A Santana bargain...

[thing1]

Well, 'bargain' in a relative sense
Ex demo Santana Beyond 700c Large with Couplings | Santana Tandems | Tandems | JD Cycles, Ilkley

The very bike what we rode that made us buy ours (albeit, we went for medium size, no couplers)

[clarion]

I daren't even click!

btw, your names were mentioned when I was chatting with JD at York.

EDIT: I did click.  that is a bargain!

[Andrij]

*hunts around for enough spare change to buy a lottery ticket*
 

[Russell]

Dash it - it's too big!   

[vorsprung]

eight grand seems a bit steep for a used bike with ultragator skins on....

[Regulator]

Sorry - but £8k for a used bike (OK - I accept it was a test bike) is taking the piss a bit.

[Woofage]

Eight grand for an ex-demo nearly 13 grand bike with full dealer backup and warranty seems OK to me .

[Tim]

Sadly they haven't got the blinging wheels on it, it's got some reasonably robust 40 spoked somethings on it. It's no longer the correct finish for the current range...

<Saw it earlier this year and knew it was going to be sold off>

[Butterfly]

*starts looking down the back of the sofa for spare change*

[clarion]

We want a Niobium, and you know it

[Charlotte]

Sorry - but £8k for a used bike (OK - I accept it was a test bike) is taking the piss a bit.

You know not of what you speak.

[Wowbagger]

I'd love it, but I'd worry about all the wonderful bits that I'd break.

At least it hasn't got a Rohloff hub...

[Zoidburg]

A Satanic bargain?

[Regulator]

Eight grand for an ex-demo nearly 13 grand bike with full dealer backup and warranty seems OK to me .

£13k for a bike, even one as pretty and specc'ed as that, is taking the mickey.

[MercuryKev]

Eight grand for an ex-demo nearly 13 grand bike with full dealer backup and warranty seems OK to me .

£13k for a bike, even one as pretty and specc'ed as that, is taking the mickey.

£13k and it's only spec'd with Ultegra. 

[Regulator]

Eight grand for an ex-demo nearly 13 grand bike with full dealer backup and warranty seems OK to me .

£13k for a bike, even one as pretty and specc'ed as that, is taking the mickey.

£13k and it's only spec'd with Ultegra. 

For £13k one would at least expect Campag... 

[Charlotte]

For £13k one would at least expect Campag...  

In this much, at least, we can agree.

But £13k for this exotic and beautiful beastie is perfectly reasonable IMO.  The components are only going to be a small percentage of the value of something like this.  The reason it's so expensive is not because of the wholesale price of titanium, carbon or even the groupset or the wheels.

This bike is eye-wateringly expensive because it's taken the manufacturer the best part of a decade to develop it and they're the only company who make a machine to this specification.  It's a low-volume, premium bit of kit and they're charging a price based on the R&D and the specialist manufacturing processes that they've developed.

You can easily spend £4-5k on a high end solo race bike model that gets turned out by the thousand, so why not £12k on a tandem with a frame number sequence that only gets up to the hundreds?  This is the Zonda Roadster of the tandem world, costing the same as a Ford Focus.  If I had a spare eight grand, it would be hanging from the rafters of the SEEKRIT BUNKER quicker than The Stig inna Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera...

[thing1]

The components are only going to be a small percentage of the value of something like this.

Very true, I do agree. And it's nice to be putting money into a company that reinvests in innovation that will feed into the whole market over time.

Having said that, the wheels and [custom titanium!] S&S couplers do add a a fair bit. Without those, we were quoted new for around the same price as this discounted ex-demo (although, USD:GBP was quite different then, as was the VAT)

[Woofage]

Eight grand for an ex-demo nearly 13 grand bike with full dealer backup and warranty seems OK to me .

£13k for a bike, even one as pretty and specc'ed as that, is taking the mickey.

I wouldn't say it's taking the mickey, but I would agree that it's a lot more than most people are prepared to pay .

[Tim]

It hasn't got those wheels though.

I do feel the temptation for some blinging tandem wheels every now and again for those days when the bike is stripped back for blatting.

[Rig of Jarkness]

Eight grand for an ex-demo nearly 13 grand bike with full dealer backup and warranty seems OK to me .

£13k for a bike, even one as pretty and specc'ed as that, is taking the mickey.

£13k and it's only spec'd with Ultegra. 

Would Mrs MK consider this to be cool enough ?

[oncemore]

I understand the price/exclusivity/innovation thing at work, but still....

In general the Santana mark up does seem generous! Excluding the components, a "simple" Ti frame looks to be charged out at 7 grand. Compared with say ONE grand for a basic custom Ti "solo". Or even double that for the "best" names.

[MercuryKev]

Eight grand for an ex-demo nearly 13 grand bike with full dealer backup and warranty seems OK to me .

£13k for a bike, even one as pretty and specc'ed as that, is taking the mickey.

£13k and it's only spec'd with Ultegra. 

Would Mrs MK consider this to be cool enough ?

She would still think it's not cool enough for her.  I reckon if you could get a Pashley Princess tandem, she'd consider it.

[Tim]

Eight grand for an ex-demo nearly 13 grand bike with full dealer backup and warranty seems OK to me .

£13k for a bike, even one as pretty and specc'ed as that, is taking the mickey.

£13k and it's only spec'd with Ultegra. 

Would Mrs MK consider this to be cool enough ?

She would still think it's not cool enough for her.  I reckon if you could get a Pashley Princess tandem, she'd consider it.

Pashley certainly used to make tandems...