Never had a “top end ” bike but have had several “mid range” mtbs and road. Been lusting over cervelo s5s and carbon susser and was wondering can it really be that much betters than my rose Xeon and anthem? Once you get to a point of decent kit, wheels, suspension etc… (which seems to be more or less the 2.5k mark) how much better csn they ride?

I’m avoiding a test ride as that may well break my willpower

1%.

Sometimes you’ll use your heart over your head, and anything we say won’t change that.

How much faster are they for the average Joe? Bugger all. Fellas on our group (mtb) rides are on 6 year old 26″ (LMAO) bikes, some guys are on the latest carbon Enduro-bro machines, we all ride at roughly the same pace and have the same amount of fun.

Buy something reliable, that you like to ride (important), spend the rest on biking holidays or keeping the bike runnning.

doesn’t really matter how much it cost, just how much it’s worth to you.

or

as long as you want to get out and ride it, it doesnt matter how much it cost.

basically, if you want it, buy it….

I reckon a lot depends on how much you want it to be better, don’t reckon i’d notice a lot of difference!!

You’d probably get more out of a bike and your riding if you bought a £2.5k bike and spent £3.5k on pro 1:1 lessons and some big mountain hols.

You can get full built carbon full sussers for the frame cost of a boutique brand. The pros riding them seem to do ok, so I reckon there’s nothing in it for the average enthusiast.

Granted XTR may “feel” nicer, but once the newer XT comes out there’s nothing to it.

As the owner of a silly priced bike, the reality is that it makes no difference at all on the trail. There is a certain satisfaction from owning the best kit but you only notice it while chatting about it or cleaning it. Halfway down that mentail decent, you have other things on your mind.

However, the heart wants what the heart wants.

I’d like to give it a go. If you’re good on a bike I suspect you’d be able to feel a difference but probably more a sum of small parts thing rather than any one thing. Though having said that I’ve ridden a few different mid range and high end wheelsets and there’s a big difference.

It depends entirely on what the differences are.

I think it’s definitely a case of want rather than need. I have a carbon full sus but I highly doubt it’s any better than something half the price.

Would I buy another, hell yeah 😀

I had a play on a number of bikes at a recent demo day. Some I really liked, some not so much. It wasn’t until I got home and hit google that I realised what a huge difference there was in price between the bikes I’d tested. I can’t say there was much correlation between the price and whether I liked the bike though.

As much or as little as you want it to be, if your asking to justify not buying one, then in reality not much better, but if your asking to justify buying one, then I’m sure when you start riding it, it will be loads better. Will it make you even 10% faster , probably not, will you suddenly start riding like a pro, no. Will you love riding it, and think it’s the dogs danglers , absolutely yes. It’s your money and your ride.

Probably not a lot.

Switching from my 2012 £2k FS to my carbon £4.5k machine the difference, noticeably in speed is massive.

But you should only think about same years bikes.

you’ll be more gutted when you break it and it’s possible it would cost more to repair.

My OH spent 5k plus on a TR450, our friend contemporaneously bought a YT Tues for 2200 euros. He thinks its easily as good as his tr450. Lesson learned. 👿

If you’re good enough to really notice the difference you’ll probably be sponsored and not need to buy the £6k machine anyway 😀

In all seriousness, as posted above, the biggest difference to your riding is to spend money on lessons and big mountain holidays. Ironically, once you’ve done all of that you may be moving to a point whereby you can justify the more expensive bike 😐

If you are going to spend money, spend it on the wheels.

Most of the top-end bikes cost that much because they’re comparatively light, so that’s probably the biggest difference that an average rider would notice.

I’ve just bought a £1.8k Vitus Sommet in the CR sake and it’s the bees knees. Doubt I’d get much better for me if I spent twice the money…

That Cervelo actually seems pretty well priced compared to, for example, top end Propel and Madone. Thought you’d pay a bit of a brand premium being a bit pseudo-boutique.

Once you get to a point of decent kit, wheels, suspension etc… (which seems to be more or less the 2.5k mark)

You can get some decent bikes at this price point but the wheels are still usually rubbish.

Very little tangible difference but it will probably make you feel better

Spend a lot of time looking at affordable bikes but all I see are bikes that would need almost everything replacing before I would be happy with them

The 6k bikes would still need things replacing, but not as many

I think when you get to this stage you kind of give up on stock bikes

On a full susser the biggest difference to performance will often be in the shock/fork (assuming they are set up right) and possibly wheels. £2.5K often still gets you a basic model (especially if using Fox fork/shock) which often perform much worse than the higher end kit.

Otherwise the components may get a bit lighter, the gears/brakes a groupset or 2 higher, the frame material may be carbon, but as the value of the bike goes up, the law of diminishing return applies. If a brand has a range, the frame will effectively be the same (perhaps in a different material)all the way up the range, from the ‘budget'(if you call £2.5K that) to the top end.

Very little difference to the ride. Dura Ace will feel snappier. So what? 105 with light wheels will ride better.

Rose carbon frames I have seen have had a dreadful finish, suggesting they are made sjoddily/to a cost, implying the ride was secondary in the design, that should improve.

I have a Cervelo R5 with DA9000 and C24s. My back-up bike is a Scott CR1 with Ultegra group and wheels.

The Cervelo is significantly nicer to ride, far comfier, smoother… it just feels so ‘right’ you don’t even think about it.

The CR1 feels harsh and it doesn’t handle it’s stiffness in the same way. Whilst the Cervelo is marginally stiffer laterally, it never feels like it wants to wrestle with you… Very difficult to explain, but if you could evolve a bike as part of your body, this is what it feels like.

Even though the CR1 has almost identical geometry, I always feel like I’m sitting “on top” of it. And I’m always aware that I’m riding a bike.

The differences in the groupset are minimal, and I can’t say the improvements in frame feel are worth the extra couple of grand, but the difference is huge.

I’d ride a cheaper bike harder and with more carefree abandon

Probably more a criticism of the Scott that rather than being attributable to the price difference, as you often hear that about the old CR1 and Foil.

I ride quite affordable bikes (never even spent £2.5k on one although most were bought long ago)

My bikes all ride fine, and are enjoyable etc., however there’s at least 5-10lb to be lost from all my mountain bikes if I meticulously upgraded everything. I reckon I’d be getting towards a £6k bike by then. If you (as I did a while ago) start considering the difference between, say, an XT and XTR rear mech, and realise it’s a couple of grams, you won’t buy the XTR. But if you fit a full XTR drivetrain you’ll save a noticeable amount of weight. Same applies to forks, stem, seatpost, bars, frame, all the bits of the wheels.

I would guess the answer is a couple of lb between a £2500 and a £6000 bike, but also I’d expect not to have to make so many compromises (e.g. “nicer” bits) on a £6000 bike.

It all depends whether you have the money for a £6k bike. Maybe you have the money for as many lessons and holidays as you have time for, and the £6k bike in which case go for it. Maybe you like shiney things, can’t be arsed with going abroad or taking tuition, and can afford £6k in which case go for it. You could spend the money on things that are far worse value than high end bikes.

For me the extra money I spend buys me, Reliability, Serviceability, Bling or DH strength parts at close to XC parts weight. For instance I always use Raceface sixc bars which I use on my Nomad, chameleon and Anthem. I like a light bike but wont compromise on strength having had a few parts that haven’t lasted or felt like spaghetti. I wont go lower than XT on a groupset having found slx nowhere near as nice to use as xt but all my bikes except one have XTR. I find it lasts longer and works better for longer so the extra cost is worth it. Brakes have to be hope after having sets that have lasted over 10 years and have performed perfectly, needed minimal maintenance and been serviceable with parts available off the shelf. I run E4’s on 3 bikes and X2 race on the anthem. I always have hope hubs for their reliability and the fact I can change the bearings myself without any specialist tools.

How much better is a 6k bike versus a 2.5k bike

People above have missed the most important bit about buying expensive bikes. In the car park a 6k bike is ten zillion times better than a 2.5k bike.

However when people are actually out riding them there is no difference.

Skillz will make the biggest overall impact.

I’ve never owned a bike that cost more than 1.5k and I thought that was a lot

I think it depends on the component as to whether the extra money buys a noticeable improvement.

Parts that matter:
Frame, forks, wheels (and I have a soft spot for Syntace carbon bars…)

Parts where XT-level is fine:
brakes, drivetrain, shifters, cranks, pedals

and the rest like saddles/tyres/grips are personal preference.

Rode a 2.5k Giant Reign 2 (the bog standard alu one), it was every bit as good as the 6k carbon Nomad 3 I also had a go on – despite being heavier.

I have a friend who’s also ridden the Reign 2 back to back with the Green carbon one and couldn’t tell the difference between the two.

I think it depends on the component as to whether the extra money buys a noticeable improvement.

Parts that matter:
Frame, forks, wheels (and I have a soft spot for Syntace carbon bars…)

Not quite, the frame should have the geometry you want and the suspension characteristics you want but beyond that, paying for fancy materials and saving weight is a case of diminishing returns. If you are building a bike to a price then you want to skimp on the frame and go aluminium – the money is better spent on better suspension and top end wheels. The point being you want to try to centralize mass and keep rotating weight down in trail bikes.

I actually reckon that 2-2.5k is where the average rider will stop seeing much improvement, up to that level then there are noticable improvements even for riders with a moderate skill level.

EDIT: to answer the original question. Not much better the cost of improvements gets incrementally more expensive and as others have said rider skill/talent/practice is the most important. I’ve always said the ministry EU Imspent with @jedi is the biggest improvement in my riding by a mile vs anything I’ve spent on the bike. The latter is just because it’s what I “wanted”.

I have 2 nice bikes built up over many years (eg fox forks now 8 years old). The Cotic Hardtail was £2.3k with Sektors, those bits on a good alu FS frame (eg my Transition) would be equivalent of £3.5k and upgrading to new Fox forks would get to £4k plus. I personally wouldn’t bother with Carbon so for me no benefit for going beyond what I have. I have for example Hope Tech M4 brakes but many folk would say XT brakes are very good which would save quite a bit. The extra spending was definitely a luxury purchase for me and no doubt I’d get as much good riding out of a cheaper bike.

The bike that would be my 6k bike can’t be built for 2k
The suspension design is better than most of the other ones I tried, the build works really well. I’ve tried cheaper and it’s a lot better, 3x better who knows, but it’s what I wanted. About to spend on it to go 1×11 and it will be worth it for what I do. Tough argument

On a full susser the biggest difference to performance will often be in the shock/fork (assuming they are set up right) and possibly wheels. £2.5K often still gets you a basic model (especially if using Fox fork/shock) which often perform much worse than the higher end kit.

2.5k will get you a pike and a monarch, which will perform within 97 percent of what your Fox stuff can.

The intermediate kit is so good these days, most will be hard pressed to tell the difference between it and higher end stuff. Eg the Manitou Mattoc, you can have one of those for between 350-450….a lot of people swear that it has better performance than Fox stuff….even seasoned reviewers.

The bike that would be my 6k bike can’t be built for 2k
The suspension design is better than most of the other ones I tried, the build works really well. I’ve tried

VPP? (Santa Cruz) 😀

Tom_W1987 – Member

On a full susser the biggest difference to performance will often be in the shock/fork (assuming they are set up right) and possibly wheels. £2.5K often still gets you a basic model (especially if using Fox fork/shock) which often perform much worse than the higher end kit.

2.5k will get you a pike and a monarch, which will perform within 97 percent of what your Fox stuff can.

Yes, sometimes, but on many bikes (including my own) at this price point Fox is specced (and mostly basic Evo spec). If I could have bought a RS equipped version I would, but it was not available in a choice of either Fox or RS suspension. I wanted the bike I bought and had to make a compromise to upgrade later, that is the problem with buying a ‘package’ deal, which is effectively what a complete bike is.

Doesn’t cost that much to reshim the fork and shock…. and also…. low speed compression adjustment is all you need, high speed compression adjustments are a massive compromise in comparison to rehimming the high speed circuits and they don’t acutally make that much difference. Incidently the ohlins cartridge coming out for the pike, only has low speed compression adjust. So all the bells and whistles that come with expensive suspension are often superfluous to actual performance.

Kashima also makes sod all difference.

Fox 32s are crap though.

bikes from Bird, YT, etc or buying years model can easily get you a bike as good as the luxury brands

A cheaper bike can be made much better swapping out bits from brand new, getting them on the classifieds in as new condition, sensible upgrades can easily rectify any flaws in the spec for minimal outlay

In my experience getting the suspension tuned properly and a skills course, will make a huge difference to a bike and how much fun you have with it

You can’t tune the Fox evo stuff, I’ve looked into it for my own purposes. I swapped the forks out straight off, ironically for X-Fusions with less adjustment. I’m in the less is more camp myself. I don’t buy into the Kashima stuff either. But the fact remains, that on many £2-2.5K bikes there is a compromise in the shock/fork (on the fork this is often a noodly 32mm long travel job) to hit a price point. Better suspension (which does not always constitute more adjustment/fancy coatings, which you are more likely to get at a higher price point (and we all know that exceptions to the rule here exist, especially with the mail order brands) will make a difference.

People above have missed the most important bit about buying expensive bikes. In the car park a 6k bike is ten zillion times better more embarrassing on the roof of an IT contractors Audi than a 2.5k bike.

FTFY 🙂

If you look hard enough you can get decent forks from shop bought brands, eg the Giant Reign 2. But yeah, I guess it can be hard.

But there are plenty of brands doing so and plenty of deals on CRC.