Hello all intelligent bike consumers

There is a testament to how ridiculously overpriced bike bits have become over the last few years.
Feeling a little crap, just after Christmas I decided to have a look at my sticky right shifter
When extracting the cable it offered more than enough resistance to make me buy another.
Now just a few yards from my front door a new store has appeared. Never bothered popping
over before as the greedy multinationals don’t do.it for me though how much would they ask
for a mountain bike inner gear cable?

I’ll tell you………… £14.95

beyond any belief. I told the very nervous youth that this was an outrage and even if an oily Sheikh
came in asking for the necessary piece of wire to reinstate the solid gold shifter on his
solid gold bike he would tell you to stick the length where the sun would never shine. I asked
him to check with someone more senior. The street drinker outside confirmed that this was
indeed the correct price and that he had seen more expensive ones? Honestly, what absolute crock.
That very average cable Will still be hanging on its hook when the world has come to an end
or the shop inevitably realises its near extinction.

Any other tales of monetary outrage?

The Audi, to take the Santa Cruz to Peaslake?

Pah, for real ripoffology, you need to look no further than the big S:

Couple of sprockets for your XTR cassette: £140

New carbon cage for your XTR mech: £175

Best of all: 3 bolts for the XTR rear mech: £60!!!!

Got to be chain devices. Still staggered by the price these come in at.
Although the Blackspire Stinger is ok price wise.

Brake bleed kits FTW.

Tyres I can by tyres for my car cheaper
Even tyres with low production numbers for my vintage car are cheaper than some mtb tyres

Stinger makes all the ones look incredibly expensive.

I can by tyres for my car cheaper

you could probably buy tyres for your bike cheaper too 😉

That’s a teensy bit steep, yes. You can get one of them fancy Gore Ride-on sealed inners for about that much.

I saw some blingy ‘Blackbox’ SRAM X.0 jockey wheels on CRC for over a ton this morning, that made me giggle a bit, especially since they advertised the fact that they’re made out of the same stuff as the normal SRAM X.0 jobs – some sort of advanced rapid-wearing space-Cheddar, judging by the ones I owned previously…

£35 for a Santa Cruz mech hanger had me spluttering on my coffee

HOOOOOOW MUUUUUUUUCH?!!!!

any jones product shirley?

That is a joke, the pukka Shimano ones retail for about £6 now, and that’s extortion, unless they’re something special they’re ripping people off at £15.

Yumeya is about the image rather than the products.

DT190 freehub body is up there for me – take a DT 240 freehub body, machine the splines a tiny amount to save a couple of grams (literally) add 2 hybrid ceramic bearings and charge £280 for it. You could buy a 240 freehub body and 2 of the best quality full ceramic bearings for significantly less.

XX jockey wheels at £120 aren’t far behind.

The little red plastic adjuster knob on top of a Juicy 7 lever. That cost me a shocking 15 quid to replace.

With the exception of Eggbeaters which I rather like (although some would disagree), anything and everything else that Crank Bros have ever made.

And anything that USE have ever made.

Seriously, is there any part of mtb that isn’t overpriced (kit wise)? Easy to have a thread about what is good value.

XX jockey wheels at £120 aren’t far behind.

Do you want me to get you some SB3 ones?

Take your pick from the parts sold at http://poshbikes.com/ – e.g. http://poshbikes.com/product.php?id=266

Chainrings. Have you ever seen the prices for Shimano SLX 44T, let alone XT or XTR?

Next bugbear has to be tyres. Yes, I know that rubber is more expensive and that the pound has gone for a poo, but the fact that there is a tyre in Maxxis’ range that costs £59 is serious cause for alarm.

[ninja edit] Oh and Crankbros kit. Ha. Hahaha. Hahahahahaha! Good luck with that…

Ton – Agreed! 🙂

Brake pads now they are a joke

Thing is, the Yumega and XX stuff is all ridiculous bling that few people actually buy.

For ridiculously overpriced stuff that people still seem happy to spend money on, I’d look no further than Chris King stuff. You’ll always get the “yeah but this headset’s on it’s eighth bike” argument but so what? I’ve got an FSA XLII headset that is at least five years old, in perfect working order on it’s second bike, and it cost £20. Even if it fell to pieces tomorrow, which it won’t, that would be £4 a year. CK headsets cost £100, will they last 25 years on the same bearing? Possibly, but I doubt it…

Oakleys

Flippin heck, some of the stuff here 😯
I felt like throwing a full tantrum when my LBS charged my £4 for a Shimano chain link pin. Tossers.

Rockshox forks – just a few aluminium tubes, rods, bits of plastic a few ml of oil and a bunch of O rings. Always amazes me how little there is in there and how simple they are when I service them, considering the cost.

Oh and ROckshox service kits, how much for a few o-rings?

Do you want me to get you some SB3 ones?

These are just fine! No way was I buying the OEM replacements, particularly when they were destroyed in one 4 hour race!

Thing is, the Yumega and XX stuff is all ridiculous bling that few people actually buy.

Can’t really compare those – Yumeya is tuning parts to make XTR (and Dura Ace) more flash, as is big in Japan. XX is a top end groupset which is functionally different from X.0 etc (just). Yumeya doesn’t functionally improve XTR, just makes it look more bling. You could buy the bolt kits for £100 or so, or buy lighter bolts individually for £10.

You’ll always get the “yeah but this headset’s on it’s eighth bike” argument but so what? I’ve got an FSA XLII headset that is at least five years old, in perfect working order on it’s second bike, and it cost £20.

See, I’d wreck that FSA in a year. I seem to do that to headsets. And if I buy a King headset secondhand for £50, I can sell it 3 years later for the same price. Can you do that with your FSA? Nope.
Most I’ve ever paid for a King is £65.
Their value is in the longevity.

Kink hubs, however? They are a rip off, when you can get Royce for less money. 🙂

This is pretty good:

http://www.mybikecenter.com/en/garmin-usb-cable-p-1211.html?currency=GBP&VAT=TRUE

…or purchase for £0.99 with free postage on ebay.

See, I’d wreck that FSA in a year. I seem to do that to headsets.

How? What’s to wreck? Maybe you need a torque wrench so you install it properly 😉

This is pretty good:

http://www.mybikecenter.com/en/garmin-usb-cable-p-1211.html?currency=GBP&VAT=TRUE

…or purchase for £0.99 with free postage on ebay.

41.46 for a bog-standard USB cable??? Is anyone really stupid enough to pay that??? I’ve got god knows how many of those knocking around the house, they’re going straight onto ebay this afternoon 🙂

£35 for a Santa Cruz mech hanger had me spluttering on my coffee

HOOOOOOW MUUUUUUUUCH?!!!!

thats nothing look at the price intense charge for their dropouts on the socom, m6, m9, 951 etc…..

Yeah, but can you open a bottle of beer with an Intense mech hanger? Priceless.

Garmin Discover 25k OS maps are pretty expensive IMO.

Jockey wheels.

+1 for camelbak spares, brake bleed kits (yes you, avid/sram) and chainrings.

Also: ‘mountain bike’ branded brake and suspension fluids: invariably the excact same product is available in different packaging, twice the quantity at half the price from a decent motor factors or motorbike shop. Don’t know about chain lube but often hear grumbles about this on here.

Brake pads. £15 quid for little more than two bits of fancy cement squirted onto a bit of stamped metal.

*Blood boils*

+1 for camelbak spares, I wish my youngest lad would stop chewing them!

Yours for only $1445

there was an amusing forum discussion on BM with this chap on vfm

vertebrae ceramic gear housing

That was a BM thread wasn’t it? I remember being reasonably ‘vocal’ in that 🙂

Co2 cartridges if bought from a LBS

…so buy in bulk from eBay.