Cyclists blame "utterly ridiculous bike prices" for brands' ongoing struggles
Cyclists blame "utterly ridiculous bike prices" for brands' ongoing struggles
Welcome one and all to the Wednesday live blog where Dan Alexander will be bringing you all your Giro updates, news from the wider cycling world and, of course, plenty of the usual silliness
cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/19380579
Cyclists blame "utterly ridiculous bike prices" for brands' ongoing struggles, after Giant's sales slashed again; Visma–Lease a Bike's cursed 2024 continues; Devastated Arsenal fan turns to... Lance Armstrong; Bargain hunting + more on the live blog
I can believe that.
I hadn't bought a bike for years, and a few years ago managed to pick up a cheap second hand bike for £60. It wasn't a bad bike, but obviously nothing special. After the lockdowns, when every man and his dog seemed to take up cycling, I looked at getting a cheap new bike. The cheapest ones I could find were a few hundred pounds.
I looked at ebikes earlier this year, and the magazines and websites reviewing the cheap bikes were setting a minimum price of £1500 to avoid the cheaply made junk. Even second hand bikes were going for £800+
To put this in perspective, I can get a second hand motorbike for the same price range, and a car for around £1000. Obviously these are not going to be the best motorbikes or cars on the road, but they run, and will last for at least a few years.
They're putting out bikes that are well into nice used car territory, it's absurd. Shit, some of them are even brand new car prices. A lot of these manufacturers are smoking crack.
I've seen this argument a lot, and I don't understand it. Few people are buying those high end bikes, and no one is forced to buy one. Using that as justification that the prices are out of control is just weird to me.
There is an argument about prices to be made. I just looked up the base model Specialized Allez with 8 speed Claris, and it retails for $1200. A few years ago that would have been an ~$800 bike, I think (albeit likely with rim brakes instead of disc). I don't know what all is driving the prices, inflation is certainly a factor.
But that conveys the issue way better than complaining about super bikes that cost $15k. The barrier to entry for a newbie has gone up that much.
I'm super into mountain biking, and never bought a new bike in my life. The last one i bought was the most expensive bike i ever owned by a long shot, it was practically new and it was like a third of what it would've been new. Dude who sold it said he likes it, but it was bad for climbing, because it was too heavy. He showed me his brand new bike. On the way home i thought: so the carbon bike with aluminium swing arm is too heavy? So i looked up his new bike, which was like £8000-£9000 pounds and was roughly 600 grams lighter than the bike i bought off him. Bike prices might be insane, but i often feel like it's the people's own fault. Cyclists buy absolutely everything no matter the cost it seems.
My friend told me that his boss saw my ebike when i bought some bread and had to get one himself. He's an out of shape baker, and he bought himself a 10k e-ountain bike. That's more than i paid for my ebike, my downhill bike and the enduro i ride almost daily.I paid $30 for a used mountain bike that I rode for years. The trick was that I bought it from a bike co-op that sold used bikes, so knowledgeable people had already looked it over and fixed it up and they offered cheap stands/tools/help for any work you needed to do yourself. Did many 25-mile round-trips from Northern Virginia to work in D.C. on that thing.
I wonder if ebay ebike conversion kits are still a thing. Did mine 15 years ago with an electric front wheel and it's still going today.
I did one a few years back to my mountain bike..mid drive motor driving the rear wheel. It was a nice little project.
Bafang make the kits and it had lots of power..I could cruise with throttle only at 40kph!
I sold it to fund a motorbike in the end.
This, combined with sky high bike theft rates, are why I haven't had a bike in a few years now. Sure would love to get a nice e-bike and/or recumbent trike, but they're thousands of dollars that I would essentially be throwing away. (I live in a city. Anything not nailed down gets stolen. And even some things that are nailed down.)
Get a nice used road bike or something, they don't have to be expensive.
I need something to help me along such as an e-bike or at least being recumbent due to a medical condition which makes my legs (and other muscles) weak. I used to bike around as my primary mode of transportation, but sadly can't do so anymore.
I bought an almost 30 yo mountain bike, a stump jumper from around 96-98 for 100€, renovated it for close to 400€ (spurgled a bit there), now I have a world championship super fun bike in perfect condition that probably will outlive me :-)
Specialized from that era are great. Still have my Rock Hopper from 2002. Replaced the front shock absorber with a fixed fork (no idea what the English word is) and some ball bearings here and there. Love it
Check out https://bikesdirect.com/
Their website is absolutely atrocious, but I’ve had a steel Motobecane from them for years, and it’s showing no sign of stopping any time soon. Their bikes are cheap, and have good parts.
Bicycles are one of the few things I spend money on these days, but I have been lucky to get quite a few for free. For some reason people discard a lot of bicycles at my local dump. I have found some real classics to refurbish. Some I keep and some I have redistributed to family and friends.
Pretty much all of my transportation budget now goes to just keeping my bicycle in good working order at this point and it's saved me a crazy amount of money (never mind the health benefits of regular activity). Also, I've been through a lot in my personal life and have found riding to be pretty therapeutic/good at keeping me from getting too sad.