You need to be clear about what we are rating things against.
As for Carbon Frames, yes things like Santa Cruz and Transition are fancier but in terms of quality - the Scott I've just bought is exceptional, the build, the paint quality, the fit and finish, are exceptional, I am really impressed.
Speicalized and Giant (quiet at the back!) similarly, their 'quality' is very very high.
Just as with cars - the best quality cars are Toyotas, not Bugattis or Ferraris.
no they dont have dashboards made of material you can lick, but in true Engineering 'quality' terms, Toyota are still, and have been for a long time, the standard.
Shows how much profit margin there must be in the frames if CRC can cut the price by 50% on a '23 frame with the new '23 Rockshock shock.
https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/nukeproof-reactor-290-carbon-frame-rockshox-2022/rp-prod213218
That uses T700/T800 - so not the highest end Toray stuff.
Isn't the frame linked above a 2022? In any case, that doesn't necessarily mean they're still profiting. It just means they're happy they've made their planned margin across the whole batch and selling off 2022 stock at a small loss is better than having it sit about costing money.
It's very hard to objectively/quantitatively define the quality of bike frames.
Tour Magazine are probably doing the best, with a range of testing equipment I've heard described as rivalling most manufacturers.
However Tour Magazine is only published in German, and they're only interested in road bikes.
Not sure who we have looking at MTB frames - Hambini 😀 ?
New NP Reactor must be coming out soon, but yeah - I imagine they're selling those off at cost or a bit more.
Having started in late 80’s early 90’s when every boutique brand was a frame, not a bike, my personal definition of boutique would be a bike built from frame up, regardless of brand.
Soooo, winspace and light bicycle are "boutique" then. And XACD, Waltly, Kinesis (old kinesis, not new kinesis UK)
Think the "buy a frame and build it, then it's boutique" model needs some serious thought!
