Has cycling become a bit of a rip-off activity?

One thing that seems to be indefensible is the rising price of tyres. I just won't buy Schwalbe tyres new – their RRP of £55 a tyre is utterly insane.

I can't believe their cheek in charging so much and I just hope that it doesn't drag the rest of the market upwards.

Aftermarket Fox Forks seem like the same kind of thing. They set a ludicrous RRP just to see if they can. They were outrageously expensive compared to everything else even before the pound went down the hole. The fact that they appear on reasonable OEM deals shows one view of what they're worth. But suspension forks are now routinely starting out at silly money and only available to mortals in end-of-season sales.

there's no valid conpiracy theories here, if you overcharge you'll get undercut, simple as that. market competition ensures you're generally getting a good deal in any industry.

but ex rates are against us, plus labour rates and shipping costs have risen in the last few years. a container of 300 bikes used to cost us $1500, now its $4000+ and the ex rate against the dollar is also against us there as shipping is paid for in $ not £. there's a lot of transport / shipping in a bike's cost and fuel costs are a big part of these rises.

i don't see it getting any better in the coming years either – the std of living in places like taiwan is rising very quickly and before long the wages there will have to be at a relative level to the UK / USA. stillcheaper than making them here, but perhaps getting to be less so once all other factors are costed in.

whether i / we like it or not, rising bike pricing is the trend for quality brands, or you could go elsewhere for lower prices (ie no dumping duty from vietnam now) but the Taiwanese have become very good at what they do. you get what you pay for whatever it's relativity to VFM of a few years ago.

I always assume that RRR is just set to make complete bikes lookl ike a better deal. As long as you can still get tyres for < £30 and forks for < £400 then I don't care what the list price is.

The only person it really hurts is the lbs who can't get hold of oem stock to sell.

Elfinsafety – Member

The 'would you buy a Carrera?' thread got me thinking again about something I've pondered for quite a while now. Bikes, and the cost of cycling in general seems to have risen quite steeply over the last few years, although it's not helped that our economy is a bit screwed at the moment. But I've noticed the cost of cycling stuff has risen disproportionately when compared to other things. Granted, advances in technology have brought exotic new materials and processes, but biking seems to be getting more and more expensive.

What are the reasons for this? Rise in popularity of cycling? Weak Pound? Higher material costs? Or just manufacturers and suppliers using slick marketing to squeeze every penny they can out of us, now that we're hooked?

I was in a bike shop the other day, and in the window was a Scott Addict road bike. Lots of carbon. Very nice.

SIX THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS.

WTF? What for? 10 years ago, a TOTR road bike with Dura Ace or Record would have set you back £2000, £3000 tops really. Even an exotic full suss mtb would have been only slightly higher. £2000 barely gets you a 105 equipped bike these days. By contrast, other things haven't doubled or trebled in price. And this isn't a boutique small company, this is Scott. A huge company producing millions of bikes a year. Huger purchasing power. How TF has the price of a fairly simple machine become so inflated? And I hear one of their full suss mtbs is £7500. Is that right? Also, components are now silly money. £75 for an XT cassette? They were only about £45 a couple of years ago. Are they now made out of platinum? Clothing is silly too; £80 for a pair of bike shorts? Why? They're not super fantastic design or materials. I haven't noticed a corresponding increase in quality, that's for sure. In fact, quite the opposite; things seem to wear out quicker and quicker.

Personally, I feel that things have just got a bit out of hand, and companies are just taking the piss. Or am I missing something?

BTW, if anyone's got any 'obsolete' 9-speed stuff they want to give me, I'll take it off their hands. It's all about 10-speed now you know. Careful you don't get seen in the car park with anything less…

No.

No such thing as a rip off.
If you don't like the prices don't pay easy

Yep, expensive options available != rip off. When your corner shop starts charging £5 for a loaf of bread that will be a rip-off, the fact that top-end bikes cost £3K+ doesn't make biking a rip-off activity any more than the price of Aston Martins makes driving a rip-off.

I do think that marketing is what holds up prices to a massive extent in bikes. There's a huge information assymmetry between the buyers and sellers, so they can spout any old bull and we, and often, the specialist press just soak it up.

Pretty much. We are constantly told that just by paying a little bit more, we can make our bikes slightly better. Yet the improvement in terms of actual performance is more or less non-existent. Case in point: I've recently replaced a worn out late-90s Campagnolo group with the new Shimano 105. So I have saved just about a pound in weight, sounds like a lot, but since the bike (steel frame) and me (in riding gear) together weighs just over 213lb, it represents a weight saving of less than 0.5% of the total system. Big deal. If you read bike ads nowadays it seems that you ought to give up your first-born for that kind of weight-saving, or a extra cog on the rear, or a 10% stiffer frame.

Don't get me wrong, there has been real improvements over the past 10-15 years, like better brakes, better tyre design, better frame geometry etc. But at the same time we are also constantly being misled into thinking that some improvements matter more than they really do, hence the obsession with weight, and that ridiculous rear-gear war which gave us the absurd Campy 11-speed chain that can only installed with a £140 tool, or two £50 ones. And what do you know, that war is coming to mountain biking as well.

The cycling press has a pretty dubious role in the whole thing. since we are all so incurably obsessed with new gear, we want to read about the latest scoop. So the mags need to be careful about what they say, or they'll simply not be invited to the next press event. Speaking of which, those lavish press events and expensive goodie-bags just scream 'conflict of interest' to me. And don't forget that the companies are paying for the ads as well. To use another case from the world of road cycling, the introduction of the Campy 11-speed systems was basically universally praised in the mainstream press, while the independent mags and other respectable experts on the subject have been predictably less than impressed. The difference in tone could not have been more jarring. So what do we do, we pay, pay, and pay some more for the "next big thing".

Sure is, I bought some Green Fizz at the Bike Chain in Edinburgh and it cost me £9!!!! but it's only £6 for the same stuff at wiggle. Won't be supporting my LBS at those prices.

http://www.thebikechain.co.uk/store/product/20736/Pedros-Green-Fizz-1L/

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/p/cycle/7/Pedros_Green_Fizz_Foaming_Bike_Wash_-_1_Litre/5360049215/

So what do we do, we pay, pay, and pay some more for the "next big thing".

You make it sound like it's that or nothing, and I don't see that it is. There's plenty of other stuff you can buy apart from the cutting edge.

Was in my Lbs 2 days ago and times can't be that tough as the bloke serving me had a Rolex on, Can't have bought that on £250-£300 a week, nice shop though, how much does it take to stock a shop 20-40k??

Surely all the arguments here can be applied to all sorts of industries? Say the car industry – we can struggle along in Focuses and Astras or we can get excited about M3s and 911s. Maybe the difference here is that many of us can't stretch to a 400bhp car whatever we do but could get a top spec bike if we really wanted – it's just that it would hurt.

"I do think that marketing is what holds up prices to a massive extent in bikes. There's a huge information assymmetry between the buyers and sellers, so they can spout any old bull and we, and often, the specialist press just soak it up."

nah, not at all. there would always be a company with no real marketing activity but a credible product / reasoning for it that would undermine them. there are brands like that now. the only thing that affects / varys prices among brands are supply chain differences and the need to be competitive. mags aren't stupid either, a crap product / poor vfm item is highlighted as such, there are loads of examples. there is no great conspiricy )

the basic fact is real high-end kit is low volume and specialist with often high R+D to recoup (cervelo road frames for example) and those that want it will pay for it if they can. then there's good vfm products available to the rest of us that recognise that there is a law of diminishing returns when it comes to bikes kit, and price of a bike is not and has never been related to the enjoyment of using the product. a £500 rigid single-speed with good geometry for example.

plus, marketing BS will never hold up to informed scrutiny.. there's no need to soak it up, be cynical. 'all new and improved' yeah yeah, to a point maybe but it's still just a bike. 'MBS' makes a brand look daft once highlighted. it's not worth it in the long term if you're building up a credible brand and you understand what that brand is for / about / why etc. for that reason, there's not much of it about. there's some bold claims about good stuff, and keen promotion of average stuff, but nothing that really stinks, well not that i've seen )

Joxster, thats a completely different argument. LBS are more expensive than online for a whole host of (legit) reasons. The choice is faceless empty high streets, or £3 extra for branded fairy liquid to clean your fancy toy.

Biking has become unsustainably expensive for me because I've gotten used to fancy equipment I never needed before but now couldn't do without. Case in point being tubeless. Expensive, and a pain in the ass, yet has measurably improved my riding. If I went back to tubes and basic tyres I would spend far less time wrestling with track pumps and repairing holes in expensive UST tyres, but I'm now convinced my riding would suffer also.

Bottom line, don't buy the expensive stuff to begin with and you literally won't know what you're missing, and will enjoy your riding equally as much as the next man.

£500 rigid single-speed with good geometry for example

Can't think of any companies off the top of my head who make nice £500 singlespeeds? Care to give us an example? Preferrably a neon orange one? 😉

It's like growing up in Ramsbottom. You think you have an Idylic lifestyle. Surrounded by big hills, isolated from the big city. You can't get radio 2 but that's a small price to pay. Then you try and buy a house of your own but they all cost £750,000 now because a load of cockneys have turned up with 8 million pounds after selling their garages, even that flat above the chippy with a dead pig with a reamed arse stuck in the fireplace is 500k, so you can't afford it and end up renting a flat in Middleton and get addicted to crack cocaine and have to sell your botty to survive.

That's what the cycling industry has done to itself.

😀

nah, not at all. there would always be a company with no real marketing activity but a credible product / reasoning for it that would undermine them.

Oh aye? An example I can think of: On-one Reetard bars were 275g and about £30. Branded bars with the same kind of spec were a fair bit more wedge. I don't remember hearing of everyone stampeding to buy them over Eastons or Protapers.

I'm firmly in the "rest of us" camp – I have 521 back wheel so that I don't have to pay anyone to true it 😆

ok £600 now – but our iO was £500 a year ago 😉

or a £500 ss cross bike, well ok that's £550 next year.. but, still more fun than a lot of £2k bikes i've ridden.

tron, kit like those bars were exactly my point – if you don't want brand name 'kudos', there are lower price options that make you realise that you don't need to pay more. that undermines much of what is said about higher end branded kit by highlighting the law of diminishing returns.

of course we're ripped off, decades old technology branded and priced as the lastest and greatest, one of the reasons I will never (unless I earn a veritable s*** ton) buy a new bike. Your money doesn't go into R&D it goes to a man in an office who designs more acronyms and decides that they'll use a slighlty more expensive alloy this year and up the prices to cover the amazing new wonder metal.

of course we're ripped off, decades old technology

But it isn't is it? They improve over time – whether that matters is up to you as a bike is a bike but full suss bikes from the 90s are very poor compared to what we have now. Rip off? That's what happens to old people conned into paying for work they don't need – those of us who decide that we need more gears or less weight and decide to pay for that are not ripped off – maybe we're scared of looking behind the times but you do get something more for your money and you know what the choice is.

The thing is, even when there is good cheap kit out there, it doesn't seem to shift in bucketloads. You only have to look at the Carrera thread to see how hooked up a lot of people are by brand.

Elfinsafety ….could not agree any more suspension fork prices alone gets my blood boiling.

there no better for durability & improved performance is negligable.

i dont use lbs at all & thebikechain posts is a good example of why i dont bother.

i spent £4.5k last yr on bikes an bits….the end

Ah, there have been some intelligent replies (people who sort of agree with me)!

Seriously though, I think some of the responses on this thread prove my theory that many folk are taken in by marketing BS to such a degree that they really believe the hype. There's the issue of inflation/economics of course, but I think some folk are missing the point a bit.

If a company has a £6-7000 bike as it's TOTR model, then is a £3-4k model 'mid-range'? That's still a very hefty sum for a bicycle. My argument is that the price of cycling has risen disproportionately with the quality of product. Current XT, for example, is simply not of the quality of manufacture as early 90's XT. It's not.The materials are inferior. The tech may be advanced, but stuff wears out much faster, so it's poorer value for money. Even mid-range stuff like Deore is the same; Deore freehubs are very fragile these days. Granted, cheaper end stuff may be better value, but a £100 full susser from a catalogue is poorer value overall than a simple fully rigid bike for the same amount. The latter will probably last longer and therefore give greater value money.

Right. I'd like someone to attempt to justify why a £6500 Scott is worth nearly £4000 more than this £2600 bike from Decathlon. Both from massive companies.

http://www.decathlon.co.uk/EN/comp-pro-fc-900-72884310/#

Anyone? I'd like to know what I'm getting for my extra £3900.

As for other bits; I was looking at tyre the other day, and spotted something at £47.99. For the pair, I naturally assumed. No.

FOURTY SEVEN POUNDS AND NINETY NINE PENCE. FOR ONE TYRE.

Explain please.

Elfinsafety – Member
My argument is that the price of cycling has risen disproportionately with the quality of product. Current XT, for example, is simply not of the quality of manufacture as early 90's XT. It's not.The materials are inferior. The tech may be advanced, but stuff wears out much faster, so it's poorer value for money. Even mid-range stuff like Deore is the same; Deore freehubs are very fragile these days.

All apocryphal. Can you provide any evidence at all to back up these assertions?

One of the reasons that stuff wears out fast is that is gets hammered more. I suspect it's also affected by the amount of dust….

david moyes is my dad – Member

suspension fork prices alone gets my blood boiling

i recently bought some 140mm solo-air Maxle Recons from tftuned. £320. Brilliant performance, stiff, light, easy to setup, easy to maintain.

£320 is a lot of money for some people, Tora's are bloody good forks, they're a little heavier, but the chrome stanchions are very durable, and you can pick up 130mm Tora's for about £200…

i've got some nearly-new 130mm solo-air QR Recons sitting doing nowt in my kitchen. yours for £150 (posted).

forks are cheap, and very very good.

(don't complain about fork prices if you 'need' 150mm travel / 15mm maxle / separate high-low speed compression damping)

I don't think people would begrudge the prices if stuff did last longer. The technology may be advancing and improving performance, but improving durability doesn't seem that high on a lot of companies agenda?

I don't think people would begrudge the prices if stuff did last longer. The technology may be advancing and improving performance, but improving durability doesn't seem that high on a lot of companies agenda?

Why would it be? The idea is that you are suppose to use it for a couple of years at most and then buy newer and "better" bits. Why design something to last 20 years when it is going to be "obsolete" in two years? Reminds me of a case several years ago when a woman in Sweden started a class action suit against Sony Ericsson because a lot of their phones broke after about two years. Phones were not considered disposable back in the early to mid-2000s, but they certainly are now. The court eventually rule in favour of Sony Ericsson, saying that it's perfectly reasonable that a £200-£300 phone breaks in two years. That's probably increasingly where we are heading to now in mountain biking.

It was pleasant in a weird way to see companies like Mercian still offer services to repair older steel frames, including replacing damaged tubes.

Elf, how's the physio thing working out?

"All apocryphal. Can you provide any evidence at all to back up these assertions?"

Yes. I've got an original XTR M900 mech, done loads of miles, still sweet. And a similar vintage XT mech, again still in great working order. I've had newer XT mechs wear out within a year. They may be lighter, but they're not as well made. As for freehubs; I've had old XT ones last years (still got an XT front hub going strong, it's 20 years old), but newer ones have given up after just a few months. Newer STI shifters don't seem to last more than a couple of years. XT, Deore, whatever.

"One of the reasons that stuff wears out fast is that is gets hammered more. I suspect it's also affected by the amount of dust…"

I rode harder and faster when I was younger. Stuff just seemed to go on doing a job; now, it gives up after a relatively short period of time. Oh, and I was faster on heavier machinery. Go figure.

Why do you think Shimano have developed new chainring patterns every few years? I'll tell you why. Cranks themselves don't wear out, so the only way to get people to buy new ones is to make old ones obsolete by changing the bolt pattern. 5 bolt, 5 bolt compact, 4 bolt, what's next? XTR with proprietary chainrings for no other reason than to force you to buy extortionately expensive XTR rings, and scuppering any plans for replacing them with other manufacturers' stuff.

Original XTR stayed the same for a good few years. The next lot had a shorter product line lifespan. Soon, we'll have new XTR every year. Meaning the demand for new stuff is kept up. Built in obsolescence. Very wasteful and needless.

Anyone fancy a go at the Scott V Decathlon conundrum above?

Cranks themselves don't wear out,

oh yes they do….

Joxster_ my sincere apologies. Email me your address and I will send you another bottle foc.

Alternatively pop in for a full refund and keep the fizz.

My balls up-just make yourself known and if I am not there tell whoever serves you I said it was cool.

Mark.

(incidentally i don't even own a car…. in case anyone thought i was actually serious…)

10 years ago £300 forks were along the lines of a Judy Long Travel with 80mm travel, flexed like owt, weighed a heck of a lot and you couldn't do much apart from change preload.

Now you get rebound adjust (which is essential to make your fork track properly. Crap rebound=crap fork performance), lockout (useful for climbing), big ol' stanchions that make the fork stiffer and all in a lighter weight packages (lower by about a pound- which is a heck of a lot). Everything is better and only a fool can't tell the difference.

I'm perfectly willing to admit though that some things are bloody silly- Schwalbe tyres are, the price of Crank Bros wheelsets and several other companies too, obviously Fox forks but if you think it's overpriced, don't buy it. I don't.

Not read the entire thread, but I posted very similar thread couple of years back on TriTalk, varied response. The tipping point for me was the price of Duc 916 vs a Stork road bike….I still can get my head round it but it boils down to demand.

We keep paying it, they'll put the prices up and up a up….

Is the industry overpriced? Maybe, but then, there always seems to be a lot of people working in it that struggle to make a living. Small enterprises come and go, and it's only the big boys that really seem to weather the storms. In some ways I suspect that those of use involved in cycling are slightly skewed in their belief at how popular the activity is. Especially mountainbiking. Sure, it's growing, but how many people do you know outside of your immediate riding buddies who take it to the same level? What about at work? I rarely meet anyone who has the same passion. Most people believe that a £99 special from Halfords is more than up to the job. It's a specialist industry and as such, requires specialist prices to ensure feedback into the system in terms of new design and technological advances.

LBS's are a short-notice-lifesaver and have regularly saved me a weekends worth of sitting around wishing the postman would deliver. The amount you choose to spend is down to personal choice – over the last year I've built up a bike on the cheap (mostly secondhand), and also spend out a huge amount on components for another build (which, if I can just add, were sourced at extremely good prices by The Bike Chain, even when compared to online stores, so I am rather surprised to hear complaints up there ^ about their pricing).

Of course I'd like lower prices, but not if it means that the industry begins to stall and I loose my regular LBS's.

This seems to be turning into a debate about LBS rather than the OP's wider point about cost in the sector, for me I'd agree that 7k bikes are a rip off and XX/XTR aren't for mere mortals but at that level you are basically paying to have something very few people can have so you're not bothered hence companies charge whatever they like. For the 7k trek I'd want Gary Fisher to deliver the thing and pedal it up hills for me.

At a more achievable level the kit on 1k bikes seems to have got worse over the last 2-3 years which is likely tied to exchange rates in part and also the fact that we all went 'what a bargain' when bikes like the pitch were 1k and bought them en masse, companies notice this and see if they can get away with an extra few percents on next years model. Fuel charges on boxes from the far east are an issue as well as we got used to nice cheap shipping in the boom years and now its got nasty prices are up.

For me I've had to accept i'm Deore not XT in the last year and roadie colleagues of mine have done similar with a downshift to 105 on their bikes for the most part as none of us can justify the cost of items like cassettes, partially this is due to most of us being poorer (pay cut/freezes) than before and more concerned about our jobs but also because the items do seem to have got more expensive out of step with inflation quite recently. I'd agree technology has moved on and that explains some of the increase in cost but there are clearly some companies taking the mick. People obsession with upgrades doesn't help headline prices but it makes older stuff cheaper if you keep and eye out and as a case in point i'll probably be replacing bits of my drivetrain towards the end of the year as all the tarts go ten speed.

So yes some companies products cost a silly amount of money, and no I'm not buying them.

It's a disgrace that modern bikes have a fraction of the material of old bikes, but cost so much more.

Shocking!

Cranks themselves don't wear out

They definitely do..

breaks in two years. That's probably increasingly where we are heading to now in mountain biking.

My missus moans if I want to replace bikes more than once a decade as they are a massive outlay

for me I'd agree that 7k bikes are a rip off

I don't think they are at all, because they're not what 99% of people will ever buy. I don't think anyone on here believes for one second that these bikes are £5500 better than the £1500 option from the same range. They might very well be lighter/stiffer/whatever-er by some tiny amount and if that matters to people and they can afford it then they can buy it, and it's up to them to decide if they're being ripped off or not. If it doesn't matter they can save themeslves > 5K and get something else.

The fact that they exist doesn't mean anybody's getting ripped off. The top end will always exist in pretty much any market you can think of.