[Closed] Does anyone remember the day that MTB went from cheap fun to serious money?

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.

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

For me it went from cheap to serious money when I could afford to without it affecting other aspects of my life.

Thinking about it I've always spent about the same amount when related to my disposable income. I did make a concious decision to not spend as much as we could have done when buying a house (and cars come to think of it) to make sure I had enough money to fund my cycling [s]addiction[/s], [s]habit[/s], hobby.

For the rest of us, I don't see much difference in a 2007 standard Stumpy compared to a 2015 Stumpy.

😆

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?

from a Orange Ad 2004 MBUK, Shimano Prices earlier

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Ahhhhh, the days when CRC was a 6 page advert in MBUK with tiny print rather than a website 🙂

Ahhhhh, the days when CRC was a 6 page advert in MBUK with tiny print rather than a website

you and future publishing both I expect.

[url= ]Full Page CRC from 1996[/url]

Its always been expensive for me as a teen i had a Raleigh mustang and dreamed of a 500 quid marin on my paper money. By the time i joined the army and had some money they had gone up so were still expensive compared to what i had. Then i worked for a telecoms company and had more money but they had gone up again 🙁 its all relative

But now im in the fire service and the money has gone down and the bikes are still rising so its now pants for me 🙁

The first time was in 1998 when I got promoted at work and spent my first month's wages on a Kona Hei Hei frame (£1500 then).

The second time will be when I eventually replace that frame as I can't get non-tapered forks for it and someone has decided that we can't live without a slightly bigger wheel (industry d#cks).

At about 12 (i'm 31 now) me and a few mates use to spend pocket money on things like pedals and grips for our £120 MTB's. We use to buy MBR and MBUK wishing we could ride expensive bikes.

There was a local event with Richard Johnson performing on a trials show. That got us hooked and all our time went into learning how to bunny hop, wheelie and track stand. We were so grateful for what we had that we didn't care about riding heavy steel rigid bikes. I rode the same MTB (I think it was a Raleigh Nexus..) for about 2 years while my mates kept switching between MTB and BMX. I got fed up when they all started to smoke in the local woods and they didn't want to ride much so I started riding with a new friend from school.

We stumbled across a local XC race hosted by the local club and started to ride with them on weekends. I tried to get my old mates to come along but they just wanted to smoke and moan about their rusted bikes that they stopped looking after. I was about 14 at this point and saved up with added xmas and birthday money to buy a Saracen Dirt Trax. Not great but at 14 I loved it! Did loads of local races and cherished it.

At 15 i did work experience in a LSB and ended up working there part time. In 1998 I bought a Scott Comp Racing which was mostly LX/XT, Judy C forks, LX V brakes. Raced on that for a few years. Uni then work took over and I didn't have time to ride. My parents wanted me to sell my bikes but I kept telling them one day I'll have a garage and house to put them in and won't be working weekends anymore.

Several years of stress and hard work later I have a decent job, a house and garage, a nice new Whyte T-130 SCR to ride, and a GF who also rides and doesn't mind me spending ££££ on bikes.

I really do feel so grateful for what I have. 😀

I don't remember it ever being cheap.

All the top end kit was and still is out of my budget.