Im sat here drinking my coffee on the sofa in the workshop and it dawned on me that I can't remember the exact day let alone year that it all changed for me from having a low end mountain bike and going over the woods with mates mucking about on jumps and sitting around just creaming over posh bikes in mbuk (single track wasn't out at this point) content my bike was more than good enough for the job and only needed cheap deore or lx if feeling saucy replacements too not evening contemplating or even thinking about cost as I walking into the bike shop where I used to work to order another XTR chain and cassette or other top end part as I had too have it it'll make me faster better more radcore. I know it happened in my late teens but can't remeber the day or year it happened when I changed into "mister must have" other "that'll do it isn't broken".
Anyone remeber there transition? Or avoided it?
Once I started work in my LBS and got access to cheap stuff, sold my Tufftrax for a Rockhopper Comp.
Gave up on high end quite a few years ago, too many other things to spend my (limited) money on.
It was a Tuesday I think.
It was when I decided to build my own bike up (on-one 456) as a way of getting back into biking.
It got more expensive when I started racing!
1989, but don't recall the exact day. I just remember it was when perusing the freewheel catalogue in my 1st yr uni halls room.
had to make do with 105 equipped 531c road bike for a while longer, even though we got student grants back then, rather than loans.
Bought my first MTB in 1989 for 274 quids. Reynolds 500 with Exage groupset, Biopace rings, Araya rims. Didn't feel cheap at the time although was lower mid-range.
*Edit - historic inflation calculator tells me that today I would pay £656.86
So there is an answer. I do remember riding it for about 7 years without replacing hardly a brake pad - it just kept going through all manner of abuse, even threw it down a hillside in a fit of rage one day and it bounced back unscathed looking for more, like the maniacal masochist that it was. I think we are definitely more vain and prissy these days after decades of upgrade-itis and fashionable advertising/consumer culture. Oh no, a scratch! Helitape, helitape, protect my investmeeeent!
we all know who's fault it is
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1989 sounds about right. It was long after that time that someone I knew bought some canondale full sus thing for 2.5k and that was serious money then, he could of bought a car for that.
sorry but always been expensive pre 89 and post 89...............
I have totally avoided it.
More by accident though as I am still riding rigid single speed after at least 10 years doing so.
Once you get the frame and wheels you like there really isn't much else to spend any money on...
The best that 1992 had to offer was about 900quid on a spec rockhopper pro. Thats 1725 in todays money. Well if you dropped 1700 on a hardtail today you would get something pretty fricken awesome, hydraulic brakes, maybe a dropper, defo a decent fork. The expensive stuff is way way more techincally advanced, but even for the equivalent money todays £1700 hardtail is legions better that 1992's rigid.
You can easily spend £750 and get an amazing hardtail that will last you a very very long time.
It's always been as expensive as you want to make it.
I remember the gawp I got from my cousin when I said I'd spent £300 on a pair of Rock Shox Mag21 with special order 1.25 ahead steerer! By that comparison my latest Rock Shox Reba RL 15mm tapered for £280 are a good price.
I don't think that the first MTB frames Tom Ritchey and the like started knocking out were any cheaper than a custom steel build today.
You pays your money and takes your choices.
The day my crap full-sus was nicked. The list price of the replacement was comically high and the insurance offered me a deal on the last years Rockhopper with hydraulic discs for a cost of about £150. I cashed in my paper round savings and I felt like a king. A few days later my best mate got a Caldera with some Bombers and then I had to have a set.
A few years past and I went back to cheap and simple with a couple of retro builds and I had a lot of fun with no worries. Now here I am trying to destroy my bank balance building up a carbon 650b enduro weapon and buying 70 quid headsets.
Aged 16 in summer 1993 when I bought an Orange Clockwork frame to hang the bits from my old Raleigh Mirage on.
Of course, an Orange of that vintage wasn't an Orange without Pace RC35s...
and Mavic 231s on XT hubs...
and XT mechs...
and Onza cantis (and then Magura hydraulics)...
and Middleburn cranks...
and Pace rings...
and USE bars and seatpost...
and Onza barends...
and Flite Ti saddle...
and XT SPDs...
Insurance replacement value at the time was £1600 IIRC which is about £3000 now. 75% what my current MTB cost, so not a million miles away. The tipping point was getting a Saturday job and actually have my own money to spend on the bike. So I did.
I was thinking the same on a 3 hour ride earlier. I remember hitting trails in the US in the 70s and they were pretty simple bikes. I was wondering on a long hill climb when did front suspension come in?
Looking at the DH bikes at the top of Gibbet Hill, there was serious wedge there!
It was just a few years ago for me when suddenly bikes and especially components seemed to get about 30-40% more expensive (something to do with the exchange rate with the yen)? Suddenly things like an XT rear mech at RRP in your LBS seemed to cost a ludicrous amount of money.
But you can mostly avoid it if you're careful. Even replacing broken bits you can get good deals or buy s/h.
Some bikes now aren't cheap, but are still actually really good value for what you get. YT, Canyon etc.
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When I joined a company that did CTW, and found out that my mate who ran a shop took the vouchers & allowed top ups 😀
I think I have more fun on my £700 lurcher than any more expensive fancy full suss bike I've owned. Sure it isn't as capable downhill but a simple, light hardtail is a joy to just ride anywhere.
i remember walking into edinburgh bicycle co-op in 1988 as a teenager and seeing a cannonade sm1000. the label on the handlebars stated 'simply the best mountain bike in the world'. full xt, nitto stem, u brake on the seat stay with a shark tooth sticking up, araya rm-25s, irc 1.75 tyres, and extra long hight-rite! and it was £1000!
little did i know barely a few months later on christmas morning, id be standing crying in my parents living room as fondled my very own sm1000. the previous years ridgeback 601sis was to see how serious i was about this new mountain biking thing. even managed to quickly can the mudguards my dad had specced. my folks were certainly not rich but decided i'd merited an extra special christmas. to which I'm forever grateful. I've had had four bike since and only one has worked out cheaper that that 'dale.
for me, mountain biking continues to be an expensive pursuit but, its that important to me, its worth every single penny. the jones (that took me 4 years to pay for) is the single most expensive thing I've bought (i don't drive) but every ride, I'm reminded how amazing this past time is, the healthy aspect is just one of many many benefits.
a friend said to me at the weekend - 'you are so lucky to have found something you love so much'
Very gradual for me- when I got back into riding I bought a used carrera for £200 and that felt like a lot. Put a set of Toras from the famous CRC flood sale on it for £80 and that felt like a lot too.
Worth every penny, for me, though.
MTB has always been [i]relatively[/i] expensive for me, since the start. It took months of saving in a very poorly paid Saturday job to buy a £220 Diamond Back Topanga. When I earned more, my tastes got more expensive. My zenith was probably the 4 grand of GT LTS DH I custom built back in 97.
However, I've grown out of such things now, at least to a certain extent! My last frame was an Inbred, and I'm currently looking at a full-build tourer for under a grand. My last full-build was a second hand Kona Hahanna for which I paid £150, that was in about 2007...
It was shortly after I'd been made redundant and had spent my days riding my bike, rather than looking for work. I had worn my canti pads down in about a fortnight and realised that, due to the cost of replacing them with decent pads, either I could spend my redundancy pay-out on brake pads or I needed to stop using the brakes. I became quicker overnight....
I can trace the crazy pricing all the way back to one brand becoming popular... Enve. Before they came along (under the name Edge) nobody would dream of spending over £2k on a pair of wheels, but once they started becoming popular, it's like the industry decided that the general public will pay anything for the best! Now of course you can buy off-the-shelf bikes from Santa Cruz, Cannondale etc with these wheels that are insane money! Once XTR Di2 becomes more popular, I imagine another jump forward :/
For me it would have been about 1994ish, id arranged to meet a guy who rode at the same spot as us when we got talking in a bike shop. I turned up on my pride and joy, a £240 Muddy fox comp my first bike id ever bought from brand new.
The guy i had arranged to meet turned up on a Pace hardtail with mavic ceramics magura brakes syncros stem and seat post etc etc...which he kindly let me have a go on as at that time it was pretty much my dream bike. The next ten or so years after that my bikes were usually worth more than my car.
2009ish, when events conspired to almost double Shimano prices overnight
Always offered very good value to me since the 80s. You can pay what you like, it's a free consumerist market, but value is there if you want it.
For me, the day that my LBS persuaded me to go for a pair of Judys rather than the Quadra 21 I had gone in to buy.
I don't think Chain reaction were around when I got into biking, but they appeared pretty soon after. And I discovered I could buy loads of red ano bits for my Kona. (which I ended up hating). Pretty soon I was looking at CRC every single day for crap I didn't need, as long as I could get it cheap, I'd take it. . After a few years, even that wasn't enough. I was scouring EBay, and even skulking around dodgy German sites. After a couple of years and one or two payrises, suddenly the cheap shit wasn't enough. I started taking XTR.
I remember spending £350 in 1987 on a Marin Bear Valley, was cheap at the time compared to what we were spending on windsurfing at that time
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August 1997 ,I walked into leisure lakes and bought a kona manomano frame for £700 .for the previous 8 years I'd just bought 2nd hand and swapped bits with mates .im now trying to relive my youth via Retrobike to get those bikes I always wanted when i was a student in the early 90's .at present I have 2 1991 Orange clockworks a 1998 orange clockwork a 1993 raleigh apex ( all original spec show room condition) and a 1995 orange p7 as well as a couple of cannondale frames and a giant cadex in the loft .( dan it is I nobbythesheep of Rb)
My view is very rose tinted I'm sure if I had the money when I was young I'd have brought a bit more but when I started riding xc/trail riding I was happy with low end and could see no reason to buy the better stuff and I was happy and too be fair it was smiles more than miles. Then I started spending more and more almost over night and training and more training and worrying about weight and other 1st world riding problems and winning races at all costs.
Thank god I got out of that mind set a few years and now it's about longevity and enjoyment again rather than race times and weights and latest industry bull.
I just wish I could go back and warn that teenage me about weight save could mean failure while racing and just because it's new and expensive it won't make you quicker lol as well as the ex's!!!!!
I remember a jump up in prices in 2009 as well
Nobby!!!! Lol get on your fat bike and ride you don't have time to post mayhems soon dude
It's still relatively cheap fun for me, just buy everything apart from consumables second hand and it works out fine. Compared to the amount of money I waste on alcohol, it's pretty good value!
Same here, we buy good used stuff like frames and forks for £notverymuchcomparedtonew or look out for good offers on last year's new unsold stuff. We're not fussed about the newest, badgest, lightest stuff at all but we do like nice stuff on our bikes. We'll only (generally) replace stuff when it breaks or wears out.
Yes, 2009 too
I spy Cosmic Trail!
Right from the start IMO.
The day my crap full-sus was nicked. The list price of the replacement was comically high and the insurance offered me a deal on the last years Rockhopper with hydraulic discs for a cost of about £150. I cashed in my paper round savings and I felt like a king. A few days later my best mate got a Caldera with some Bombers and then I had to have a set.A few years past and I went back to cheap and simple with a couple of retro builds and I had a lot of fun with no worries. Now here I am trying to destroy my bank balance building up a carbon 650b enduro weapon and buying 70 quid headsets.
Very similar story. Some years ago a 'blind' truck driver ran over my Coyote mtb equipped with full deore, avid rim brakes, and rs darts. £400 check from Aviva has changed my life. I've built my first bike and now (some years later) I'm happy owner of full carbon XC rocket... 🙂
It's weird how it creeps up on you and before you realise it your hooked I'm a lifer now and know there is nothing that could replace my addiction to cycling.
I don't even have the slightest regret either other than the n+1's that have gone and I miss lol.
Was looking at the pricing for new s-works bikes in Oz. 16,000 dollars. What the actual? I'm looking at second hand anthems for 2k and the missus thinks I'm mental. If only she knew.
Yeah, about 90 seconds after one of our riding group changed his £300 HT for a couple of grands worth of FS and just disappeared before our eyes down this rocky twisty bit of trail - the next, oh decade or so became a bit of a space race until Wives and Kids cooled it off (a bit).
Less personally when the banks fell and the € & £ fell everything got very expensive almost over night - I certainly remember XT cassettes pretty much doubled in price - it's reversed again now, 10/11 speed and 650b indulgences aside, stuff is pretty much the same price now as 2008 (if you allow for a bit of inflation).
When I first saw edge/enve rims reviewed in a mag, I laughed. 'Someone is going to get a shoeing for that misprint' was my thought. Genuinely thought that they were £150 each (3 times that of the top end alu), not £750...
For me it was when the rrp of seat posts went north of £300
Bike prices? In 09 I got a top of the range Spesh SX trail (XO kit, DT Swiss wheelset, full fox suspension) for £2k. That won't buy you the base spec enduro Evo now. In fact, Spesh now have a 33lb Alu hard tail with an 80mm fork, own brand, Alu, wheels and the second tier SRAM groupset for sale with an RRP of £3500. Three thousand, five hundred pounds! 😯
I have nothing to add, apart from the usual views, but zinaru's post is one of the best I've read on here - actually, probably [i]the [/i]best.
Yep !
First build 2007 Cotic soul £1900
Second 2010 evil sov £2500
Third 2011 Santa Cruz heckler £3200
Fourth 2015 Santa Cruz nomad c £6300 !!
Aghhhhhhhhhhhhh !!!!
I spend the money on a decent bike out of necessity than choice. I have a £2k full suspension 29er because my back hurts on hard tails when riding rough stuff, which killed the fun, so I got the sort of bike that gives the smoothest ride possible for £2k. Nothing to do with trying to get faster on the descents, but more to make these rocky 30 mile off-road rides a lot less painful on the body.
2008/2009 ish there was big jump in prices allegedly based on the raw material costs going thru the roof due to the economic boom and the demand for them.
A few months later there was the big global economic crash thereby massively reducing the raw material costs, did the prices drop...hmmm
25th June 1993
I went with my dad to GA Cycles in Southampton and parted with my paper round, car washing and early birthday money. Bought a long lusted after Kona Kilauea in silver to red fade. I can't remember the exact amount but it was definitely a fortune and I haven't looked back since.
Promptly went for my first ride with my brother on his now second best Cinder Cone and binned it on a gravel decent. Some nice gravel rash and missing a chunk of skin from my elbow (scar is still there) and I was most gutted over the cut I put in the saddle.
I've just ordered a set of XT brakes and Ice Tech rotors to replace the Mk1 Hope Minis I bought back in 2001.
About the same price.
I dunno, I think I got my first (non hi-tensile steel) MTB in 2002, cost £450 (actually reduced to £275), was a halfords brand Carrera, alloy, and had a deore groupset and RS Pilot forks and ritchey finishing kit.
At the time MBR was reviewing £2k bikes as being the mid-top range and £3.5 was getting into 'super-bikes'.
Fast forward 13 years and £3k (3% inflation over 13 years on £2k is ~£2950) is probably the same mid-high end and my Carrera is now Boardman and the comp is still £650 (same with inflation from ~£450) and has hydraulic disk brakes!
So no, MTB is still as cheap and chearfull as it's ever been.
I note a few people pointing at those crazy money Envy wheels as an example of the world going mad - and they're right of course.
Anyone remember what that 3 spoke carbon wheels cost in the 90s? I'm working on the theory there's always been a silly money halo product that many talk about, but few buy. I've never seen a pair in real life.
Yeah, funnilly enough my first proper mtb (bought in about 1990) and my getting-back-into-it mtb (bought in about 2009) were both £350 carreras. The 1990 one had a tange frame, rigid forks, a flexstem, exage throughout and cantis. The 2009 one had XCR forks, tektro discs, mostly X5 gearing... TBH the drivetrain was lower quality and shorter lived but everything else kicks the bejeezus out of 90s bike. I mean, I could change the tyres, take off the big chainring and take 2009 bike down fort william, I don't know how many times I'd die if I tried that on the 90s bike but it's quite a lot.
And that's not even taking into account inflation.
After over a decade of crawling very slowly up the value chain, I think I've hit my own sweet spot of performance versus value. £2k FS, which if it had Santa Cruz on the downtube would cost twice that. A steel HT frame and spare fork to swap it all over to for the winter.
I reckon MTB still represents good value, all things considered. Agree that top end kit costs a fortune these days, but I don't think you actually need top end kit to get a really good bike e.g. you don't need a carbon frame, carbon wheels and XTR for a top notch trail bike... so unless you're some kind of high-end kit addict it's not really that much more expensive than it used to be.
My first bike was £400 - Specialized Rockhopper in 1995 - steel frame, cantis, rigid and you can get a far better bike for £400 these days - 20 years on...
Personally the main reason I've spent more as the years have gone on is that I only bought cheap stuff in the early days cos it was all I could afford. As soon as I could afford XT, decent suspension etc I did.
I reckon you can save quite a bit by building a bike from the frame up with good quality bits throughout - as you build the bike you want in the first place with no shortcuts, you don't get upgrade-itis 2 months later!
Either way, as it keeps me healthy and happy, it's an investment, not a cost!
1st real MTB - 1991 Raleigh Mirage that cost £279. 501 tubes, 300LX and a 1 1/8" Tioga Avenger headset. Got seriously upgraded until I got a bare alloy frame from Heff's bike shop or somewhere.
I remember at the time, top of the range normal bikes like a Stumpjumper or Team Marin would 'only' be £700 ish. Full XT, Prestige frame etc. The likes of Ridgeback had Ti frames made by Merlin with XT kit for £1500, Hell, even Emmelle and Muddyfox were half decent back then.
Added up what my current bike, a Spitfire, would have cost if I had paid full price for everything - scary stuff (that the wife doesn't need to know about). Also have a 2006 Giant XTC composite and a 1995 Trek 970. The Spitfire destroys them both.
The interwebz makes for a booming trade in new standards but also a super supply of parts now seen as unfashionable.
You can buy a new commencal V4 for £870 with a headset/BOS shock.
In 2004 I bought a new Santa Cruz Heckler frame for £1,000 without a headset.
Just because certain Distributors are in it for pure greed doesnt mean the sport is exclusively for posers/gear queers.
for me it was buying a pair of pace rc35 forks at £400 from the lovely stif people, when the whole bike had cost me £750 -prestige Kilauea
It got expensive when I got money.
It was the day a local bike shop owner encouraged me to sling my leg over a Merlin Mountain. That was around 1990.
1997. Went from penniless student in UK to well paid research post, tax free, in US where everything was cheaper anyway. Went out there with a 500 quid GT, 6 months later owned a Trek Y22, an FSR Extreme and a Litespeed Ti hardtail.
Brought some of the bikes and the expensive tastes home with me, but not the income...
I note a few people pointing at those crazy money Envy wheels as an example of the world going mad - and they're right of course.
Anyone remember what that 3 spoke carbon wheels cost in the 90s? I'm working on the theory there's always been a silly money halo product that many talk about, but few buy. I've never seen a pair in real life.
Not an uncommon sight at Swinley, but then we have west London, Wokingham, Surrey etc within spitting distance so there's a lot of people with a lot of money (which isn't a bad thing).
Dunno how many are proper ENVE though, I suspect a lot are stickers on LB rims.
What I have noticed (begining with Stans a few years ago) is how many wheel brands there are now, 10 years ago you had a choice of Mavic rims on shimano hubs or Mavic rims on Hope hubs, or King if you were really flush.
XTR exists for shimano to produce a top end groupset for racing and making XT look reasonably priced for most people.
Spend what you like/can afford but you don't need to spend silly money to get good kit. Even racing it makes little difference unless you really are at the top end.But then in XC some find it easier to buy carbon than diet and follow a thorough training plan.
It got expensive when I got money.
+1 - although I'm pleased to have kept my annual increases in bike spending well below my annual increases in money, thankfully.
🙂
I've pretty much always been riding high end kit.
I remember my third birthday well, the bike I got was specced with full xtr...
XTR exists for shimano to produce a top end groupset for racing and making XT look reasonably priced for most people.
and now slx and much more, there is always a focus on the real high end and a glossing over of the budget stuff that is significantly better than some of the old high end stuff.
You can buy a new commencal V4 for £870 with a headset/BOS shock.In 2004 I bought a new Santa Cruz Heckler frame for £1,000 without a headset.
not sure you can compare an EU product, with one from the US as the US one is always going to attract more taxes
however
2004 heckler - they were £1049 with a shonky 5th element shock £875 ex VAT (VAT is 17.5%)
2015 heckler - £1349 with a FOX CTD Air Shock, £1079.20 ex VAT (VAT is 20%)
so thats a massive £204.20 price increase in 11 years, for a redesigned frame for 650b wheels, which will be lighter as well despite using a tapered head tube, bolt through rear end and ISCG Mounts
oh and £1049 in 2004 adjusted for inflation is £1481
so the heckler is cheaper these days 😆
10 years ago you had a choice of Mavic rims on shimano hubs or Mavic rims on Hope hubs,
i had loads of Sun rims over the years pre 2005, some Tioga ones as well Factory DH/XC, Azonic used to do decent rims i had a Butcher in the late 90's, Atomlab were about i had some of them, DT Swiss did rims, Velocity have been about donkeys years
+1 for what Zinaru said, it's as expensive as you want to make it, but it's a massive part of my life so I'd happily pay whatever I needed to.
Back of the envelope calculations for me (bike+maintenance/parts+petrol+parking fees over 4 years) show that it's about £40 per week. As it keeps me out of the pub on a Friday night in anticipation of the next day I reckon I'm actually saving money!
I ride the same 2k bike Ive had for the last 8 years, probably spend £150 a year on maintaining it, considering the hours I spend on the bike it's one of the cheapest hobbies you could have.
The top-end of things has gone up because the sport went mainstream, attracting the more money than sense brigade and the all-the-gear-no-idea wannabees.
Also, a lot of tech innovation between 1995-2005, but that's largely come to an end now.
Apart from droppers, narrow/wide I can't really think of any 'advances' that actually make a massive difference in recent years.
Always been expensive since I've been mtbing. Started in 1999.
You can buy a full YT Capra for 2k.
IMO if you took away the Distributor alot of brands would be a helluva lot cheaper (of course). Of course various arguments around this but can you think of any 2k bike back TEN years ago that was as good value/good as a YT ten years later?
Only carbon etc are more, price/inflation adjusted. Everything else is good value still IMO.
IMO if you took away the Distributor alot of brands would [s]be a helluva lot cheaper (of course)[/s] not be available in the UK, or you'd have to import them yourself, and have next to no (convenient) warranty backup
Ftfy. You are also assuming that manufacturers currently using that model would pass on those discounts. Are brand specific concept stores cheaper than indepentant dealers? Nope.
Also, a lot of tech innovation between 1995-2005, but that's largely come to an end now.
you've got your head in the sand
carbon has come on in leaps and bounds
mainstream through axles
clutch mechs
post mount disc mounts
tyre compounds
power meters
di2
gps
Brand specific stores are franchises I thought.
True though ...Orange aint ****ing cheap in their own market.
But the direct to market makers ARE more than competitive
you've got your head in the sand
Those are peripheral changes, which only make much of a difference for performance riders.
For the rest of us, I don't see much difference in a 2007 standard Stumpy compared to a 2015 Stumpy.
I think it's actually cheaper now. In 1997 i bought an rigid Orange P7 with a 7 speed alivio drivetrain for £700 IIRC. The next summer i upgraded the drivetrain and wheels to an LX/XT combination and the summer after that i swapped the forks for a set of Z2s.
The difference between then and now is that then i went to the LBS and paid RRP. Now if i need a new component i go round CRC, wiggle, bike-discount, etc selecting the 'discount, highest first' option. I seldom pay more than 50% of RRP and often a lot less.
^agree/good point
the day I first saw the M&P catalogue in 1994ish