There are some brands of bicycles that can cost more than the down payment on a car. Why? Surely making a bike lightweight and reliable isn’t so difficult that it warrants that price? Is it just the brand name or maybe it has to do with customization options?
As people dive deeper into a hobby they have very particular desires. That means two things: (1) specialty parts with very low sales volumes, and (2) people are willing to pay extra to get exactly what they want. If I just want two wheels and a set of pedals and don’t really care about the details then I can grab any $200 bike from a department store. But if I want, say, a very particular drivetrain, carbon fiber parts to shave weight, maybe a specific suspension design, mounting points for niche accessories, etc., then I’m shopping for very specific items from boutique brands. That’s why a very small number of hardcore riders do crazy stuff like pay over $4k for a set of wheels.
You’ll see the same thing in other hobbies, too. I can’t imagine what some people spend on their gaming PCs.
This does sum it up pretty well, but bike pricing in general has gotten out of hand and pretty much everyone in the biking (specifically mountain biking) community agrees. Of course, volumes are pretty low for these products.
Just the frames for many of the higher end models can be $3000-5000. A fork is another $600-$1600. Shock is $500-1000. Carbon wheels are like $1500-2500 (alloy more like $500-800). Tires cost as much as cheap car tires, around $100 each. Pedals can be anywhere from $20 to $250. The new wireless drivetrains (made up of fragile derailleurs, crank arms, and cassettes/chains which importantly are consumable wear items) from Sram are just absolutely insane at like $1000-2500, Shimano has much more reasonable options from like $300-$1500 at the high end. Brakes (more expensive usually means more powerful) range anywhere from $200 a set at the low end, to $1000+ at the high end. Then there’s handlebar, stem, spacers, tire sealant, valve stems, and other misc bits.
The amount you spend also scales with how much you want to use the device, and the quality. It’s similar with power tools.
£100 combi drill? For the average DIY user, exactly the same functionality as a £500 one.
For a tradesman using it 7 hours a day, 240 days a year, the more comfortable/reliable one may well pay for itself.Similiar amounts for the literal absolute best. Most people don’t spend more than 1500 total though.
$1500 gets you a pretty kickass gaming PC, even if it’s not absolute top of the line.
In mountain biking, $1500 gets you a solid hard tail or an entry-level full suspension from a direct-to-consumer brand like Polygon if you’re buying new.
In PC gaming, you can get a GPU for that $1500. You can also get a high end custom water cooling setup. Just the water cooling components.
Right, but that’s top of the line stuff. You can easily build a PC with a 70 tier GPU for less than $1500 and you’ll still have a kickass gaming PC.
The XX70 tier equivalent mountain bikes cost like $3000-$3500. I’m thinking along the lines of a Trek Remedy 7 (which is what I have), a base Santa Cruz Bronson, or a base Specialized Stumpjumper. There are plenty more but those are just 3 from some big brands.
lack of mass production probably and cuthroat capitalism. the expensive bikes cater to a niche of bike riders who the business knows can afford to buy them. a lot of these bikes have specialized parts made in specialized countries by craftspeople which up the price of production and in addition they offer some kind of free maintenance you are also buying. the real question is why are cars and other bike so cheap, and thats because of mass production factories and cheap manufacturing methods and economies of scale
Cycling is the new golf. There are lots of 50 year old dentists with disposable income out there who think electionic shifting and aero carbon wheels will enable them to drop their “buddies” on their Saturday group ride.
Yep. In my area, almost all the weekend warriors I see have these very fancy expensive bikes and the dudes have HUGE ass bellies like they’re pregnant with a baby cyclist.
I don’t know why you’re being down voted. I’m I’m on of the cyclist with a huge ass-belly.
mmmmm… at least they’re getting exercise biking while not wasting gigatons of water.
“In 2021, the Arizona Republic found that across the state’s 219 golf courses, the average water use per course came out to about 450,000 gallons per day.” PER COURSE. In a fucking desert! Golf needs to fucking die.
I’m fairly certain that’s the same area where wild hogs no longer find enough food in the wild and are currently enthusiastically reclaiming said golf courses.
I, for one, am rooting for the four-legged pigs on this one.
Although this YouTube video is about motorbikes and high-end mountain bikes, much of the context is applicable to bicycles at large. And is also within the ballpark of an automobile down payment.
Borrowing some of the points from that video, a high-end bicycle – let’s say a road bike – is very close to what could actually be used in competitive road cycling, with all the technological and material sciences advances included. Whereas a standard car like a Toyota Corolla would need substantial further investment to bring it to competition grade (eg rallying). And a high-end, track-inspired road-legal car would be exceeding $100,000 easily.
Certainly, in the average quality range, the price of your average road bike and your average automobile will be a chasm away. But I figured your question is focusing on the high end of bicycles.
In fact, in a few certain situations you can actually purchase higher-end hardware than the pros use. UCI has restrictions on shape and weight that need not apply to non sanctioned riders, and there are improvements that are available in both aero and weight. Notably, Triathlon specific bikes are often markedly faster than UCI compliant bikes due to the aggressive aerodynamic optimization.
Not very expensive. If you buy a bicycle for function (i.e: to ride from A->B), it very cheap.
I think what you are looking at is bicycle for sport. These stuff people want lighter frame, low friction, … and ready to pay more for competitive.
So do many other thing in life. Think watch, a digital watch only show time (dirt cheap) vs apple watch (expensive), vs rolex (veryyyy expensive).
There are always a price and quality for people who ready to pay.
Same way as high-end sports cars can cost hundreds of thousands or even millions.
Regular commuters are cheap, you can get perfectly good 2nd hand bike for a pocket money, but a high-end enduro bike with state-of-art parts and exotic materials can cost you over 10k.
Something I haven’t seen mentioned in these threads is economies of scale. Most cars are kind of engineering and machining marvels especially for their price, with a huge amount of their manufacturing being automated to a very high level. Fancy bikes probably do not have the production volume to justify that kind of automation. Their price represents their actual production being less efficient, not being able to amortize the R&D costs over as many units, and general luxury premium.
The answer is economy of scale, the collapse of the American manufacturing industry, bloated budgets, especially brand/marketing budgets, and the prices set by OEM manufacturers who themselves have bloated budgets. A lot of these brands arent actually manufacturers but middlemen for manufacturers. They do design, service, marketing and maybe assembly. But manufacturing is primarily done overseas. If it’s manufactured domestically the labor and material costs are commensurate. Maybe the frame is made domestically, maybe not.
A perfectly decent bicycle is less than $100 in China.
“some brands of bikes” make frames out of carbon fiber with wireless derailleurs and have rear facing radar to detect when other bikes or vehicles are approaching, how fast, and on which side.
When your exercise, your recreation, your hobby, and your transportation are all the same thing, it’s easy to justify spending more to make those things as easy and pleasant as possible.
You can get a perfectly usable bike for very little money in America… Probably still made in China though 😂
I put it to you that $100 buys more bike in China than it does in the US.
You have just discovered purchasing power!
I don’t understand the sarcasm here. My comment was perfectly relevant to the OPs question. Yours sounds condescending. Are you being condescending? Because that’s not very nice. I eat the rude.
A perfectly reasonable bike is $100 in America too. A really good bike is much more expensive in both places.
I wish there was a service that you could give a price range to and it would find the best used bike on craigslist and other bike sales sites in your area.
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Because when talking about the economics of specialty outdoor products in the US market you have to recognize that manufacturing for most US consumer products is in China. Settle down
Mountain bikes have to be lightweight and strong, and production volume is low. Suspension design takes R&D, and adds moving parts. Start pricing components and you hit $5000 easy for a full-suspension bike. For hardtails, you are making a lot of compromises at $1500, but $2500 gets you a nice bike.
For road/gravel bikes, once you get over $2000, you are paying a lot of money for tiny weight savings, negligible aerodynamic improvements, and electronic gizmos.
For either mountain or road, if you want a custom/hand-made frame and parts made in the developed world paying living wages, you are going to spend a lot more. Taiwan makes a lot of great frames, but if you want a frame made buy a dude in Denver who names all his bikes after craft beers, add several grand.
For city/commuter bikes, you can get something perfectly good for under $1000, but if you can swing $2000, get a Brompton.
It’s just wild how the pandemic made the previous numbers double.
Got a great decent bike for $700 in 2015. Same bike runs $1600 now.
Everyone saw a convenient economic scapegoat and just “forgot” to lower the prices again after the crisis was over. Now, everyone has been paying these new and improved prices for 3 years, so they’re never going to go down again.
I dont get why walmart is the only choice for low end bikes
Because you forgot that Target, Big Lots, Dick’s, Meijer, Amazon, and literally several hundred chains of sporting or general stores exist?
Definitely not anywhere close to being limited to Walmart.
I wouldn’t even have guessed Big Lots or Dick’s actually have bikes, since they don’t sell them at any of their locations in my area that I’ve seen. However, my city has a straight up bicycle store and they also carry low-end, cheap bikes.
For some more extreme riders, they need bikes that are designed way stronger than any average bike. Imagine jumping a 50 foot ramp on a common bicycle, you’ll straight up break the frame in half.
I had met a retired rider from https://m.pinkbike.com/ and had a chance to ride his ~$8000 bicycle, that thing was built like a friggin’ tank with some of the most advanced mechanical features I’ve ever seen, including adjustable hydraulic shocks.
As far as lightweight, that bike was anything but lightweight, it was rather heavy actually, but when frame and fork strength is way more important, that’s just a necessary tradeoff for safety in extreme riding.
My brother used to be on Pinkbike! Thanks for the nostalgia trip.
“Why are cars so expensive? There are some brands that cost more than the price of a house.”
Yes of course you can spend 10k on a bike but why would you?
In No Stupid Questions people usually answer with helpful information and a friendly tone.
Ops didn’t see the community. And that was a little overly sarcastic in any case. My bad.
The bike that’s in my price range is the Walmart Huffy intended to be sold to ten year olds. The cheapest adult bike I found for sale new in my area was $1,500.
So I just don’t have a bike. I might buy a used one someday.
Learn how to do bicycle maintenance and find a good second hand bike that needs a little love.
I have a Giant hard tail that was €1200 new, but I got it used for about €100. Serviced the brakes, put on a new chain, cleaned/oiled/greased everything mechanical and it’s like a new bike.
Where do you live? The Giant Contend 3 starts at 1000 USD. Their hybrid bikes are even cheaper.
North Carolina, east coast USA.
Though to be fair I last looked a few years ago. Situations may have changed by now. But when I was in the market for a cheap bike none of them seemed reasonably priced to me.
If you know where to look you can get a great adult bike for under $500
Covid spiked bike prices a lot.
Tldr: Why does anything cost money? Because someone will pay that amount to purchase it.
For a lot of people the point of a hobby seems to be as an outlet for their unhealthy relationship with money and purchasing, and markets find ways to take advantage of that.
You can buy good used bikes for cheap though, and maintain them cheaply also, so it isn’t a problem for people who are not stupidly rich or insane.
Short answer is greed.
