Isn't Bike Gear getting too expensive?

JTE83 said:

It's crazy how bike companies are raising prices for market positioning and how they're forcing retailers to sell at retail price or else they cut them off. Shimano and Polar does this. And when the new SRAM group came out it was way more expensive than Shimano. It's crazy paying $540 for an SRAM Force STI shifter, and I wonder how SRAM is selling! I expected them to have lower prices because they were the new kid in town and unproven. By the way, does anyone know how well SRAM groups are selling?

When I started road biking in 2003 a Dura Ace STI set cost only $189. Now it's $496 to $379. Thank God there's Probikekit because I don't want to custom build a bike anymore and I'd rather get a deal on a complete bike and customize it or get a complete used one on ebay. My customized 2005 Kestrel Talon ($3718) cost me more than my ebay ($3015) CF Cervelo Soloist Team!

And it's crazy how a 105 brake set now costs over $100 vs $54 previously. Makes me wonder what the prices of the 2007 bikes will be.

I'm forced to be an ebay shopper or savvy web shopper.

My 1st Polar Power Kit cost me only $240. Then they jacked up prices across all retailers to $350 so I bought my next 3 from ebay.

What are your gripes?

I started road cycling in 2002 and from my observations my cycling dollar goes further now than it did back then. Sure things are expensive but you can get an Ultegra equipped Alu bike with carbon seatstays for what you'd pay for a 105 full Alu bike back then. Maybe you should consolidate and just have 1 or 2 bikes. I mean do you really need 6 bikes after all? Also, if you sold 4 bikes you'd have more than enough for your Zipp 404's😉

JTE83 said:

It's crazy how bike companies are raising prices for market positioning and how they're forcing retailers to sell at retail price or else they cut them off.

I think the market positioning is a big part of it. Since cycling is fairly cheap compared to some other hobbies, there is a desire for people to buy the best, if only to show off to the rest of the riders in their club. Most people are incapable of evaluating quality, so they fall back on price. When one company raises their prices, all the others raise theirs so they are not seen as being a "lesser" brand.

Lately things have been getting completely out of hand. I have a dozen pairs of Assos bibs. I paid a lot of money for them, but even I am laughing at Assos' new ss.13 jersey. It's nearly $300 USD for a freakin short sleeve jersey. Same thing goes for Sidis. I have three pairs of Sidis but I look at the $400 USD Sidis and think I am not going to pay that--but I probably will.

The most annoying thing I find is when the mundane costs as much as the unique. You can buy custom geometry frames made by small companies with fantastic craftsmen that cost less than some frame that was mass manufactured in China for a company like Specialized. That is whack.

My personal theory is that the housing bubble in the U.S. has allowed a lot of yuppies to take out HELOCs and they have been busy buying luxury items with the cash. As we accellerate down the backward slope of the bubble it will be interesting to see what happens to high end markets like bikes and cars.

Bro Deal said:

Lately things have been getting completely out of hand. I have a dozen pairs of Assos bibs. I paid a lot of money for them, but even I am laughing at Assos' new ss.13 jersey. It's nearly $300 USD for a freakin short sleeve jersey. Same thing goes for Sidis. I have three pairs of Sidis but I look at the $400 USD Sidis and think I am not going to pay that--but I probably will.

That price range for a really really good pair of shoes is reasonable. But for a bib, you've gotta be kidding me! :eek:

jrstevens said:

I started road cycling in 2002 and from my observations my cycling dollar goes further now than it did back then. Sure things are expensive but you can get an Ultegra equipped Alu bike with carbon seatstays for what you'd pay for a 105 full Alu bike back then. Maybe you should consolidate and just have 1 or 2 bikes. I mean do you really need 6 bikes after all? Also, if you sold 4 bikes you'd have more than enough for your Zipp 404's😉

I started racing seriously in about 1980, and having come back to it recently, bike kit seems to me to be relatively WAY cheaper now (in the UK at least), as well as there being far more choice. When I built my first all-new race bike in 1982, I spent over £200 on bars, stem, chainset, saddle, and all the fiddly stuff like bar tape, cables etc. Nothing particularly flash, just good middle of the road components. I already had wheels, gears, frame, pedals etc. Now, £200 would easily get me a full Campagnolo Veloce or Mirage group set, even without allowing for the fact that compound inflation means that £320 is the equivalent to that original £200. In fact, just looking at a couple of small ads, I could get a Veloce chainset and BB, San Marco SKN saddle, ITM bars and stem, tape, campag Ergo cables, and still have nearly enough change from my original £200 for a set of 2007 Campag Khamsin wheels.

Now, quit whining... :-)

Who sets the price for all this stuff anyway? (Hint: it isn't the manufacturer, the distributer, local retailer or cost of materials.) 🙄

OOh OOh I know I know..... Its US. If we didn't pay for the stuff they would make it cheaper, supply and demand. It helps to be very friendly with your LBS. It also helps to find the absolute cheapest price for an item (duh)

Buying quality is a good idea. I had that in mind with the Arione, DT Wheels (😠 ) and BMC. They were all reputed, good value (with great discounts) components which would last me a while. The wheels kinda backfired but everything else is great. An excellent trick, ABSOLUTELY excellent trick, is to avoid buying carbon unless you know 110% that it will do what it is claimed to do better than its aluminium counterpart to a degree which justifies its extra cost. My bike is 90-95% Al. Only the seatstays, and maybe the saddle body, ar carbon. It is still comfortable and very stiff, all for a fraction of the cost of its carbon equal. Another equally good trick is to set yourself a margin of weight 'allowance' on parts. Say you want a lighter handlebar, that 50g less for whatever ridiculous cost is something like 0.07% of the total rider/bike package so it won't make a difference. I follow these religiously as a junior (albeit an extremely fortunate one) and laugh when I see other juniors who think Ksyriums and a carbon bike will make them win races,

Rant over :o

I think cycling is still relatively cheaper than Golf or Car Racing and possibly at par with Saltwater Sportsfishing. Of the 3, I do sportsfishing and enjoy it as much as cycling.

My first racing bicycle cost $105 in 1972. In 1974 a top-of-the-line, custom made-to-measure, full Campagnolo Schwinn Paramount P-13-0 road racing bicycle set me back $660.

Now we have: $200 jerseys...$200 shorts...$400 shoes...$90 shoe covers...$150 sun glasses...$175 helmets...

I showed my wife a picture of a $500 cycling jacket a few days ago and commented that my dress suits do not cost that much.

It's hard to get dressed to ride for what a bicycle used to cost.

CAMPYBOB said:

My first racing bicycle cost $105 in 1972. In 1974 a top-of-the-line, custom made-to-measure, full Campagnolo Schwinn Paramount P-13-0 road racing bicycle set me back $660.

Now we have: $200 jerseys...$200 shorts...$400 shoes...$90 shoe covers...$150 sun glasses...$175 helmets...

I showed my wife a picture of a $500 cycling jacket a few days ago and commented that my dress suits do not cost that much.

It's hard to get dressed to ride for what a bicycle used to cost.

Well, regardless of what product/item we are talking about, nothing is really expensive if you really want it.

A Maybach is just as a bargain buy for puff daddy than a toyota corolla for average joe. And if average joe wants to blow his lifesavings on a $5000 Indy Fab Crown Jewel frameset and not feel any iota of guilt then that is also a bargain for him.

I think there is a lot of value there for the patient, knowledgeable shopper. Thinking back to when I first was interested in cycling, almost 20 years ago, I think there's far more choice and value than back then. The [censored] that was sold back then as a quality 'racing bike', simple because it had dropped handlebars and a saddle that would tear you a new ass.
There certainly weren't the equivalent of €300 jerseys back then, but there weren't online shops flogging last year's pro kit for €30 either.
I think the top end of the market has gone crazy and this has been driven by the advances in technology at the top end of the sport. 20 years ago, if you paid maybe double the price of an entry level 'racer' you could get something at the level the pros were riding. The stuff they had back then really wasn't all that fancy compared to what the average Joe was riding.
Now, the pros are riding and wearing uber high tech stuff and the prices reflect this. However, if you're happy to shop around at the lower end of the market there's some excellent value to be had. I picked up a pair of De Marchi bibs in my LBS the other day for €40. They were hanging right beside a pair of Assos for €200.......

hd reynolds said:

I think cycling is still relatively cheaper than Golf or Car Racing and possibly at par with Saltwater Sportsfishing. Of the 3, I do sportsfishing and enjoy it as much as cycling.

Yeah, you're right. I do some car racing and I've done a lot of motorcycle racing – and both are stupendously expensive. The car racing I do is about the cheapest there is in the UK on tarmac - the 24hr Citroen 2CV race. It's only once a year, we've already got the car, there are four drivers and it still costs between £600 - £1,000 for the one weekend. Each. This year I'm going to give it a miss and go to the LBS and buy some new legs instead. :-)

What I notice is the rate-of-increase in prices as you move up the food chain.

Dura-Ace brakes are almost twice as costly as Ultegra and Ultegras are about 1 1/2 times as expensive as 105.

Speaking of pricey parts. I went to the LBS today to discuss a christmas present (gotta love it) of a new bar/stem because the reach and length of my bar and stem was wrong. Anyway, we talked and he set me onto Deda Newton bar and stem. Guess how much his quote was. (btw I am getting them) This is why it is good to be friends.

JTE83 said:

It's crazy how bike companies are raising prices for market positioning and how they're forcing retailers to sell at retail price or else they cut them off. Shimano and Polar does this. And when the new SRAM group came out it was way more expensive than Shimano. It's crazy paying $540 for an SRAM Force STI shifter, and I wonder how SRAM is selling! I expected them to have lower prices because they were the new kid in town and unproven. By the way, does anyone know how well SRAM groups are selling?

When I started road biking in 2003 a Dura Ace STI set cost only $189. Now it's $496 to $379. Thank God there's Probikekit because I don't want to custom build a bike anymore and I'd rather get a deal on a complete bike and customize it or get a complete used one on ebay. My customized 2005 Kestrel Talon ($3718) cost me more than my ebay ($3015) CF Cervelo Soloist Team!

And it's crazy how a 105 brake set now costs over $100 vs $54 previously. Makes me wonder what the prices of the 2007 bikes will be.

I'm forced to be an ebay shopper or savvy web shopper.

My 1st Polar Power Kit cost me only $240. Then they jacked up prices across all retailers to $350 so I bought my next 3 from ebay.

What are your gripes?

I'm not buying into the "cycling stuff is too expensive argument." Not at all. First, there is more than enough price differential between the low end and the high end to allow almost anyone to find something "affordable." There is no law that says you have to buy Record, Dura Ace, or Assos bibs. Also looking at things from a purely cost perspective is incorrect, because it doesn't take into account, at all, durability or function of a given part. I can guarantee you that the useful life of my bike will be greater than any car I could buy with the $8000+ I've spent on the bike.

Assos bibs? Who cares if they're expensive. Again, don't buy them. However, for that price, you get damned fine function. I'd gone through a lot of different makes of bibs before I landed in Assos, and I know that my taint and ass appreciate the money that I spent on the three pairs that I have.

Of course there are intangibles that have to be factored in. If an expensive part or bit of clothing makes someone more excited about riding or makes them feel better about themselves, then it'd be tough to say that part is too expensive. It's not as if you can put a price on happiness, eh?

Also, if you're going to make any valid price change comparison, you need to factor in the cost increases, costs of living, inflation, etc. between now and whatever "salad days" you might want to compare to.

If prices were too high, I'm guessing that people wouldn't buy the products.

Inflation causes everything to rise. Miniumum wage goes up, salary goes up, gas prices go up. Face it. It only gets more expensive. A Civic used to cost a couple thousand. Now the cheapest "bare bones" version is 17k. Just 6 years ago I got the top of the line model for 14k. Now in 07 the lowest trim model costs more than that.

alienator said:

Also, if you're going to make any valid price change comparison, you need to factor in the cost increases, costs of living, inflation, etc. between now and whatever "salad days" you might want to compare to.

Since all of that bicycle stuff is imported, don't forget the dollar exchange value because that's a biggie today. It's way more important than production cost increases or cost of living factors.

That's how we're actually paying for the war in Iraq. We're borrowing money from foreign countries. The result is a weakening dollar and higher prices for imported goods.

Tonto said:

I think the top end of the market has gone crazy and this has been driven by the advances in technology at the top end of the sport. 20 years ago, if you paid maybe double the price of an entry level 'racer' you could get something at the level the pros were riding. The stuff they had back then really wasn't all that fancy compared to what the average Joe was riding.
Now, the pros are riding and wearing uber high tech stuff and the prices reflect this. However, if you're happy to shop around at the lower end of the market there's some excellent value to be had. I picked up a pair of De Marchi bibs in my LBS the other day for €40. They were hanging right beside a pair of Assos for €200.......

Yep, I think it's the top end alright. Lower end stuff is getting pretty cheap (and will get cheaper) with China and SE Asia coming online as manufacturing giants. I've never seen department store bikes this cheap. (Not that I would ride one).

You can get good used stuff for pretty decent prices. Just find somebody who has a lot of money and wants to buy the newest best thing while he/she let's go of the old, almost newest best thing for 2/3 of what they really should ask for it. I got a pair of Carnac ellipse carbon fiber shoes for 115 USD when they normally go for 150+. The guy hadn't even used them. Police auctions are another possibility. In Europe - look at online retailers in Germany that have considerably cheaper prices in some cases, but I don't know how much the customs people will hit it for.

-bikeguy

Retro Grouch said:

Since all of that bicycle stuff is imported, don't forget the dollar exchange value because that's a biggie today. It's way more important than production cost increases or cost of living factors.

That's how we're actually paying for the war in Iraq. We're borrowing money from foreign countries. The result is a weakening dollar and higher prices for imported goods.

This would make some since if it were not for the fact that prices are more expensive world wide, not just in the US.

The comment earlier on about the US housing market has more to do with price increases than the war in Iraq. It is people, in the US, refinancing their houses to buy things they cannot afford in the first place. The people in the US are, and have been for the past at least 20 years, spending money they do not have. That puts a lot of money in the market place and the manufactures are happy to take it. Things will only get worse when the minimum wage is raised in the US, and the trickle up effect that will have. But in the end the buying power will remain the same in the US.

As others have said, there are bargins out there. Look at 2006 Record stuff. In a capitalistic society, it is the consumer that sets the price.