MTBing hijacked by the big money brigade ?

Jamie – Jamie – Freeloader! But we still like him

This issue has been around for a bit…

2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014

…incidentally. Here is my new MTB:

£400 + £100 for 10 speed SLX/RaceFace upgrade.

My kind of budget – what is it?

Yesterday I saw a Porsche Caynne with a Santa Cruz and Canyon full sussers on the back, case closed.

I once say a girl in a Porsche Caynne uplifting a bloke on a full carbon Santa Cruz/full facer sessioning Barry Knows Best in Peaslake, Surrey Hills. I couldn’t decide whether to laugh, cry, a combination or just hang my jaw open.

I once say a girl in a Porsche Caynne

You’ve changed Hora. Once it would have been all flashbangs, etc…

Yesterday I saw a Porsche Caynne with a Santa Cruz and Canyon full sussers on the back, case closed.

Yep, you’ve really proved a point there 😕

I once say a girl in a Porsche Caynne uplifting a bloke on a full carbon Santa Cruz/full facer sessioning Barry Knows Best in Peaslake, Surrey Hills. I couldn’t decide whether to laugh, cry, a combination or just hang my jaw open.

I bet he was having more fun than you and got a good shagging from that girl afterwards.

I bet he was having more fun than you and got a good shagging from that girl afterwards.

No, she wouldn’t be taxi driving me around she’d be lazily laying on a bed smiling at me after I’d spent myself in her company not riding a bicycle 😉

8 seconds of activity leaves plenty of time for the uplift for you, Hora.

The point the OP made was about magazines featuring high-price kit. That’s always been the case, as has the invariably positive reviews the highest price items get (singletrack mag excepted!). The mainstream magazines are part of an marketing industry that has to sell new kit every year to keep going. Many naïve people seem to open a magazine read a review, rush out and buy the latest £6K bike and believe they have the best kit, not realising that next month another one is reviewed as the best and is available for £7k.

8 seconds of activity leaves plenty of time for the uplift for you, Hora.

Is that 8seconds on rapid fire/pray-n-spray, kicking the bedroom door in whilst shouting yaaaaarrr?

It is important to highlight new trends in mountain biking with these super expensive bikes making us feel inferior…

ooohhhh….I want one of those.
Oh, I have one.
And am still riding it.

I think the Savage Terminator was obsolete by the time the magazine was published 🙂
Still love the Attitude though. Pepperoni forks, cantilever brakes, toe clips and straps, how modern can you get?

etto helmets Awesome!

Glad those “push-button shifters” never caught on though, terrible idea…

Maybe if I had a Klein superbike I too would grin as much as the coverstars… There Re not enough happy people on cover shoots these days as they are all to rad and gnar to show weakness!

If you watched any of the Bikemag.com Bible of Biketest review videos, the one thing they kept banging on about is that “Yes this is $5k bike but you can get the same frame with a similar fork and still great kit for less than $2k…”

They also wrote an article about how manufacturers only send them the Creme de la creme to review and actually getting hold of the lower spec’d bikes to review is actually relatively difficult…

http://www.bikemag.com/blog/the-web-monkey-speaks-the-rising-price-of-kick-ass/

My first mountain bike cost £380 and to be frank it was a shitter it was heavy the gears worked about 85% of the time and bits fell off it as I ride it down byways and canal towpaths. The first set of forks I got (RS quadra 21) were terrible, really really terrible, and they made eff all difference to the ride.

Fast forward nearly 20 years and my bike is lighter more reliable, actually can go off road ( in ways that the limiting factor now is me), this is ALL possible thanks to people buying XTR when all I could afford was STX ( not the RC version either I hasten to add) . Ask yourself why SLX is so good. It’s good because 10 years ago it was XTR that’s why

Isn’t the OP getting function and form mixed up? Some people want a bike that looks beautiful and putting together the ultimate bike is just as rewarding to them as actually riding the thing. But it’s probably just envy in the end.

No, she wouldn’t be taxi driving me around she’d be lazily laying lying on a bed smiling at me after I’d spent myself in her company not riding a bicycle

FTFY.

Chickens lay eggs. People lie on beds. They also lie about your sexual prowess. 😉

Those bitching about kit not lasting so long now should get on iplayer and watch The men who made us spend. I’ve only seen the first one but it looked at planned obsolescence and the need for new plastic shit every year.
I was angry watching it and found it thoroughly depressing. Just the sheer waste it generates 🙁

Back to the main topic, I’ve got a couple of bikes with a combined build cost slightly more that the cost of a brand new base model Dacia Duster.
Mountain biking is my thing. I considered spending less on bikes and buying:

– a trials bike. Great fun but very few places to use it. It would clog up the shed
– a paramotor. These look fantastic but I think it would get boring fairly quickly
– a classic car. Actually I did this in a moment of madness. It’s for sale.
– a flashier car than my round the clock 2007 Skoda. It’s just for ferrying the family around, I don’t see the point.
– a motorbike for the road. I also did this. I’m finding it a bit boring tbh. By the time it becomes really good fun it is also hideously dangerous. It’s going soon.

There’s a load of other stuff I’d quite like to do, mostly watersports, but I know the gear would get used once in a blue moon. So I’ll stick to my MTB’s, a bit of carbon and custom steel.

If I was skint though, I know I could have almost as much fun on a decent £1000 hardtail. That’s the beauty of bikes, they really are better value nowadays, no doubt about it.

There’s a load of other stuff I’d quite like to do, mostly watersports,

That can be cripplingly expensive, especially if you get the taste for it.

Unless you have an extremely understanding partner. Who is just as kinky as you.

Surely it’s up to me how I spend my money? Why should anyone else care?

Was having a similar chat with two ex-pat mates the other day about the bikes we ride in hong Kong (ones a teacher from Sheffield, another a Quantity Surveyor from Edinburgh) compared with what we had in the UK or bought over with us, example:
Me: UK Bike – 2007 Gary Fisher Tassajero (Still going) HK Bike – 2014 Pivot Mach 6 with XX1/XTR/Pike Build
Mate 1: UK Bike – 2011 Lapierre Spicy (Alloy) HK Bike – 2014 SC bronson with XX1/XTR/Pike Build
Mate 1: UK Bike – 2010 SC Heckler (Alloy) HK Bike – 2014 SC bronson with XX1/XTR/Fox 34 Build
I am certainly not rich but with no need for a car, a low tax rate both on salary and when buying (bikes are around 30% cheaper here than the UK) and a love of riding then I am going to buy what I can afford, I am never going to get the chance if I return back to the UK.
If you though that the UK bike parks where full of rich ex-golfers with Audis and Santa Cruz’s then you should come here, I have never seen such expensive bikes being wheeled around….and I used to ride in Surrey!

Nobody on here should feel the need to have to justify what they buy !

If you earn £10K a year and drop a grand on a bike you’re doing well.
Conversely if you are earning £100K a year and drop £10K on a bike in my opinion you are also doing well.

It’s all relative, if I earned £10K I would aspire to owning something better, whether of not it made me a better rider is comparable but buying a cheap bike and being happy on it is just as fulfilling as buying an expensive one and being happy on it ?
If I earnt £100K i wouldn’t be buying a magazine about biking expecting to find the contents thrifty and budget orientated, who’s ever bought a car Magazine full of shit cars and then rushed out to buy it again a month later !

I can’t remember who posted that buying a £7K bike wasn’t enjoyable !
Are you sure about that, are you speaking from experience ?

Well said disco duck
It’s the old self righteous post here ‘I only spent X on my bike so I’m morally superior’. They ofc forget the context. Thier £1000 or £3000 bike is just as unattainable for someone on the minimum wage. I retired and treated myself to a new bike and have enjoyed reading articles on all bikes regardless of cost.

Mountain Biking has always been expensive when compared to the relatively low cost of rose-tinted specs (the goverment gives a set to you for free once you hit 50, I think.)

Back to the OP’s original point about the new Cove frame being £1700. Yeah, you’re right, that is a lot of money. However, previous versions went for £2000 and had been doing so for years. So, for it to have come down in price makes it pretty good value IMO.

I think some of this is Rose Tinted Specs forgetting that the cost of bikes in the 80’s/90’s was massive relative to income, then there’s what happened to £ in terms of currency after 2007/8 – prior to then the (artificially!) strong pound meant that we were getting ludicrously cheap imports, bikes/bike parts included and then prices suddenly increased over just a year or two and perhaps gave many the impression of a big jump in ‘the norm’ where high end bikes were a consideration.

MTBing hijacked by the big money brigade ?

It may not be relevant to many of STWers but I meet up with a group of guys (and an increasing number of gals) some sundays here in the sunny Sierra de Madrid and although not many people have 5k bikes the collective spend on kit is eye wateringly high.

The group however is definitely not what I would call the Big Money Brigade. The organiser of the group turns up in a 2005 Citroen Saxo and is an unemployed (unfortunately all to common here in Spain) lift technician. Carlos is a fireman and a couple of guys work in bike shops.

The sport is expensive. It can be more or less expensive depending on whether you have to have the latest and the greatest or can accept that your bike will not get the most comments as you are preparing to set off.

We ride 100% natural trails as trailcenters haven’t taken off here but I did ride Davagh forest in Norhtern Ireland and while immensely fun it was not nearly as challenging as stuff I’ve ridden here. Perhaps UK trail centers have made the sport more accesible to people and less has attracted the Johnny Stockbrokers along with Joey plumber and Pauly chartered accountant too?

Hang around for a year, and those high end bikes get cheaper as everything changes colour for the next year. Not everyone pays full whack for stuff 😀

My first serious bike felt like cost me a lot more than the 400 quid I paid for it. I worked 2 years on my paper round and saved up for it. On the face of it, later purchases did cost a lot more but felt less significant as my salary was a lot higher.

I’d also argue that bikes cost a lot more 20 years ago. That 400 quid GT Karakoram was a rigid steel frame with canti’s and a penchant for wheels buckling. Nowadays a 400 quid bike will weigh less, function better and probably put up with a lot more (ab)use

Cycling is expensive, but the again it always has been.

The demographic of those who do it has changed as it has become cooler and become more of a lifestyle sport. At least in my office there seems to be a few older guys getting into it and having a bit more disposable chas means their first bikes are often quite tasty. If you can afford it, why not?

Some stuff seems to be getting really expensive – forks for example are crazy money but most people seem to have nice forks to it looks as though the market can stand the costs. They are better than they use to be – the original Z1 was a proper game changer and was expensive then but they were still common. A grand plus does seem a lot. Tyres are crazy money too.

However, how many people actually pay full price for stuff? I don’t think that I’ve bought a chain, cassette, mech or shifter at RRP for years. SRAM stuff seems to get discounted big time across their range.

Also, you can keep costs down by changing your expectations – I’ve alays been an XT level guy, but the current Deore stuff is genuinely very, very good.

With that all being said, the top end stuff does seem to be heading north…i.e. the £10k builds from SC. I’ve been riding a long time and I do remember the high ends bikes but you didn’t see them out about, but these days you do see some serious bikes so there is obviously a market for it.

It’s always interesting why sc gets held up as the expensive example. The top end s works enduro costs the same as the top end Bronson and last time I looked was lower spec. If you tick every option things get expensive, if you give people choice it can be more expensive but some awesome bikes are out there and there are loads more decent bikes at lower prices. However if you want to complain about how expensive stuff is and how it was better back in the day then carry on grandad

Just as an aside comparing expensive bikes to cheaper bikes. Theres a downhill segment I do regularly (once A week), charity lane in macc forest, been doing it for years, and strava’ing it since strava turned up. My times down it have plateaud , and are usually within a couple of seconds of my personal best.

I normally ride it on my ‘big money’ bike, an ibis mojo hd, with carbon wheels, cane creek shock, marz 55 rc 3 forks, etc etc. Last night the mojo was broken, so I took my old 2005 enduro, with old original fox36 forks, dhxair 5 shock, heavy wheels, poor brakes etc etc, and absolutely smashed my previous personal best.

Still trying to work out what it is about the enduro that makes it faster downhill, its heavier, the equipment on it is not as good, the angles are steeper, the bars narrower , it has less travel, etc etc, but its definitely faster down that particular trail.

Anyway, no particular point to my post, thought it may interest the stw massive.

Surely it’s up to me how I spend my money? Why should anyone else care?

Don’t believe that’s really the point of the thread, but if it’s any consolation I don’t give a monkeys how you spend your money.

It’s always interesting why sc gets held up as the expensive example.

Is it because they’re massively overpriced? 😈

It’s always interesting why sc gets held up as the expensive example.

Is it because they’re massively overpriced?

And their insidious marketing strategy of throwing an unending stream of their massively overpriced bikes at UK journos, so the mags get filled with an unrepresentative proportion of their bikes.

Having such a high profile cuts both ways of course.

julians – Member

Still trying to work out what it is about the enduro…

dunno, can’t help you work it out, but those old enduros certainly are the tits.

As someone said up there, Santa Cruz have a huge presence in the mags and on the Internet. New SC bike? “Let’s make a video”. New wheel size? “Let’s jump right on board and launch a whole new range for it.”

They are much more heavily marketed than any other premium brand I can think of and also have a hugely successful DH team. I suspect shops also see SC as the “safe” premium brand and find it easier to sell a £6000 SC bike than a £6000 Spesh or Trek.

Basically, SC have done a superb job with their sales and marketing in recent years and have really capitalised on carbon and big wheels.

[edit] it may backfire on SC as they seem to be making a move to “model year” graphics on their bikes. One of the appeals of a boutique bike and a custom build is you”re not buying something that will look out of date in 12 months.

Some stuff seems to be getting really expensive – forks for example are crazy money but most people seem to have nice forks to it looks as though the market can stand the costs. They are better than they use to be – the original Z1 was a proper game changer and was expensive then but they were still common. A grand plus does seem a lot. Tyres are crazy money too.

On a mountain bike that you’re riding hard downhill, there is nowhere else I’d rather spend money than forks and tyres! A bling transmission is just bling but better suspension and tyres makes a real difference.

Is it just us?
In the US; $5899 (~£3450) will get you a carbon SC Nomad with pikes, monarch plus, stealth reverb and X1 kit.

Don’t forget the £700 of VAT wrecker and the couple of hundred in import duty to get it into the UK. HMRC is making a nice little bit there 😉

Of course, but SC UK don’t pay US retail prices for the frames.
They have a lower spec full build Carbon Bronson for $3599!! It’s the “lesser” carbon but still!

No but the vat is payable on the RRP. They also pay the people who assemble the bikes a better wage in the UK compared to the job I saw advertised for their factory. It costs money to ship stuff to the UK, it costs money to distribute kit. I’d love to see the STW import & distribution collective do much better 🙂

In the end I’d rather a bronson or nomad than this bland looking $10k bike
http://www.specialized.com/us/en/bikes/mountain/enduro/sworks-enduro