 or 3 times the cost of the production bike. People don't understand how much simple hard work goes into making something - I think a lot of it is down to the fact that most people don't work with their hands any more.

*And these are parts that are made in huge quantities, shared across models and manufacturers, to take advantage of the economies of scale.

1) No one races Santa Cruz, they are fashion accessories.

2) You could race at a high enough privateer level on a ~£2000 bike from the likes of Giant or Trek.

3) Most people racing at a top level aren't paying full price. In the States a few years ago the GF SuperFly was the most popular XC bike by a mile, but trying finding anyone who'd paid the list price was virtually impossible.

Also if you think about it...

A top end trek bike for example contains only one bit made by trek (the frame). all the other bits are bought in at not particularly high volume and probably not dissimilar to what we would have to pay. A frame is probably about a quarter of total cost so Trek cant actually influence the end cost that much at all since they are paying for the profits of all their suppliers.

Motorbikes on the other hand - Normally they make the frame, engine, fairings and probably loads of other bits as well - amounting to a significantly higher percentage of total cost - costs that they can manage themselves.

Lower end mountain bikes come with many more parts made by the manufacturer - stem, bars etc so the costs are much lower. But their is little insensitive for doing this with top end frames because if someone such as myself got hold of a bike like this the first thing we (I) would do is strip all of these perfectly good bits off and replace them with the latest Hope bling; because I'm a fashion victim.

So its all our fault really 🙂

1) No one races Santa Cruz, they are fashion accessories.

and I just came back from racing mine this evening

I think a lot of the difference comes from the fact that even when you buy a bicycle complete you are buying a load of separate components from many different manufacturers which have been assembled. Each one of which has had someone taking a cut at each stage on it's way to you.

There's a lot of fingers in the pie in the bike business and this bumps the price up considerably. By comparison the motorcycle model is much simplified.

A motorbike is sold as a complete item which has been assembled at cost price and a mark up applied to the whole thing at probably 2 stages as they're likely to be imported by the manufacturer. I dare say if you tried assembling an MX bike in the same way we do MTBs they'd be correspondingly pricey.

Frustratingly own brand products are seen as carp (I'm a victim of this as much as anyone) and I wouldn't want a complete Giant or Spesh or Trek or whatever bike as I'd assume it was [s]sh**[/s] perfectly good enough for someone of limited means and/or ability ;o). I want branded components on my bike and I guess I have to pay for it.

So it's all our own fault really.

Edited to note that ndthornton posted pretty much exactly the same thing as I was typing Great minds and all that ;o)

Speeder

[quote=ndthornton]KTM make motorbikes and mountain bikes.

They are two separate companies..

I have a feeling, if only from the colour, that they may share a common ancestry 😉

[quote=ndthornton ]I have a feeling, if only from the colour, that they may share a common ancestry
AFAIK KTM sold the rights to the name for making mountain bikes

If you don't think MTB bikes are value for money?

Compare them to ROAD bikes then.

[quote=ndthornton]I have a feeling, if only from the colour, that they may share a common ancestry

Absolutely, but they have been different, autonomous companies for over 20 years so you can't really compare their contemporary products (as you were implying you could)...

Don't forget, despite what people think, you don't actually need top end XTR[s] unless you're[/s]even if racing at the top, deore will do. [s]Most people perfectly [/s]bringing the cost of a decent MTB down by quite a margin.

FTFY

If you had £3000 in your pocket & blew it on an mtb, you would get a lot less than if you spent the same amount on an mx bike. Looking at mx bikes over the last few weeks has me questioning the price tags put against a lot of mountain bikes.

If you had £3k to spend on a bike you would be buying something marginaly 'better' than a £1000 bike. If you had £30,000 to spend on a MX bike you would get something marginaly better than a £8,500 CRF.

Even taking your second hand example of a £3k MX bike (which will be in need of some expensive work, otherwise why would they be selling it). How many second hand £3k MTB's are there, you barely see anything over about £1500.

If you think MX is cheep, by all means buy one, but don't come back crying in a few weeks when you're bankrupt!

And a final thought; if bikes are so overpriced, how come other companies aren't selling comparable bikes cheeper. If Spesh were overpriced, everyone would buy Trek, if they were overpriced, cannondale, marin, norco, etc. The fact they all make frames costing £1000-£1500 or thereabouts probably means competition is working. Either that or there's a global conspiracy between hundreds of brands to fix prices.

dragon - Member

1) No one [s]races[/s] needs a Santa Cruz, they are fashion accessories.

i hope you don't mind my correction...

Dragon makes a good point, using Santa Cruz as a benchmark for bike prices is simply daft. Like complaing about the price of wellies after looking at the Hunter stand in John Lewis.

MTB Rob - Member
If you don't think MTB bikes are value for money?

Compare them to ROAD bikes then.

I'd say road bikes are better value really, they last far longer, mtb's tend to wear out pretty quickly and require more looking after.

[quote=ahwiles ] dragon - Member
1) No one races needs a Santa Cruz, they are fashion accessories.
i hope you don't mind my correction...
Dragon makes a good point, using Santa Cruz as a benchmark for bike prices is simply daft. Like complaing about the price of wellies after looking at the Hunter stand in John Lewis.

Why all the SC haterz? Their Alu VPP frames are close to Orange Alpine prices with the Heckler coming in £50 under the much loved 5? the entry level heckler is £2600 which is close to the 5 pricing??
Their pricing lines up well against people like Intense for the carbon stuff.

davidtaylforth - Member
MTB Rob - Member

I'd say road bikes are better value really, they last far longer, mtb's tend to wear out pretty quickly and require more looking after.

Do fifteen runs on the Antur Stiniog black on your road bike and see how much maintenance it needs the following day.

mikewsmith - Member

Why all the SC haterz? Their Alu VPP frames are close to Orange Alpine prices with the Heckler coming in £50 under the much loved 5? the entry level heckler is £2600 which is close to the 5 pricing??
Their pricing lines up well against people like Intense for the carbon stuff.

i'm not a SC hater.

i just piggy-backed onto Dragon's comment about Santa Cruz - and i guess he was piggy-backing onto a little SC-focussed momentum further back up the thread.

Which i think is valid, when someone buys a Santa Cruz, they must have just popped out of their cave not to know that they're buying into (arguably) the most high-profile brand in mountain biking. That kind of branding does not come cheap.

i can of course expand my comment on SC pricing:

using Santa Cruz / Intense / Orange / Cotic as a benchmark for bike prices is simply daft. Like complaing about the price of wellies after looking at the Hunter stand in John Lewis.

i should point out that i'm about to buy some Hunter wellies for my wife, she wants them, they're nice, we can (just about) afford them.

as for bike prices, i was looking at a Whyte 129 for £1500 last week. If my credit card was in better health i would have bought it there and then.

Fair enough it just seems to get pulled out as the go to bike for isn't it all really expensive...

anyway I'd better go and polish my carbon SC, I don't need it but sure as hell enjoy riding it.

Your's obviously a complete mug who they saw coming 😉

Most MTB stuff (bikes and accessories) is priced to what the market will stand. The price has nothing to do with what the item costs to produce.

Do fifteen runs on the Antur Stiniog black on your road bike and see how much maintenance it needs the following day.

Do I have to? What would this prove?

Orange have always been overpriced as well, Santa Cruz. I just think it's better to compare with the likes of Giant, Trek, Specialized etc. Who do manufacture and sell in big volume, and clearly do big deals with Shimano, SRAM, Mavic etc. to keep costs down, and hence, often offer the best value bikes.

Most [s]MTB[/s] stuff is priced to what the market will stand. The price has nothing to do with what the item costs to produce.

FTFY.

Actually, "cost-plus" pricing is still quite common in the bike industry, that's one reason the bike industry isn't all that profitable.

Orange have always been overpriced as well

I dunno, I reckon you're probably paying about the right amount for UK labour rates + handbuilding premium + UK overheads in general. Cotic prices are less explainable, as they're made in taiwan IIRC, and just designed here (which on-one seem to manage to do a fair bit cheaper).

Not saying that makes them (Orange) good value in comparison to Giant/Trek/etc.