Have you been priced out of biking?

I think this has been the plan all along, through obsolescence force those of us that buy parts and service bikes forever to buy a new bike. Evil capitalist bike companies! Lol

of course it is.  thats how capitalism works

funnily enough my new and very expensive bike is not really going to be significantly more capable than that boardman.  ( being a 120 mm travel hardtail)  It will however last much longer and be much cheaper to run and every component is rebuildable or virtually unbreakable

I find some of the comments regarding what can be ridden on an older bike interesting. Every time I get on a bike from circa 2002 I am terrified to even ride it off a curb, but…..

When I got back into mountain biking circa 1999 I bought a Kona Pahahahaheiaieoe (or something like that…) with a whopping 63mm travel fork. To me it was just a normal bike so I rode it everywhere including regular trips to Coed Y Brenin and the like. When the fork finally died I got a Marzocchi MX Pro which I think had an eye watering 105mm travel. I’d take the bike to places like Kinver DH courses, Ercall Woods etc most weekends and hit stuff that I’d wimp out of now on my 2021 ‘Enduro sled’.

So the issue is largely the rider, not the bike 😉 The only reason I finally said goodbye to that frame was that it didn’t have disc mounts. Re. Triggers Broom, by the time I stripped it down, the only original part was the seat post collar, and I bought most of the upgrades used.

Every time I get on a bike from circa 2002 I am terrified to even ride it off a curb

and if you got on a magical time machine 2022 bike in 2002, you would probably proclaim it utter rubbish.
Too heavy, too squidgy, tyres from a motorcrosser, why does my back hurt, why does the seat move when I use the left shifter, feels like a barge, this will never go round corners, I’ll hit my arse on this massive wheel when I get behind my saddle for the steeps…

I have a Trek FS bike that Google tells me was produced in the year 2000, and cost a fruity £1500. It comes with a smattering of 7spd Shimano XT, some RockShox Judy DH forks & a Fox Vanilla shock. It’s a large, which is smaller than most current smalls & pedals like it is broken in many ways. It is a truely terrible example of a bicycle, which is why I bought it as a £50 joke bike for a race.

Even inflation notwithstanding, 2 minutes on Google shows me I can buy a pretty decent FS mountain bike for £1500 from a variety of sources, which may not say XT on the mech & shifters, but will absolutely be a better bike in every single way possible. I’d argue the same could be said from a £1500 bike of 10 years ago, compared to now.

For the inflation adjusted £1500, ~£2600 would buy me a ‘really’ good bike. I’m probably not one to talk as I have a few expensive bikes, because I am fortunate enough/worked in a job that pays me very well to be able to do that kind of thing, but that’s life, some people have more things, bigger houses, more holidays, etc than others.

I don’t think the price of things has changed massively over recent times, what has changed for the better is there is no longer massive oversupply into the market, of heavily discounted components & bikes. You could spend well over £300 on an 11 speed cassette 10 years too…

My mate has just bought a £600 hardtail and i can guarentee he will be faster on most of the local trails than alot of riders on waaaay more expensive kit.

for the most part the bike is ace. however the killer is the forks which are truely terrible. being a QR fork he will probably need to spend £300 to get a new wheel and fork to upgrade. (unless someone has a non-shite 29er qr fork kicking about)

its the hidden costs that scupper new entrants into the sport.

MTB is in danger of suffering from the standards problem windsurfing faced back in its heydey when everyone buggered off to do something different as it was too expensive.

Where’s that from? The only ones I’ve seen say maximum recommended 120mm travel.

@brucewee those are the ones I was thinking of but IIRC Stirling Bike Doctor have put them on plenty of forks that exceed that (how many are actually \<120mm these days anyway?)

I still think there are plenty of us who know EXACTLY what we want, brands/spec/components/bikes/whatever and now have to choose to pay more for less. Several times in the past year I’ve chosen to not pay more and ride less.

It sounds like you need to adjust your expectations and stop thinking the cheaper stuff is somehow beneath you. It all sounds a bit

molgrips

Edit: I think I’ve asked this before. I don’t think I can boostinate Hope ProIIs

You can Boost any 12mm rear hub- if the manufacturer doesn’t do an adaptor, then just get the universal kits that add a spacer on either side. They’re a little more faff when fitting wheels but not drastically, and they don’t require a redish so you can swap wheels between boost and nonboost frames easily.

Boost is the 650b of axles, it was designed to offer just enough difference to drive premature obsolescence and to give marketing men and bike designers a day off while still selling new bikes. But not to be too different because that’s scary and confusing. So the plus side is it’s easy to adapt for, and the downside is it makes bugger all useful difference.

My regular reminder that the average price of a new bike in the UK is (probably?) still less than £500.

@scotroutes is right – look at the average bike and it is a *lot* less than some of us ride. I led a group around Comrie Croft yesterday of ‘non riders’ and the most expensive bike there was a 2012 Superfly with Acera and cheapest RS fork going. Best one was a £65 Apollo from Recykabike. Sure it would have been nicer on other bikes, but they had a hoot. The big downside of course is long term durability with such cheap bikes.

Most things can be ridden slowly on any bike but who wants to ride slowly?

@molgrips

I rode my HT there, including blacks, and was top 1/3 for all the reds and blues, and about mid-pack on the few blacks I nosied at. The one thing I don’t do is the huaaaage double jumps. Rim dinger was ‘spicy’.

#middleweightmincer #HTshowoff #MyHTisFasterThanYourFS #meh

I rode my HT there, including blacks, and was top 1/3 for all the reds and blues

Yeah not quite what I meant.

I was about to play with a spreadsheet to see what 3% inflation would do to the price of the Kona Hahanna I bought for £425 in 1995, but that made me realise just how long ago that was and so I just turned to dust instead.

After hydrating…

I bought a Kona Hahanna in 1995 for £425. 3% inflation compunded annually would make that £944 today. The Hahanna’s not available anymore, but the Fire Mountain (which was about £30 more back in the 90s) is £799.

I bought a Genesis Tarn steel hard tail 4 years ago. It’s needed nothing replacing beyond pads/cables/chains/tyres. It’s nearly all Deore spec with a hint of LX, RockSox Reba fork which I recently had serviced at TF tuned for the first time. They said it was fine inside. It’s used in all conditions and mostly left covered in mud. It goes anywhere I’m technically capable of riding. That’s all I need from an mtb.
So, no. For me it’s got cheaper.

Is mtb way more expensive now? Yes. Does it annoy me? Yes. Will it stop me riding? No.

molgrips
Full Member

I rode my HT there, including blacks, and was top 1/3 for all the reds and blues
Yeah not quite what I meant.

I believe the response he was after was well done coolraddude 😁

😁

You’ll only get that from me if the hardtail was a fixie and the seatpost was poking me p above the min insertion line!

Have you been priced out of biking?

No not at all.
I’m lucky that I have some nice new bikes to ride.
But should things change and need arise I could quite happily ride a hardtail as long as it had decent geo.
I’d sooner ride the hardtail I have now than the last 26″ full suss I had 11 years ago.

We were discussing this very subject on a ride on saturday. The general consensus was that when we all first started going on Alpine holidays (early 2000s) you kind of needed top of the range kit just to try and make it last the whole holiday with out having to do running repairs.
These days you can do the same kind of holiday on a much more bottom end bike no problems at all.

It doesn’t have to be expensive if you don’t want it to be.
The hardtail I’d be happy with if it was my only bike has cost me way less than a grand and it’s a custom built frame too.

I remember the good old days of the late 90s and 00s when I used to spend 10 – 15 quid on Shimano 9 speed cassette AND chain from Merlin, 20 quid on a PAIR of wire bead Panaracer Fire XC Pros, 15 quid for a Mavic x117 when my rim wore out from the pads on my “parallel push” LX v-brakes, then I’d strap a 1kg lead acid battery pack onto the frame and head off for a night ride with my trusty 10w halogen lamps. My one extravagance was a 180 pound Rockshox Psylo XC fork with its massive 30mm stanchions and whopping 125mm travel. THOSE WERE THE DAYS.

Ah, when you could buy a nice set of vistalite nightsticks for a couple of hundred quid, and get almost the lumens output of an iphone from today, they were the true night riding days!

I miss rim brakes as well, when you’d have those ceramic rims that would get some contaminant on them and you’d be braking in minutes ;o)

Remember the old Judy’s with the magnesium lowers, used to sizzle in the rain, it was basically how long can these last until failure in Scottish winters.

Every tyre was basically an all rounder, as you tended to use it all year until it wore out.

Rear suspension was basically just down to the spring you had fitted.

vistalite nightsticks for a couple of hundred quid

I lent mine to a mate from work to try out night riding and the battery caught fire while on his bike 😆
These were the old periscope shaped ones with nimh batteries.

Yeah, always worried one was going to go, as there were so many stories of them smoking away or catching fire, only lasted about 20 minutes a stick as well if i remember, the switch from halogen to halide was a real turning point in biking.

I used to have these! 1hr runtime. 10 hour charge. https://products.mtbr.com/product/accessories/lights/cateye/daylite-ii-twin-hl-rc-230.html

You can get some epic bikes for not much, especially second hand. I’ve loved some of my Boardman FS bikes, hardtails like the Bizango and I think Calibre produce (d?) some stupidly cheap but brilliant stuff. I had a lot of fun on my Triple B and with a few upgrades / swaps / eBay finds, sold it for not much less than I bought it for. They will happily do bike parks and go quickly 🙂 the Triple B was bizarrely brilliant at places like Revs. I am currently on a Calibre Sentry Pro which is stupidly cheap compared to lots of stuff and I have no desire to swap, I’m guessing it’s going to last me a very long time… I scratch my head in bemusement at friends buying bikes at many multiples of mine then quickly thinking of the next expensive purchase because it’s going to be so amazing, then continuing to go just as slowly whilst bemoaning the parts and if only… I do spend time building up spares, which helps. My biggest annoying expense is tyres, which are quite pricey!

Although clearly I’m not on trend, I’ve taken our spare £30, 1980s ladies MTB out for enjoyable rides and I love pottering around on our Dutch bike complete with baskets.

Deore’s good enough for Wyn Masters.

2nd Elite and most laps that day, I think.

https://m.pinkbike.com/news/bike-check-wyn-masters-gt-zaskar-lt-enduro-race-hardtail.html

I’ve got an up to the minute FS bike, but if I didn’t, I’d still be riding my 2012 Dialed Prince Albert in all the same places. A bit slower, but I’d have that little thrill of being faster than a few mates on a 10 year old 26in hardtail, which would make up for it.

Deore is good enough for anyone but some people just want to have better stuff on their bike. Understandable as people like nice things. The bit that is not understandable to me is not riding unless I had those nicer things.
I have been cycling for 50 years in some form or other and nothing will stop me and I don’t care what level of component I have to use.

I’d have to downgrade to entry level on a new one, which isn’t in stock anyway

I’d suggest that new entry level bikes are pretty darn good compared to several years ago. Who needs XT?

Not in stock at least removes any potential for buying one.

Similarly, that £1,050 bike 10 years ago would have been about £1,300 last year based on inflation alone.

“relying on n/w teeth for chain retention means that chainrings are more sensitive to wear”

I’ve found that one steel narrow-wide ring lasts about as long as six cassettes. Even the alloy ones will handle a lot of mileage because the teeth are so much thicker than shifting chainrings.

You’re right that they don’t easily wear to the point of slipping, but I’ve found that they wear to the point of not retaining the chain reliably quite easily. I’ll admit that I’ve only tried alloy ones.

Who needs XT?

I know, I’ve been following this thread and I didn’t realise that so many folk seem to think XT is the minimum requirement, whereas in reality it’s only one down from the very best that Shimano offer to consumers.  Deore and SLX are to my mind really good components, and even those are way above the average shifters and mechs and so on that you’d see on most bikes

Have we got used to fast, comfortable bikes, and the race to be fastest? Have we swallowed the marketing, BNG and 3% faster Kool-Aid too much?

I’m still of the view that having most fun is more important than speed/fastest.

A rigid, poorly tyred, poorly braked single speed fat bike is the most fun I’ve ever had on a bike. Close second was a tandem on canti brakes.

By being drawn into buying more expensive, more featured, more complex are we actually reducing some of the fun, particularly if you’re not feeling able to pay for maintenance or purchase…

So, could cheaper and simpler be more fun? I’m sure I’ve read a few STW magazine articles and editorials on this…

So, could cheaper and simpler be more fun? I’m sure I’ve read a few STW magazine articles and editorials on this…

MAybe to some people, for me they’re likely to just have me in A&E quicker.

the race to be fastest?

Is this real? I haven’t heard anyone talk about speed improvements on MTBs other than to demonstrate that things that might feel slow aren’t. Most people seem to be focused on how things feel. Better climbing is simply about making the climbs less of a chore. Even lighter bikes are cited as simply feeling better every time the argument starts up.

By being drawn into buying more expensive, more featured, more complex are we actually reducing some of the fun

Depends on the rider. Bear in mind that MTBing includes a huge range of people with very different desires and goals. A lot of people say they like rigid bikes because they ‘feel faster’. Well, I have one, and I love riding it long distances but it doesn’t feel faster on descents, it feels (and is) much slower and I am frustrated that I cannot do the things I can do on a FS bike. So I descend differently. If you are only interested in that style of riding (which is fine) then you don’t need anything else. If however you also want to rip the local cheeky technical trails in the woods then you may have a better time on something else.

nickc

I know, I’ve been following this thread and I didn’t realise that so many folk seem to think XT is the minimum requirement, whereas in reality it’s only one down from the very best that Shimano offer to consumers. Deore and SLX are to my mind really good components, and even those are way above the average shifters and mechs and so on that you’d see on most bikes

It’s similar to the TV thing also – people who were used to buying 10/11 speed XT cassettes for 50-70 quid, and now seeing 12 speed ones for double that. The 10/11 speed ones ate still there, but the newer, better thing costs more.

Not had a new bike for a while – don’t really need more. I’ve two higher end road bikes from the 90’s, one Dura Ace one Ultegra and both work and ride fantastically. I had money as a single young male. I commute on my old 90’s LX/XT MTB, and also have a Boardman Pro FS (green silver model) that’s way more capable than me, and everything is relatively easy to maintain on it – I’d not do anything flashier the justice.

I used to race when younger, so that’s why one of the road bikes is top of the range.

Road bikes haven’t changed much (I did have a new road bike for commuting, but got rid as I wasn’t road commuting anymore – accident)

MTB’s have changed massively.

Prices have gone up massively on full builds but you don’t need to buy a £6k superbike to have fun on the trails. £1,500 gets you an amazing hardtail with modern geo and durable Deore or SLX components.

The issue for me is that component prices have risen, but quality control and durability has gone right down. SRAM / Rock Shox are particularly bad for this e.g. GX Eagle cassettes that constantly need teeth grinding down to stop clicking, the bushing issue on new SID forks, DUB bottom brackets etc etc etc. All issue that I’ve personally experienced.

Deore’s good enough for Wyn Masters.

2nd Elite and most laps that day, I think.

Yes, Deore and a hardtail. With a Fox 38 on the front 🙂

I think the thing is that there’s fun to be had across the spectrum. I’ve not been riding long, but I started out with bodged together 2008-era bikes assembled from cheap used parts and hand-me-downs — decent enough bikes for sure, but which cost me in the low hundreds to build. I had a blast riding them!

But my day to day bike now is a modern hardtail with better geometry (for the stuff I like to ride), a chunky fork, big wheels, long dropper, clutch mech. It’s undeniably better for everything. It was more expensive (maybe 6x the cost of one of my old beaters), but it’s better.

If I had to I’d ride the old 2008 bikes again. For me spending a bit more is worthwhile. The idea that you need XT and Hope all over to enjoy riding doesn’t really compute, but ultimately for most people MTB is a fun hobby and so the notion of “needing” any of it is ridiculous.

Yes, Deore and a hardtail. With a Fox 38 on the front 🙂

Factory 38, no less! I know someone would pick up on that – it was pinched off his enduro race bike.

Like the ‘AM’ thread, this shows the success of marketing guff!

notion of “needing” any of it is ridiculous.

its an interesting subject.

Have i been ‘priced out’ of riding… nope, as i could go and buy a £1000 hardtail that would allow me to do most (if not all) of the trails i ride today. Would things break or wear out quicker… possibly, but generally a 1k-1.5k hardtail is a solid bike these days.

I am lucky enough to have a pretty tricked out Norco Optic that i adore and ride everywhere and anywhere. I have upgraded many parts over the last two and a bit years, which also makes being ‘priced out’ a little less painful.

If i did want to buy a new FS, then my theoretical budget might not get me top of the line stuff, but it would certainly get me a very good bike, that with my skill set i probably would never outride.

I am lucky in the fact that i like what i like (and/or perceive to be the best item for me), which leads me not to care what others think about my bike or me. Regularly riding Surrey hills, you get to see a lot of bike bling, but it doesnt make me judge that person…. unless they are riding an ebike 😛

In all walks of life you get ‘all the gear, no idea’ folks, but if they are having fun, it doesnt matter how much cash they have spent on their bikes and gear.

In 2019 I paid a daft amount for my big 160 full bounce. In 2020 I build my hardtail up for around 1100 , Ive spent more time on the cheaper hardtail with gx slx mix and lyrics up front, its done everything from xc rides to 3000 foot days and blacks to boot .

Prices never comedown and unlike when Hope gave refunds on their HB160 most will try to make up funds from 2 years of Covid and worse to come maybe.

I think as long as companies offer %0 no one will be priced out.

Blimey this thread has run on a bit hasn’t it.

TBH I think this is just a matter of expectations exceeding reality.

Yes if you want to buy a carbon Dandyhorse dripping with XT/XTR/GX/X0 or whatever then (Shocka!) it’s not cheap.
But do you actually need it? For most of us the answer is going to be a resounding “Nah”.
And do you need a new bike every ~24 months? Nope, probably not, baring a proper smash they’re actually pretty durable…

Who’s actually gone out and bought a whole new bike during Covid? Who’s just “Made do” with whatever they already had?
I’m not sure I buy the narrative that everyone is constantly upgrading and replacing their toys, I think we’ve had more people taking up cycling in the last couple of years, pushing the idea that it’s an expensive hobby won’t help to retain all of those people…

Actually enjoyable cycling isn’t expensive, the outside world is (mostly) free and once you have a bike, any bike, you can go and ride it for prices starting from 0.00£/mile bikes and cycling are great!

Yes people derive some of their pleasure in life from owning and touching expensive things and that’s fine, but pricey bikes/kit aren’t actually essentials for cycling. And the lack of a £5k+ wonder bike certainly doesn’t mean people are “Priced out” of whatever niche of cycling they fancy just because their budget is more modest.

I think there’s a danger that the presentation of cycling (in general) by the companies flogging the kit, and the various mags/websites (also reliant on advertising money) give the false impression that it’s all forests full of “carpark bitches and “new golfers” showing off their credit rating with a shiny new Santacruz/Yeti/Whatever, colour matched clothing and all the gadgets every “Season”…

The truth is the majority of people have a fraction of that high-roller budget available, and won’t be spending the money they do have anything like as frequently as the the industry would clearly like.
Don’t mistake the hype machine for reality…