Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => Freewheeling => Topic started by: basset on 28 March, 2017, 08:25:36 am
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Having just spent 3k on a new one 🤔I'm begin to think when you look at what you get compared to a motorcycle we are paying through the nose
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Economies of scale, I think.
When I was in print I bought a press which was certainly less complicated in design and function than (say) a Ford Focus. It cost over £300,000. But then, they probably sell a dozen a year.
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I spent nearly £1000 on a new bike (via Bike to work scheme). I spent less than that on second hand car.
If you chose to spend nearly £3k on a bike, you were choosing to spend at luxury extreme end of the market. To compare that to cars, you'd have to be comparing it to a Lamborghini, not a Ford Focus, ffs. At a guess you bought a high-end racing bike, that therefore one you bought a bike that is near identical to one ridden by the world's best pros. Either that or you bought a Recumbent in which case the law of very low production runs applies.
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Also down to the popularity of cycling I think. I went into a branch of Cycle Republic the other day, which I understand is a bike shop run by Halfords. I was gob smacked to see that it was selling bikes for £4k. its run by Halfords!!!
But I also have to say that there is plenty of choice for a lot less money than £3k depending what you got of course. I currently have a £1k bike on ride to work, £3k is the type of sum I am looking to spend when retire on my dream, and last hopefully bike.
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If you chose to spend nearly £3k on a bike, you were choosing to spend at luxury extreme end of the market.
I'd say a £3k bike is more the equivalent of a BMW 5 Series - high end, yes, but not 'luxury'.
Pro level bikes are more like £6k, and that's for the standard consumer spec - add race wheels to that and you're looking at another couple of grand on top.
If you want the cycling equivalent of a Lamborghini, you'll be looking at spending upwards of £10k on something like a Cipollini NK1K.
At a guess you bought a high-end racing bike, that therefore one you bought a bike that is near identical to one ridden by the world's best pros.
I presume Pieman is referring to his new Domane SL6. The SL frame is below the SLR in the range, and the consumer (H2) version of the SLR is in turn below the pro (H1) version. The number refers to the spec level, which is Ultegra in this case.
Bikes are definitely overpriced if compared like for like with cars but I think Ian's point about economies of scale is spot on. You might also say that cars are artificially cheap - no one pays the true cost of car ownership.
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Well, you were! But willingly, as is normally the case.
Anything over about a grand is into seriously diminishing returns and often nets a bicycle less fit for purpose than one that is cheaper.
Take aero wheels. They are fantastically expensive, short-lived, and don’t remotely live up to their makers’ performance claims. I out-roll most people I ride with despite weighing 65 kg and having box-section rims with many round spokes. Some of these people have spent three grand on their wheels alone! This doesn’t prove my wheels are faster (almost certainly they are not) but it proves that any difference is negligible for sensible definitions of negligible.
Snake oil abounds. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUih_emc54M&feature=youtu.be&t=612)
The cycling press is bought, sycophantic, and dull-witted and last asked a good question in the early 90s.
People have more disposable income than before, and cycling is fashionable at the moment. Also fashionable is stuffing advanced electronics in everything whether it makes sense or not. Hence smart watches, smart fridges, and Di2. All of that costs wads of cash, but to make up for that it’s soon obsolete or dead.
British culture is well and truly over its bashfulness at displays of wealth. Platforms like Instagram were practically made to glorify consumerism. Showing off your possessions is the new normal.
In the Anglo-Saxon world, racing is the dominant cultural strain in cycling, and in racing marginal gains can always be notionally justified by some theoretical photo-finish that would add to your palmarès – never mind that your palmarès don’t extend beyond Strava.
What a time to be alive!
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One hears rumours of wafer thin profit margins on vast turnovers at places like Planet X, and it doesn't look as crazy cheap as it used to. If you paid to much, I doubt it's because someone made a killing. Certainly not the LBS.
For me, what's telling is how much tech you get in MTB compared with road. Carbon everything plus posh shocks for similar money to a high end road bike.
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I don't think there's much sense in comparisons like this. Sure, you could buy a motorcycle for the same money as your Domane but what do they have in common beyond two wheels?
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I presume Pieman is referring to his new Domane SL6. The SL frame is below the SLR in the range, and the consumer (H2) version of the SLR is in turn below the pro (H1) version. The number refers to the spec level, which is Ultegra in this case.
I thought H1 and H2 referred to the geometry, H1 being the lo-pro?
Take aero wheels. They are fantastically expensive, short-lived, and don’t remotely live up to their makers’ performance claims. I out-roll most people I ride with despite weighing 65 kg and having box-section rims with many round spokes. Some of these people have spent three grand on their wheels alone! This doesn’t prove my wheels are faster (almost certainly they are not) but it proves that any difference is negligible for sensible definitions of negligible.
Snake oil abounds. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUih_emc54M&feature=youtu.be&t=612)
Your linked video explains precisely why a deep section wheel is more aerodynamic than a box section, why a disc is best of all, and why rim profile does actually make some difference - if not as much as raw depth. You did actually watch it before posting, right?
As for fantastically expensive, there's a heck of a lot of clear space between a £40 Open Pro and £3000 Lightweight Autobahn (https://www.sigmasport.co.uk/item/Lightweight/Autobahn-Tubular-700c-Rear-Disc-Wheel/2W1W?utm_source=google&utm_medium=base&utm_campaign=base&co=GBR&cu=GBP&gclid=COGeyOH8-NICFW0R0wodyMYDwA&gclsrc=aw.ds). I picked up a Corima Aero+ wheelset for £400 secondhand five years ago and theyr'e still going strong. Fragile? You must be joking.
If you roll faster than your ride mates, it's due to something else because like it or not, your wheels are slower than theirs.
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I thought H1 and H2 referred to the geometry, H1 being the lo-pro?
Yes, you are right.
I could have sworn they also used different grades of carbon (for extra stiffness) but I've just double-checked and it seems I was mistaken.
ETA: I also appear to be getting my Domanes mixed up with my Emondas - the Emonda comes in H1 or H2, the Domane only comes in one fit, which they call H3. :facepalm:
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If you roll faster than your ride mates, it's due to something else because like it or not, your wheels are slower than theirs.
Probably none of them are very fast? Or he's comparing them using rolldown tests on hills.
For someone like me, who is happy if he is rolling at 24kph, aero rims are an utter joke. You have to be the sort of person who thinks that 32kph is a bit slow and 40kph is getting in the groove. If you are that sort of person, of course they have benefits. Measurable benefits, measurable using science.
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Quite. They're expensive and are an investment, but if you want to go fast, they're a good investment and can be scientifically demonstrated to be so - as opposed to Sam's clubmates, who don't prove anything as there are far too many other factors involved.
Yes there's a bit of marketing mumbo jumbo around some of the new and shiny models, but that only puts them on a level with every other product in the entire western world.
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If you roll faster than your ride mates, it's due to something else because like it or not, your wheels are slower than theirs.
Maybe it’s my dynamo hub?
I accept their wheels are probably* faster, but the difference is (a) vastly less than claimed or even independently tested in a wind tunnel, (b) trivial as shown by my rolling faster for sundry other reasons that nobody cares about since they’re not purchasable, and (c) bad value by any reasonable assessment.
You have to be the sort of person who thinks that 32kph is a bit slow and 40kph is getting in the groove. If you are that sort of person, of course they have benefits. Measurable benefits, measurable using science.
… they're a good investment and can be scientifically demonstrated to be so …
I doubt science can prove the investment quality of wheels but it might prove their speed. However, it’s not easy. What sort of science do you each suggest? Wind tunnels are misleading because the real world is aerodynamically filthy among other reasons.
Shopping for happiness does not work though most people don’t learn that in one lifetime.
* Only “probably”, because these people have also swallowed, sinker and all, the latest story about wider tyres being faster, whereas I am far more circumspect and doubt these tales apply at the high speeds and low yaw angles that prevail in situations where wheel aerodynamics matter most. These doubts are informed by an above-average interest in the subject.
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I doubt science can prove the investment quality of wheels but it might prove their speed.
Can you not simply divide change in speed per watt by change in price?
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My own personal calculation is that my Corimas - bought for what was a pretty standard secondhand price - have cost me about £60 per season's use, over and above the cost of buying a pair of Fulcrum 7s in their stead. Hardly extortionate, is it?
In fact, it occurs to me that at the time I bought them, I was gainfully employed doing a multifactorial analysis to determine a clear and unambiguous relationship between an output and one particular input variable, despite the presence of several other variables that influenced the result. The kind of thing that Sam apparently thinks is impossible.
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with the deep carbon wheels there is a noticeable increase of speed, especially when approaching 40kph and above. however, the main advantage over alloy wheels is the remarkable increase in comfort (they feel smoooooth..), as you basically ride on a thin-walled suspension, absorbing the impact (https://youtu.be/CoABOk_8KH8?t=5m) from holes and bumps on the road, which is a bonus to their aerodynamic shape.
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Speed isn't everything.
My Zipps make a VEEEEERRRRRP sound. It's fucking awesome.
You can't put a price on that.
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"Shopping for happiness does not work though most people don’t learn that in one lifetime."
Totally agree but you really need to try some Zipps 💨💨💨😉
Totally my shout to buy it I don't begrudge the bike shop there 15%.
The comparison to a motorbike was because I'm looking for one in the near future and if you compare a 125 Honda for under £3000 think what you get , lights, engine digital clocks etc etc just made me think 🤔
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Early adopters of top-end gear are doing the rest of us a favour. The technology trickles down over time to improve the stuff that we can all (almost) can afford.
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My own personal calculation is that my Corimas - bought for what was a pretty standard secondhand price - have cost me about £60 per season's use,
Are you talking missed prize money? ;)
I suspect that quite a lot of the advantages of deep section wheels are down to the lighter, faster tyres people tend to fit on them.
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Digital clock? You never got a digital clock when I had motorbikes! But that reminds me of something I read long ago: apparently it costs about the same to develop a small motorbike as a large one, but the large one generally sells for several times the price. Partly this is due to economies of scale; a small bike will sell in millions around the world and big 4 designs will be licensed to smaller manufacturers in Africa, Asia, etc for decades after, whereas a big bike sells in small numbers in limited markets. But partly it's due to perception. Neither high-end bicycles nor snazzy motorbikes are Veblen goods, which sell in greater numbers the higher the price, but they can be underpriced for a given market, which will accordingly undervalue them.
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My own personal calculation is that my Corimas - bought for what was a pretty standard secondhand price - have cost me about £60 per season's use,
Are you talking missed prize money? ;)
Were it not for me doing a bunbury and mistaking a randommer for the finish timekeeper* I'd be raking it in already this season! The money I didn't win went towards a 600CC Kawasaki that, now I've got a disc wheel to supplement the Corimas, cost less than the wheelset on my TT bike. Okay, it's a 1998 reg. Also, the disc makes a better noise than the motorbike.
*He'd parked up shortly before the finish and was sitting motionless in his car, staring intently across the road, directly at a warning sign that looked suspiciously like a chequerboard :facepalm:
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Yebbut has the Kawa got a digital clock? :D
(pics?)
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If you chose to spend nearly £3k on a bike, you were choosing to spend at luxury extreme end of the market.
I'd say a £3k bike is more the equivalent of a BMW 5 Series - high end, yes, but not 'luxury'.
Pro level bikes are more like £6k, and that's for the standard consumer spec - add race wheels to that and you're looking at another couple of grand on top.
If you want the cycling equivalent of a Lamborghini, you'll be looking at spending upwards of £10k on something like a Cipollini NK1K.
I'd say that even that is really just the lower end of the luxury range.
The real top end is occupied by the likes of Vanilla Cycles (http://www.thevanillaworkshop.com/vanilla-the-list/) wait time several years; Bohemian Cylces (http://www.bohemianbicycles.com/) I'm not even sure how you order one!; Richard Sachs (http://www.richardsachs.com/site/) notoriously opinionated, very traditional.
If you want state of the art carbon, you have Calfee (https://calfeedesign.com/) and Crumpton (http://www.crumptoncycles.com/)
There are other niche low-volume high-end builders around who are similarly exclusive. Hetchins, Woodrup would probably be the only UK equivalent and only Woodrup is still going: http://www.woodrupcycles.com/new-page-1
There are a bunch of new bloods rapidly coming up to speed - Feather Cycles, Hartley etc. but none of them have the same cachet (yet) as the top-end US builders.
For any of these bikes you need to budget at least £10,000 for a basic build.
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For any of these bikes you need to budget at least £10,000 for a basic build.
Did you know you can get an off-the-peg Parlee now for not much over £10k?
So very common.
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Fancy lug work and a poncy paint job may show many manhours of craftsmanship, but it's hiding 1930's technology and doesn't translate to a better riding experience.
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yebbut, the debate was on price not performance - are we being overcharged, not does price reflect performance?
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Traditionally, the bike industry has generally run on the smell of an oily rag. With the possible exception of Rapha, et al, it doesn't look to have changed much. Unless somebody is making huge profits somewhere in the supply chain, we aren't being overcharged.
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so you really think it costs Dura Ace/Tiagra multiple to shave those few grammes from the Dura Ace components?
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No we aren't being overcharged.
Simple market economics in a high volume wide choice market such as cycling won't let overpricing last long. Free market mechanisms, whether you love them or hate them, eliminate excess profit in the long term.
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No, Dura-Ace (pronounced Do you race?) has a significantly higher profit margin than Tiagra. Suntour died because it priced all of its product at cost + fixed mark up, regardless of price point. Shimano made enough money out of their high end products to increase R&D enough to eventually make what their main customers wanted (more than Suntour could) and crushed their competitors. Shimano is the 800 pound gorilla of cycling but I think they make more money from their fishing division. That was started only because Mr Shimano wanted a better fishing reel and gave his bicycle engineers the problem of making it.
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I can vouch for Shimano fishing reels. Mine is over 30 years old (way before I took up cycling), completely neglected and still going strong.
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I read the Shimano-versus-Suntour history a little differently, but in any case fishing is small beer for today’s Shimano (http://www.shimano.com/en/ir/library/cms/contents/Summary%20of%20Financial%20Results%20FY2016.pdf) (PDF).
Not many people are making their fortunes in bicycles, and in that sense we are not being overcharged. But many bicycles are needlessly expensive on account of pointless or harmful novelty.
The comparison with small motorcycles is revealing because those machines (or their underlying systems) are designed to lead long, hard, working lives in developing countries like Brazil (http://world.honda.com/history/challenge/1975cg125/index.html) and Pakistan (http://atlashonda.com.pk/product/cg-125/). They are by their functional and durable nature the polar opposite of disposable playthings. So there’s no room for fripperies, and economics drives every aspect of their design and (mass) manufacture.
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You are right. It has been a lot of years since I checked Shimano's numbers. Fishing is only 1/5th of their business.
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A fifth of sales but barely a tenth of their net income. The money’s all in the bicycles now. However, Shimano is one of a kind in the industry. No-one else is making that kind of money.
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I read the Shimano-versus-Suntour history a little differently, but in any case fishing is small beer for today’s Shimano (http://www.shimano.com/en/ir/library/cms/contents/Summary%20of%20Financial%20Results%20FY2016.pdf) (PDF).
Not many people are making their fortunes in bicycles, and in that sense we are not being overcharged. But many bicycles are needlessly expensive on account of pointless or harmful novelty.
The comparison with small motorcycles is revealing because those machines (or their underlying systems) are designed to lead long, hard, working lives in developing countries like Brazil (http://world.honda.com/history/challenge/1975cg125/index.html) and Pakistan (http://atlashonda.com.pk/product/cg-125/). They are by their functional and durable nature the polar opposite of disposable playthings. So there’s no room for fripperies, and economics drives every aspect of their design and (mass) manufacture.
Yes and no. Small motorbikes designed in the 70s or 80s in Japan are still being produced in their millions in places like India but many of them are now cosmetically redesigned to appeal to fashion and "performance". They've usually had a series of minor engineering upgrades too, such as 12V electrics, electric starters, disc brakes, electronic ignition and so on. Just like their Western equivalents really...
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As a rule of thumb when buying components the range immediately below the top-end stuff is notably better VFM. I was once bored enough to put all the data into a spreadsheet, and then bought a SRAM rear derailleur instead.
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I've heard that restaurants usually charge the largest mark up on the second-cheapest item in the menu. They reckon people who don't want to spend much tend to go for that cos they feel the very cheapest makes them look stingy. As bikes and their components are not usually chosen in front of a group of people who you feel might be judging you, a different psychology probably applies.
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I've heard that restaurants usually charge the largest mark up on the second-cheapest item in the menu. They reckon people who don't want to spend much tend to go for that cos they feel the very cheapest makes them look stingy.
I think that's probably a myth.
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Spread by restauranteurs to persuade us to go for the more expensive options? :D In any case I think it's a different pricing pattern than bikes.
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I've had good value from just about every bit of cycling kit I've bought, from bikes to gloves, in general the more I've spent the better that value. If I was going to make a comparison it'd be with whatever else I'd have spent the money on - everyday bike Vs public transport, sports bike Vs some other sports equipment...
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Spread by restauranteurs to persuade us to go for the more expensive options? :D
Cheaper dishes generally have the highest mark-up. Soup will have the biggest mark-up of all because it's so cheap to make - pennies per portion. Things like fillet steak or turbot don't make a lot of money for restaurants because the ingredients are so expensive.
I think it's more a case of cutting the margins on the less popular dishes in order to tempt customers to choose them, rather than marking up the more popular dishes to make more profit.
Anyway, you're right - this doesn't have much bearing on the price of bikes.
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Spread by restauranteurs to persuade us to go for the more expensive options? :D
Cheaper dishes generally have the highest mark-up. Soup will have the biggest mark-up of all because it's so cheap to make - pennies per portion. Things like fillet steak or turbot don't make a lot of money for restaurants because the ingredients are so expensive.
I think it's more a case of cutting the margins on the less popular dishes in order to tempt customers to choose them, rather than marking up the more popular dishes to make more profit.
Anyway, you're right - this doesn't have much bearing on the price of bikes.
This thread might be worth a read for cafe owners who host audax controls however... :-D
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Spread by restauranteurs to persuade us to go for the more expensive options? :D
Cheaper dishes generally have the highest mark-up. Soup will have the biggest mark-up of all because it's so cheap to make - pennies per portion. Things like fillet steak or turbot don't make a lot of money for restaurants because the ingredients are so expensive.
I think it's more a case of cutting the margins on the less popular dishes in order to tempt customers to choose them, rather than marking up the more popular dishes to make more profit.
My experience in catering was further down the chain than the sort of restaurant that served turbot, as in a burger van, even so the price of the ingredients was a small proportion of the overall cost. Highest mark up was on mugs of tea, biggest cost of which was people not returning the mugs. We'd have been happy to have kept tea sales as the profit for the day with everything else covering costs.
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Much the same in bike shops. Biggest profit margin percentages come from spare tubes (and repairs).
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Spread by restauranteurs to persuade us to go for the more expensive options? :D
Cheaper dishes generally have the highest mark-up. Soup will have the biggest mark-up of all because it's so cheap to make - pennies per portion. Things like fillet steak or turbot don't make a lot of money for restaurants because the ingredients are so expensive.
I think it's more a case of cutting the margins on the less popular dishes in order to tempt customers to choose them, rather than marking up the more popular dishes to make more profit.
Anyway, you're right - this doesn't have much bearing on the price of bikes.
This thread might be worth a read for cafe owners who host audax controls however... :-D
;D
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Much the same in bike shops. Biggest profit margin percentages come from spare tubes (and repairs).
My LBS are very upfront about repairs/maintaining is their greatest source of income/profit. Even better when they do the simpler tasks and use the biggest profit margin spares.
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I'm sure Brompton are overcharging but they occupy a particular market niche, which no-one's been able to break into for 30 years. And Bike4Work/Cyclescheme has pretty much set a £1000 price tag for a commuting bike, because it's not real money, and they're exploiting that fact. An M3L was £550 only 8 years ago and now it's nudging a grand.
When branding and an associated ecosystem are taken into account, market forces no longer work. Look at the markup on an iPhone.
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Having just spent 3k on a new one 🤔I'm begin to think when you look at what you get compared to a motorcycle we are paying through the nose
wait... have you tried pedalling a motorcycle? They weigh loads. Even a low end racing bike is lighter.
so bikes are actually amazing value compared to porky over weight motorcycles
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Having just spent 3k on a new one 🤔I'm begin to think when you look at what you get compared to a motorcycle we are paying through the nose
wait... have you tried pedalling a motorcycle? They weigh loads. Even a low end racing bike is lighter.
so bikes are actually amazing value compared to porky over weight motorcycles
POTD!