Pretty normal:
Taiwanese factory > Bike Company > Distributor > Dealer > Customer
Ragley:
Taiwanese factory > Hotlines/CRC > Dealer (or this last bit is missed if you buy from CRC/Wiggle).
Props for adding “Customer” to one list but not the other, to help prove that one of them’s got more links in. Subtle 🙂
You guys think £550 is expensive? In 1995/6 a Kona Kilauea frame was £400. Yes they used a much nicer steel and the whole bike was £900 for full XT and some trick kit but I don’t think given how far frames have came in the last 24/25 years that £550 is expensive.
Yeah, I bought a Kilauea in 1993, it was £759 for the basic bike but the frame was (IIRC) £450. And it seemed to me at the time that those numbers didn’t make sense if Kona were trying to shift frames on their own.
If anyone is thinking the same way as I am about frame prices these days, it’s not that £400+ is unreasonable, because it is reasonable for a good quality frame. It’s more that we were spoiled about 15 years ago by a whole raft of properly cheap (ie sub £200 and often around £100) frames of all sizes and shapes. Even Surlys were £200-250 at that time. Nowadays it seems hard to find things at the low end.
