[Closed] Most blatant rip off bike item.Your suggestions?

Santa Cruz?

got to be grease.

coppaslip with a bike on the packet £5 - 200g with a car on £10 for 3kg

brake pads my car ones are cheaper

as mentioned yesterday - little bolts that hold the cover on to the brake lever - shimano £1 each, ebay £1.69 for 20...

Shimano cleats...............

[runs away back into his pit]

Shimano chainrings is another one we should add.How is it that an XT outer costs 44t £80 yet a 32t middle only £30?
Theres not 2.5 times as much material or machining in it.......

Forks

Tyres. I could spend £80 for a pair on the MTB fairly easily, whilst a pair of superbike sized motorbike tyres is around £150.....

Oh, and anything with XTR or X0 written on it.

Camelbak bite valves. The cleaning kits are pretty pricety too, but no-one seems to sell a long skinny bottle brush.

pretty much everything really!

Thomthumb, 3kg of coppaslip! I presume you have a really huge toolbox?

How about this bottle brush? [url] http://www.cookability.biz/kitchen-craft-bottle-brush/b_1279.htm?SRC=GB1 [/url]

Jolly Green Giant - Member
How about this bottle brush? http://www.cookability.biz/kitchen-craft-bottle-brush/b_1279.htm?SRC=GB1

You'll be hard pushed to get that up the tube though....

Avid rotors
[img] [/img]

I need a 185mm - rrp [b]£40[/b] !!

EDIT- Just noticed a 203mm, rrp is £48 !!!

Avid rotors

I need a 185mm - rrp £40 !!

haven't tried these yet, but i will be doing soon! http://www.mtb-direct.co.uk/cgi-bin/index.cgi?item=MERGE080515170751

Any kind of aftermarket handlebar mounting bracket.

Oil. Any kind will do but aren't the better known chain oils more expensive than Harrods olive oil or something?

Yeah I've tried to bodge a hose brush before but the official item makes it sooo much easier.

pretty much everything really!

How you figure?

With a lot of cheap things there are clear economies of scale (like thomthumbs's coppaslip example above), they are mass market products or corners can be cut in the most hideous ways. (Think of the differences between a Halfords £80 special and what most of us ride).

I think we're quite lucky with bike parts - you can buy very solid reliable stuff for silly cheap, or spend a bit more on very nice stuff indeed from the Hopes, Thomsons and Paul Components of this world. The only things that I'd say come into the "rip-off" category are boutique items - like Yumeya - and the people who buy that don't care.

So many candidates.

Inner tubes are a good one though, don't they have a 500% mark-up?

And the DH ones are particularly expensive.

don't they have a 500% mark-up?

Not sure about the exact mark-up, it's pretty big but

a) It's probably all that's keeping some bike shops in business at the moment, and

b) How many do you get through a year?

Oh and

c) I wonder what the mark-up on tubeless kits and sealant is? 🙂

Shimano m970 outer chainring. Absolutely ridiculous!! You can buy a raceface deus xc chainset for not much more which is pretty much as good as the xtr...

Oil. Any kind will do but aren't the better known chain oils more expensive than Harrods olive oil or something?

Beer is more expensive than petrol. What's your point caller?

Re; bottle brushes,aplogies ,that was the wrong link.How about something like:[url] http://www.cdaquatics.co.uk/aquarium-cleaning-brush-set-of-3-p-2068.html?utm_source=Google-Shopping&utm_medium=Free-listings&utm_campaign=All [/url]

petrol has a higher alcohol content than lager, and probably tastes nicer too.

On the economies of scale thing,there must be millions of Shimano equipped bikes in the world.
With them aving a virtual monoply on many parts,I can`t see why economies of scale come into it.

Beer is more expensive than petrol. What's your point caller?

I'd run down to the nearest petrol station with a pint glass but even they have no smoking on their premises 😕 🙄

petrol has a higher alcohol content than lager, and probably tastes nicer too.

Yes, I once tasted Stella. I've never tasted petrol but even a mans brownstar would taste nice than Stella..
(Edit) Just to add that Ive not tasted a mans brownstar either

there must be millions of Shimano equipped bikes in the world

Yes but not all of those bikes are running XTR chainsets are they? 🙄

b) How many do you get through a year?

This:

[img] [/img]

At £16.99 which looks strikingly similar to this:

[img] [/img]

For £4.99

Oh and those syntace handlebar cutting tools which are just adjustable pip cutters, but cost £60 instead of about £8

Where did you get pip cutters from Leon? I've been looking all over for some!

[img] [/img]

Must be many thousands running Shimano brakes though,which use the same mineral oil,the same hoses and small parts.

What about a pretty Lezyne track pump for £75.
Even Park can only manage to make one costing 50-odd quid!

My favorite biking rant is crash helmets, £30-100 no trouble, Lidl £8.99 same construction technique, same part count, SAME SAFETY TEST (EN1078), & the Lidl is better ventilated than the Xen (have both), just a shame the Lidl doesnt look as nice.

I wasn't aware that Shimano hoses, oil or parts were particularly expensive. When I bought a set of XT disc brakes last year I had a full bottle of oil left over after installing, plus a couple of spare olives and fittings. And I [i]think[/i] I assembled them correctly...

http://www.tftunedshox.com/Catalogue/Shop-RockShox/RockShox/RockShox-Fork-Spare-Parts

32mm seal kit £30 wtf? 2 bits of foam and 4 bits of rubber (you don't even have the foam bits on the 35mm kit...)

Any spare part for Hayes - absolute rip off Hotlines!

£12 for 50ml of mineral oil,isn`t expensive then? You can buy 100ml of Bikehuts own for a fiver....
£30 ish for two bit of plastic tube,aka brake hose not expensive....?

I clean my camelbak hose by getting a brake cable and pulling through a bit of damp tissue a few times.

'L' shaped cranks.

Thomson steerer clamp kit: CRC £36 Only paid £45 fo the stem. Looked for one a few months back and they were only £15, should have bought it then! Still only $18 in the states!

Mr Agreeable.

Decathlon do a bladder cleaning kit which has everything you need in it for £6/£7 i think.

I have one and got one for my mate also. It has the slinky long hose brush and works great. The camelbak one is waaaay too expensive.

[img] [/img]

http://www.decathlon.co.uk/EN/bladder-cleaning-kit-3961832/

£8

£27 for a pair of Shimano pads??????. Thats the best part of £60 to do a bike.
You can probably buy car ones for less.

Shimano makes a fairly wide selection of tools. But every time they come out with a new bit or update an old one amazingly you have to buy a new tool to fit/fettle it (Even campag manage to design bits compatible with existing tools).

How about those little pins for joining Shimano chains? £1 each at my LBS:-best bit of marketing for SRAM ever

[i]£30 ish for two bit of plastic tube,aka brake hose[/i]

That's nothing, a bloke down the road wants £100,000 for a giant brick box. 😉

Crank Bros Joplin/Maverick Speedball - why???

ps Ive had one & I cant for the life of me think why I would buy another one again..

Said it before and I'll say it again - camelbaks.

£12 for 50ml of mineral oil,isn`t expensive then? You can buy 100ml of Bikehuts own for a fiver....

Incidentally I've tried, in 2 different brake sets, bog standard no-name engine oil and veg oil and had no problems with either, both turn up at between 2.50 and £5 a litre. However I'm reliably informed that pharmacists will sell pure light mineral oil for buttons too, putting bikehut to shame.

i know this a bit 'back in the day' but the Tioga disc wheel must be the all time rip off

it cost around £600 for a wheel (i think). This didn't actually include the hub or rim - what you got for your cash was a ball of kevlar string, 36 spoke nipples and 2 round sheets of plastic to stick over the kevlar string

and they were crap (even if JT did ride em) - I wonder if Tioga actually ever sold one?

Titanium frames.

Rockshox rebound adjuster £16.95 for half a small allen key shoved in a piece of plastic 😯

Anything from SCHWALBE. Why are there paper thin tyres so much??

Just paid a tenner for a pawl for my free hub!

Bear in mind folks that if you're comparing stuff against what most bikes have, then even Deore level equipment is pretty high end. Walk down a line of "normal" bikes, outside say a supermarket, and you'd be hard pressed to see anything other than generic steel stamped parts. Deore stuff is pretty cheap, and based on the comparison I've just said, anything from Deore upwards falls into the "expert/professional" level for most people.

Santa Cruz frames are a ****ing rip off though...

Back to Camelbak, they sell sterilising tablets, 3 for £10. You can buy 24 for £1.99 in any high street chemists...
Same with their cleaning kits, an old coat hanger and a couple of bottle brushes work just as well for 1/10th the price.

Any of those tubeless kits at £50+ when a Tesco BMX inner tube costs £1.25. Anything Yumeya. I thought skiing was bad for brand name madness till I started mtb'ing. It's all a massive rip off. Devs, proud wearer of Aldi gear since 2007. Got crap gear and no idea, but go on nice hols and drink sh!t loads cos I can afford it!

Chris King 'Fun-Bolts'. £35. Jesus wept.

Finally the Yanks understand irony with the term 'fun'.

radoggair - Member

Anything from SCHWALBE. Why are there paper thin tyres so much

Their tubes are the best tubes I've ever used.

[img] [/img]
you crash and break the lever on your poplock, you have to buy the whole kit, at £75! Yes i'm talking to you Rockshock, it called thievery.

Rapha Bidon, water bottle to you and me. £10!!! FFS. They are made by Elite who incredibly manage to make a profit on them selling them at around the £4 mark. How do Rapha do it?

Drinks bottles! £3 to £10...... Evian do a nice one for 99p with a free drink included

Oh the irony of someone using an Evian bottle to show how expensive bike bottles are - it is still only water, yeah?!!

Will... 🙂

I don't get the santa cruz comments, heckler is 1200 quid, similar to all the other high end frames. Wasn't Ellsworth the STW 'all the gear no idea' brand of choice? 😉

My vote is this DT Swiss carbon rim - 400 quid in the sale (for one).
http://www.ukbikesdepot.com/products.php?plid=m7b0s199p2439

Anyway, "normal" bikes are as good a value as they've ever been. I'm not panicing. Bikings fun on any bike.

Headset presses and bike scales, both about £60 a pop, bargain. The bike scales are particularly bad, has no company thought to rebrand a well made Chinese ripoff?

trek genius. £8000.

Yep Santa Cruz prices stand up (a little more pricey but not a rip off) when compared to other top end bikes: Chameleon £599, Pace 305 £549, Whyte 19 £549. Not sure what the anti SC vibe is all about.