Overpriced stuff!

@Wrecker- it’s also not £10000, I think you’ve spotted a dollar price maybe?

Rich is all relevant though. I’m certainly not rich but don’t have hatred towards things if I cant afford them.

I will always post about Oakleys and price I bought one pair of half jackets over 10 years ago all the rubber bits have worn out and been replaced free of charge .

I have had numerous incidents where they have hit objects and survived.
From a face plant I have a small v shaped scar on my cheek bone and a chip to the bone. The oakleys have an identical mark dead centre of the corresponding lens where the rock hit my eye first . I can only speculate what would have happened to my eye with no or cheaper lenses . The lens and glasses were still useable afterwards.

When the frame finally gave up they sold me a new one for £30.
one pair of glasses £120 new+ £30 over 10 years wear is less than £15 a year, plus eye saved = priceless not overpriced.

When the frame finally gave up they sold me a new one for £30.
one pair of glasses £120 new+ £30 over 10 years wear is less than £15 a year, plus eye saved = priceless not overpriced.

But the question is, would a new pair of £15 (or less) glasses each year have been equally good, or heaven forbid, just a couple of pairs of much cheaper glasses performed as well over the same time period.

Frame durability is likely to be on a par with others as the frames are nothing special. Lens toughness/strength, is also on a par with any other polycarb lenses, so the only differentiating factor becomes optic quality, which didn’t even feature in your list of positives.

In which case they do start to look overpriced.

Disclaimer – Oakley (and cheaper alternatives) owner just putting forward counter view.

Any else think chainrings are expensive? I doubt it and I expect I’ll get flamed but compared to full chainset and bb replacing chainrings seems quite expensive. Certainly on triples not that anyone uses them anymore!

I just came through duty free, Swatch watches 😯
Cheap plastic watches for 100+ euro. Bonkers.

On a riding holiday in the States 2 years ago I showed our guide a UK bike mag . He couldn’t believe the price of Santa Cruz bikes over here . He said that over there they were just average bikes , nothing special . He’d just bought a new Yeti and again when he saw the price over here .

Stans tubeless valves and rim tape nigh on 30 quid !!!!

Everything from Aldi is cut for Danny Devito.

Good to know, noted for future reference. I’m off for a reasonably priced sausage roll from Greggs.

Anything by Rapha,Assos or Oakley.

Rolex and similar high end brands(even though I really like them and own a Explorer)

The lenses are demonstrably better though, as shown by the my face gets burnt wearing them

Wore a pair of £8 Bolle safety glasses to the St Malo stage of the TDF 2 years ago and ended up with Panda eyes, specs are now around 3years old so at circa £2.70 a year even better value than the Oakleys and just as effective at blocking UV rays.

Anything by Rapha,Assos or Oakley..

<TheDude> Well, that’s just your opinion man </TheDude>

I certainly don’t buy brands for the sake of them, but I can see value where I feel I’ve had it.

I don’t think I’ve paid more than £70 for Oakleys, they look good to my mind and work as intended, and have great backup when there are problems, and resell if bored for a decent chunk of the initial investment. They also stayed in one piece when hit hard by stuff, and if it’s saved any eye problems once I consider that pretty good value. Cheaper glasses might well have worked so well, or might have shattered into a million cornea bound shards. Who can say.

I have a Rapha top, work bought for me by work as a 10 year gift. I wouldn’t have paid that much for it, but it is a very well made jersey that I’ve had a lot of wear out of. They patched it up when I ripped it too. It does the job it is intended to do well. I also have a few Aldi tops, but the Rapha one is much nicer to wear, and touches like the pump pocket are genuinely useful.
£100 more useful? Debateable.

Don’t own any Assos, but I know people who do and say they are the best bibs they’ve owned. Made centuries a more enjoyable experience.

Had a Superlight. Great bike. Loved it, made me ride more. Crap in the winter though compared to British brands due to mud clearance. Worth the price? There wasn’t much else doing the same job when I bought it (2001) so I think it was.
Comparing a Highball Alu with a say a Kinesis FF29 it becomes very debateable to me now though.

Anything tactile, the value is in the eye of the beholder. An Argos watch does the same job as a Rolex, but you can argue it holds value,has its own value as an heirloom item perhaps etc etc

USA v UK pricing, now that seems fishy. $999 really shouldn’t equal £999. I’m sure thats where a lot of ‘premium’ pricing has its root.

Canfield Nimble9
US price (direct from Canfield) = $750
UK price (direct from distro) = £790 ($1234)

That makes some US -> UK pricing look reasonable!

Gregg’s. Reasonably priced? Yeah right. Classic example of a big name charging as much as they can. Fair enough but still not good value, just like all the poncy big name coffee shops.

Champagne. Ovet priced and often over rated.

Currently enjoying home grown goodness like Cottonworth instead.

Northwind – Member
My MTB baggies- altura mayhems- are great, I just bought another pair for £19.99

RRP is £49.99, where are they available for £20?

I’m with mattsccm, a Gregs sausage roll is only reasonably priced if you like eating cheap pureed grizzle in half cooked pastry case. Sure its cheper than healthy wrap and far more accesible.

A bit like a £5 LIDL top In Medium, which is Normal or is it Mormal or Lormal.
Which doesnt fit but still good value for Money.

A couple of issues ago, there was a grey hooded base layer in st that looked like proper smackhead clobber, think Renton in trainspotting. A mere snip at £150.

Last issue had a waterproof jacket for £320. I’m pretty sure there were neither coke, nor hookers in the pockets.

I went into a Snow and Rock in London last year to have a gander whilst on my lunch at a conference, they had a winter sports jacket for £940!!!

Oakley is overpriced but the marketing is so good that people argue they aren’t. Sad to say, most competition glasses will do the same as Oakley but with the price tag or the perceived ‘betterness’.
I’m wearing a pair of Oakley as my everyday specs…overpriced, yes, however comparing them to other frames in the shop…I didn’t like the look of the others…so I stumped up the extra cash. Apart from loosing the nose pieces and the legs needing recent each week to fit my face they have been just as good as every other pair of everyday glasses I’ve owned. The ‘o’ on the nose piece has long gone and the legs are looking tatty but they work. Overpriced, yes, seem to be very plastic; happ I bought them, not really but I also don’t regret buying them.
Orange and santa Cruz…properly overpriced stuff but then almost all manufacturers are now offering seriously stupidly overpriced bikes (just not all of the range!).
If you have the money to throw at it then it isn’t such an issue…I do have money to throw but only due to a lot of saving so it won’t be thrown away.
The price of raw materials has dropped back to closer to what it was but the final price hasn’t…the public appear happy to pay these higher prices so manufacturers will not drop their prices – why would they when there is a q waiting to buy at that price?

Got to add ceramic bearings to the list…. though must admit very happy with my new overpriced hope bb, because I’m worth it

OP -After dropping that sort of cash on xtr cranks wtf would you not apply helitape to prevent t the inevitable?

mattsccm – Member
Gregg’s. Reasonably priced?

Compared to the other options in central London (where I work) they are reasonably priced!

My favourite has to be the Park disposable nitrile gloves at a mere £26.99 for 100. Identical to the nitrile gloves you get from any PPE suppliers for a fiver. Thieves.

I can’t actually remember what they cost to be honest! But the bike I have now I did spend an inordinate amount of time taping up…

Oakleys , sorry , I paid £230 for my x metal Juliets in 2002 , just had all the gaskets done for free at Oakley , and was offered $600 fo4r them in the Oakley store in Universal in Florida , best money ive ever spent ,bomb proof.

As for overpriced stuff Stans valves 8.99 each? and almost every thing with Hope laser etched on it

Lego Friends
Pints in pubs
Posh crisps
Ebay selling fees
Anything made from carbon fibre

@retro83- googlin! Direct sports has blue ones for £15, £20 for black ones on ebay. I think they’re a never-knowingly-at-RRP thing, I’ve bought 3 pairs over the years for usually about £30 each

boriselbrus – Member

My favourite has to be the Park disposable nitrile gloves at a mere £26.99 for 100. Identical to the nitrile gloves you get from any PPE suppliers for a fiver. Thieves.

Some people want to be robbed, tbh, if you dipped a poo in blue plastic people’d queue up to pay £30 for it.

Northwind – Member
My MTB baggies- altura mayhems- are great, I just bought another pair for £19.99
RRP is £49.99, where are they available for £20?

They have been that price in Evans for the last year, looks like they might have finally sold out though

Shimano Olive and barb sets. 😯

BillOddie – Member

Canfield Nimble9
US price (direct from Canfield) = $750
UK price (direct from distro) = £790 ($1234)

That makes some US -> UK pricing look reasonable!

US prices almost never include local, state and federal taxes.

Import duty, VAT and Shipping would be about £220 to bring that to the UK.

That saving will be useful in the US to pay for the Health Care when you fall off it.

As for overpriced stuff Stans valves 8.99 each?

Couldn’t believe what they cost when looking last week, rim strips are ridiculous too. Even cheapest valves I could find, superstar £7.99 for a pair. Can buy 4 presta tubes for £6.49!

Currently enjoying home grown goodness like Cottonworth instead.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

1 for Shoes like 5/10s etc.

Decathlon walking shoes are cheap and have lasted me 3 years so far, only cost about £18 too

Most stuff is priced based on what the market will pay… obviously I guess otherwise the company would go out of business.

Exception to this is seems to be replacement parts for stuff you’ve already brought. I’ve thrown away colour laser printers as it’s cheaper to buy a new one than it is to replace the ink cartridges 😕

Remember that the first rule of pricing is to charge what you can get away with. If people pay it then fine, if not then you can always drop the price but it’s really hard to put up the price once something becomes popular.

There are a lot of pieces in the jigsaw that is the price you pay for a product plus everyone in the chain from manufacturer to you takes a cut – they aren’t doing it for charity after all. Almost as a minimum these days you have: manufacturer; importer/distributor; retailer. Manufacturer produces something for £2 sells it to the importer for £3 who sells it to the retailer for £4 who puts it on the shelf for £6. Now not all of that “added value” is pure profit – having stock costs money in terms of bank loans and insurance, etc. but the margins add up.

As purchasers we have the ultimate sanction on all of this by not buying those products we feel are overpriced or even a rip-off.

Don’t forget the government who probably take the biggest cut out of all of them

Depends on the pricing model you’re using. Not all that unusual to have introductory pricing to get the first customers in.

Taxes like VAT aren’t cumulative, that is if the retailer pays 20% on goods in and the end customer pays 20% on what the retailer charges then the total VAT paid is still 20% as the retailer claims back (well subtracts) the VAT they’ve paid from the VAT they’ve received before passing the difference on to the treasury. Import duty is different though.

no I understand VAT but HMRC still get a bit on top of their Import Duty and will always make a UK price look more than a US one.