[Closed] Is the bike industry just taking the piss now

Personally, I doubt any of the bikes talked about above are made by anything even approximating slave labour. Most of the factories will be judged and chosen by visiting Americans/Europeans who a) actually care about human beings, b) wouldn't want any negative publicity.

However, the working environment laws are very different in China and some of the things happening around pollution, waste disposal, etc might not be to our taste. I'm willing to bet that most of the factories making our premium mountain bikes are considered a highly prized place to work.

If you want to see examples of really poor working environments, I'd by far more concerned about full sus bikes on sale in supermarkets for £69.

Im talking bikes thisisnotaspoon, unless this is a toy shop thread now.
There is an anti dumping duty of 40-50% on bicycles into the UK, see here:
http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageImport_ShowContent&id=HMCE_PROD1_026952&propertyType=document

Jimalmighty

The traditional manufacturers have to import and sell to IBD's so there is an extra margin involved there

No they don't. They could choose to sell direct if they wanted to, and have bike in a box shipped direct to consumer after a web based order. They choose not to and we (well some of use choose to) pay more.

I admit defeat! White flag...

"If you want to see examples of really poor working environments, I'd by far more concerned about full sus bikes on sale in supermarkets for £69."

I bet they come out of the same factory as your £7k bikes!

We live in a capitalist world, and therefore the rich exploit the poor, always have done, always will.

There was a programme a while back on TV about surgical instruments which cost thousands of pounds in the UK, but are literally made by a boy in a dingy filthy dangerous brick room in India. Its the way of the world.

Ah you see medical instruments is the field I work in and we daily have to justify our prices. I can hazard a guess when your laid unconscious on an operating table country of origin ,whilst admittedly may be the last thing on your mind becomes very important.

developmentengineer - I know it will have been sensationalised for the TV, but they were talking about alot of market leaders branding stuff as made in Germany, when it was actually made in India.

I still dont know how you justify the prices though, even if they were made in Europe!

Im talking bikes thisisnotaspoon, unless this is a toy shop thread now.
There is an anti dumping duty of 40-50% on bicycles into the UK, see here:
http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageImport_ShowContent&id=HMCE_PROD1_026952&propertyType=document

Prety much all carbon frames are made in China as thats where the expertise and cheep labour rates are.

Van-Nic, On-One and many other brands titanium frames are made out in China.

The presance of ADD doesn't stop imports, just makes them less competative.

In terms of value. That's going to be a personal decision. Clearly the OP thinks that the 29er in question isn't worth £1699. Obviously the manufacturer thinks that many will buy at that price and therefore have judged it good value.

I think there should be more information. The industry as a whole tries to avoid all talk of Taiwan/China wherever possible.

As I've said lots of time on this forum, I see bikes as more than the sum of their parts. I appreciate the time, skill and the personalities of those involved. Sometimes that means I appreciate Brant trying to bring niche bikes to the masses. Sometimes it means I appreciate a hippie in America hand-welding a bike using Reynolds steel. But I definitely weigh it all up every time I purchase.

Here's an old thread where I tried to find out who's making bikes in their own back yard:
http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/full-sus-bikes-not-made-in-taiwan

[b]thisisnotaspoon[/b] - if that's true about Van Nicholas, then their website is very misleading.

"That is why every single Van Nicholas bike ordered is hand-built right here at our factory in Holland"

('bike' and 'handbuilt' are often used together to mislead)

"And, as you’d expect from a Dutch masterpiece, with a signature verifying its authenticity."

AlexSimon - Member
if that's true about Van Nicholas, then their website is very misleading.

"That is why every single Van Nicholas bike ordered is hand-built right here at our factory in Holland"

('bike' and 'handbuilt' are often used together to mislead)

If VN don't make the frames in house, then surely they really mean that every VN bike is hand-ASSEMBLED in Holland..? "Hand-built at our factory in Holland" is deeply misleading if they're not actually welding the tubes together.

I'm pretty sure the frames are made in Holland.

Airborne where completely different when the brand split up the dutch guys wanted to do it right and formed Van Nic

To answer the thread title, Yes, or at least, parts of it are.

The aspect of it that gets me is the lack of comment by the magazines. I don't read them thoroughly, so maybe they [b]have[/b] addressed this but when I look at MBR and they are reviewing £4k bikes in a grouptest I'm always surprised at the lack of comment on the vastness of the sums of money involved.

If you look up Evans and sort Mountain bikes by high to low, the whole first page is £4-£6k bikes! - that's twelve whole monkeys!

http://www.evanscycles.com/categories/bikes/mountain-bikes

"The aspect of it that gets me is the lack of comment by the magazines"

You know this is the one thing that strcuk me when I got a copy of Singletrack Magazine for the first time in years about 4 weeks ago. The advertising is geared to expensive stuff, the reviews are all of expensive stuff. Then again the target market of the magazine is middle aged men with large disposable income who want to feel different to the crowd... it used to be a magazine about riding bikes and thats one thing I see has changed. 🙁

£1500
...less than a month's average pay

it used to be a magazine about riding bikes and thats one thing I see has changed

**Magazine in trying to make money shock**

when I look at MBR and they are reviewing £4k bikes in a grouptest I'm always surprised at the lack of comment on the vastness of the sums of money involved

It is crazy that £4000 is now 'mid range', but it is, so for magazines to be saying "this is a lot of money" is pretty patronising to their readers, and they can't really mark things down when that is the going rate (rightly or wrongly). You can't review a product based on the halcyon days of what it used to cost!

Products usually suffer when they're either stupidly expensive with some problems or more expensive than obviously comparable products, which is more significant than a general dismissal of products which are deemed 'too expensive'.

I think one problem may be that the wages of the buying public havent increased at the same speed that bike prices have increased

Circa 2006 top end xc/trail bikes were around £3,000 to £4,000 as I recall

now 5 years later its more likely £6,000 + for a top end bike

I would think to most people it doesnt feel like their wages have doubled in the last 5 years

when compared to the materials, manufacturing etc of a cheap car how on earth can a 6k bike be justified - exactly how can it cost that much??? i'd be amazed to find out?

there very simple things really (suppose the shocks are the most complex)

I'm 99% sure they're Chinese.

Rocky Mountain and Binanchi IIRC pull the same trick, having the frames fabricated in the East and then painting/finishing in Cannada/Italy as the argument is untill that point is that the frames are just alloy frames untill they get the sticker/paint/BB faced and its the brand that adds 50% of the value, thus its made in XXXX not china..

But in 2000 a top end bike was £3-£4000, and that's the issue. A lot of prices were held for a long time, we're now seeing vast jumps, as opposed to small year on year increases.

An XTR chainset cost nearly double in 1999 what it did in 2007, now it's about 20% more than it was in 99, doesn't seem unreasonable!

FunkyDunc....agreed about the direction Singletrack magazine is heading....i probably bought it for the last time this month....it has become achingly trendy and an advertising rag for high end parts.

The journalistic pieces were painful too....that column from the try-hard who was banging on about current FS bikes being the be-all and end-all and anything old or nostalgic is crap was laugh out loud funny....sadly i think it was a serious piece though.

The bit that anoys me is I always though sailing was expensive, but a £4k Laser could last a lifetime (plus sails etc every year obviously), even when its 20 years old and only worth £500, some 16yr old can buy it and still be competative in the class.

It's at a point where raceing MX might actualy be in the same ballpark than XC!

We need more On-Ones churning out quality bikes at peanut prices.

but the point with Laser dinghys is that the technology is the same as it was 20 years ago.

If XC racing had rules that limited riders to metal rigid frames and forks, thumb shifters, cable rim brakes and no more than 21 gears then the 'keep using it for 20 years' rule would also apply.

But bike technology moves on quickly and the high end sales are what pay for that.

tbh, a £1000 bike now is probably generally better than the top end bikes of 20 years ago and could easily be raced at a pretty high level by someone who was fit.

[edit] adverts in magazine are aspirational - a lot of people go in the shop to look at the £4k bike but walk out with the £1500 one that looks about the same but has cheaper kit bolted on it?

Bike prices, like nearly everything else are based on what the manufactures think people will pay, if people keep buying 3-4k bikes and top end gear, manufacturers will carry on charging the daft amounts they do.

Are you all mad!
I can't believe you're all talking about bikes doubling in price over the last few years. And 6k bikes! What planet are you on!

Sure, there's a lot more expensive gear about for those that want it but you can still buy a modern version of the same bike for about 15% more. Seems ok to me.

5 years ago you could buy a Nomad, stick some XT/Hope/Rockshox/Mavic gear on it and it would be ~£3,400. Today it would be same/tiny bit more.

£2,200 bought an off-the-shelf slx/xt fs bike with a decent frame, compromised hubs and a few own-brand bits. Still the same as far as I can see.

My Pitch was £1400 RRP when I got it in 2009 (though on cyclescheme), think it's now £1800 - big increase but hardly double.

when compared to the materials, manufacturing etc of a cheap car how on earth can a 6k bike be justified - exactly how can it cost that much??? i'd be amazed to find out?

there very simple things really (suppose the shocks are the most complex)

Well a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport is about £1.5 million, so that's about 200 times more than a very basic car.

A £7000 bike is about 140 times more than a £50 supermarket special, so actually top end bikes are better value than top end cars.

It's about scale, ask Toyota to knock out an Aygo in the same volumes that Spesh do an S-Works Epic and they'd laugh you out of the room. Car analogies don't work - particularly when people start comparing top end bikes to bottom of the range cars.

5 years ago off the shelf mid range lx/xt fs bikes with decent frames from the likes of giant were more like £1500 at full rrp moving up to say £2,200 for the same from someone like rocky mountain or santacruz

I dont think the low to mid range stuff has increased as quickly as the top end stuff the the op started this thread over

Rusty Spanner - Member
Why is the Boardman frame not 'nice'?

Think the OP missed out the 'h' 😉

Inbred frames used to be £225 with welded dropouts. They're now £199 with swappable dropouts and stuff.

My Pitch was £1400 RRP when I got it in 2009 (though on cyclescheme), think it's now £1800 - big increase but hardly double.

I think its fair to see the pitch as a sensible real world every man's bike.

Although £400 in 3 years is'nt double its still about a 10% increase each year

I dont suppose everyman real world pay rises have been 10% a year during that time

Yeah but the price rises are mainly due to exchange rates rather than bike industry profiteering aren't they? I got it wrong BTW it's £1750 now.

Or maybe bike companies are making less money off 'normal' people now as they are squeezed by the financial situation, and are instead targeting fleecing well-off people? 🙂

I do think component parts are getting silly though, the Pitch actually looks good value at £1750 with current prices. Shame Spesh are stopping making them for 2012.

I know what you saying grum and tbh without seeing the secret inner wrangling of the big bike price fixing conspiracies that are going on who really knows! 🙂

Although with a thought on profiteering Specialized are dropping the Pitch.. Is the Enduro really that much more to produce?!

Hands up if any of you have spent more than a months wages (in total) to put each of your bikes together?

At the time, I spent about 50% of a months salary putting together my P7 (about £600). 2010 frame with (used) xt cranks, slx gearing and fox floats. It does what I asked of it and didn't break the bank.

my point is (as echoed by others): if people are willing to pay for a fully built up bike from a shop, be prepared to pay through the nose for it. A £6k+ bike is not intrinsically worth that much but there are gear freaks who love having the newest, most expensivest, shinyest thing they can get hold of and this is why we see these monstrosities plagueing our magazines and webpages.

"Or maybe bike companies are making less money off 'normal' people now as they are squeezed by the financial situation, and are instead targeting fleecing well-off people?"

Nope bike sales are up year on year. Its only top end stuff that is getting silly expensive, but then that reflects society. The rich are getting richer at a rate higher than before. Linking to cars again.. it was only 10 years or so ago that Top Gear were bleating on about the death of supercars as no one would be able to afford them. There are more top end cars about than ever before, and more silly prices for them too, but thats because the rich are getting richer and will pay. The same with bikes.

Does appear odd thought that Canyon can sell a top spec bike for roughly 1/2 the price that other manufacturers do.

they charge it cos people will pay it. Look at what constitutes a mid-range fork price nowadays.

Bottom line, stop chasing the latest models

+1. Devinci Hectik, Yeti ASR7, Ibis Mojo are all quality frames that have been offered for 30-50% off this year. You only have to look at www.paulscycles.co.uk to see a warehouse of old stock cheap, we've had a few from them over the years (only this year got a 2009 NOS Giant Cypher at huge discount from them as Giant obviously couldn't shift wimmin-specific Trances).

edit for pedalhead and singlespeed shep; pretty sure Van Nic bikes are assembled in Holland, but the frames are manufactured in far east. Hence their careful use of terminology to infer they are built in holland, without being dishonest.

Hands up if any of you have spent more than a months wages (in total) to put each of your bikes together?

I'd have thought that's most people on this site. Even at trade mine was more than 2 months net salary...

I reckon the total for my build will come in at less than a grand....cheap by the standards in here but its decent gear sourced at the best prices....all new too, there must be others like me?
The thought of spending more than £1500 on a bicycle seems like madness to me.

I think that none of my bikes have cost me more than half a months salary.

I do have a relatively high income and tend to buy sale/secondhand kit though.

The thought of spending more than £1500 on a bicycle seems like madness to me

+1

Judging by [url= http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/psaish-are-the-prices-on-oakleycom-a-bit-on-the-cheap-side-at-the-moment ]this thread[/url] many mtbers have money to burn anyway.

They were all free in the end though - surely that shows MTBers want a bargain, many of those people bought the glasses purely because they were cheap, and said they'd never consider them at full price.

The thought of spending more than £1500 on a bicycle seems like madness to me

+1

My current bike cost < £600, mostly second hand apart from the frame, brakes and wheels.

Having said that, I've just got a new job with a significant payrise and I'm starting to enjoy DH so I can see myself putting together a DH bike soonish. But even then, it'll more than likely by SH parts and probably cost < £1500.

many of those people bought the glasses purely because they were cheap, and said they'd never consider them at full price

I guess that depends what you class as cheap! Discounted maybe but I still wouldn't class them as cheap at the prices that were paid!