[Closed] Why Are Mountain Bikes So Expensive?

Uhhh get a cheaper one?

Or get a more expensive car.

APF

An Orange 5 you say. Have you considered comparing it to other brands?

almost £3500 for mountain bike, that's more than my car.

Yes, but it uses more advanced technology and wont cost you the thousands of pounds a year your car costs you.

Spock, i'm pretty sure my bikes cost me more a year than my van if you don't include tax and insurance..

😳

Oranges (particularly the full suspensions) are super expensive and very bad value compared to all its competitors.

This is mainly because the FS ones are welded in Halifax, not Tiawan.
Also I suspect Orange take a pretty big margin on them.

for example, An Orange 5 frame is £1399.
A Santa Cruz Heckler frame Is £899.

Thats £500 cheaper, for a very similer frame which is every bit as good as the Orange.

I hate to say this, as i'm a Halifax lad and would love to support Orange. But they are hidiously priced for what they are. and however much I want one I could never justify the expense. I would pay a bit more in order to buy British, but I wont bend over and get ****ed in the arse for the privalidge.

orange 5 is a british, top of the range mountain bike with sophisticated dampers and brakes etc.
To compare it to a car you need to compare like for like say a british top end sports car, perhaps an Aston Martin DB9 for around £130,000?

You are comparing a new bike to a second hand car which is not really the same.
Perhaps you can purchase a second hand bike which evens things out or get a cheaper bike.
you can buy a brand spanking new citroen car for £6000 in the garage next to my work (its probably crap) - like wise you can purchase a brand new mountain bike £150 in my lbs (its probably crap).

etc. etc.

top of the range mountain bike with sophisticated dampers and brakes etc.

LOL @ klunky WTF etc

you dont think the damper from cane creek etc. or the brakes from hope are sophistacted?

Prices have gone berzerk in the last few years, there's no way I'd spend 2.5k on a frame, not a chance in hell. But lots of people do, and I'm happy to take second hand ones for a third or less of the price.

klunky has a point. You are comparing a top end bike with a bottom end car. £3500 isn't a lot for a bike if your other hobby is collecting sports cars.

Other brands offer much better value IMO. Trek and Specialized for off the peg bikes that work.

you dont think the damper from cane creek etc. or the brakes from hope are sophistacted?

Nope.

 

My rear hub cost more than my car!
Tune Prince/'98 Mondeo TD.

What Clunky said is probably correct, compare a £150 Halfords job to a Daewoo Matiz and my Yeti ASR-C to a £1m Mosler.
You can buy a 'full-susspension bike' for £100 from Argos but it won't be as good as the Orange. Likewise you can buy a Ford Focus for £10k which will look very similar to the Focus WRC Malcolm Wilson will sell you for £3/4m.

Prices have gone berzerk in the last few years, there's no way I'd spend 2.5k on a frame, not a chance in hell. But lots of people do

I would pay a bit more in order to buy British, but I wont bend over and get **** in the arse for the privalidge.

Sounds like your LBS has a pretty exotic pricing policy.

Orange are hardly Aston Martin though. More Land Rover.

The level of technology in, say, and Orange Five, doesn't even come close to the technology found in even a relatively basic car, please don't try and pretend otherwise. Bike companies charge a fortune because people are gullible and want new tech as they think it'll make them ride better and look good in the car park, and people will pay...

WILL EVERYONE STOP COMPARING BIKES TO CARS - GETTING REDICULUS AND POINTLESS!

(breath)

c

I think you can get my point though.

A good mountain bike costs around £600ish. A really good one costs much much more if buying new.
For second hand the same situation - less 60%ish ??

The most basic car in the world has suspension more sophisticated than most mountain bikes..

The reason bikes are so expensive is they are made in a much lower volume than cars are

Demand is high, so are prices. We keep buying stuff no matter how much it goes up.

Because people like me spend £550 on some cranks, to replace their perfectly good cranks.

A good mountain bike costs around £600ish

I do agree, bikes seem to have got mental expensive in the last few years. I haven't really been riding much of late due to a complicated life, starting to try and get back into it properly... need a new ride... and just looking at the prices is scaring me!

I had hoped to pick up a decent full sus machine for £1500 - and was expecting mid range from one of the big manufacturers for that. Preferably a decent spec skills compensator in the 150mm travel region 😉 Seems that most bikes of that ilk START at comfortably north of £2k! Basic Trek Remedy is £2,200 for instance... starting to dispair, especially as my finances are being destroyed by the CSA and another wee un enroute for Spring.

Pah.

I may have to see if I can reviatalise the Marin Rocky Ridge somehow instead. At least for a year or so.

I wish I could be sophisticated...

Prices have gone berzerk in the last few years, there's no way I'd spend 2.5k on a frame, not a chance in hell. But lots of people do, and I'm happy to take second hand ones for a third or less of the price.

and Cooks, grafton , srp, Merlin, etc were all cheap?

No,

there has always been a stupidly expensive high end. Consider SID SLs were £600 i seem to remember in 95/96 how much would that be now corrected for inflation.

And in the last couple of years specifically
[url= http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=gbpusd=X#symbol=;range=my;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined; ]exchange rates[/url]

I dont think bikes are more expensive now than 10-12 years ago?

Even back then you could spend £5k on a sh bike etc.

To be fair I think you definately get more for your money these days. unless you buy an orange

Suspension on bikes like the orange (fox, RS etc) is much more sophisticated than low end cars, high speed, low speed compression, adjustable travel that doesn't affect spring rate, shim stacks, dual air etc.... And brakes on bikes are more advanced than low end cars too, car brakes are very simple, 1 piston etc .With bikes you get adjustable power(well pad clearance) ,controlled lever stroke (whatever the word is the the cut out that guides the lever on shimano xt levers). Probably not compared to cars designed for performance though

A bike is a collection of parts, Orange (in this case) do not have control over the cost of the majority of these parts.

They are also a small scale producer and consequently do not get a particularly good deal on the cost of either the parts nor the tubes/aluminium they make there frame from.

Which incidentally is why car manufacturers share parts, across not only their own models but with competitors.

And yes, my bike cost more than my car - but the bike (and its parts) were all new (and are all top 'spec'), whereas my car is s/h.

you dont think the damper from cane creek etc. or the brakes from hope are sophistacted?

Nope.

@thebikechain
What about damper from fox, brakes from formula?

 

Theres two reason why a bike would be expensive - one is the law or diminishing returns - the more value you add to a bike, the fewer people will buy one, because not everyone will pay a bit more for something thats a bit better. Adding that value might be adding material things technology, complexity or nice metal or it might be something that gives a warm feeling in your tunny like prettiness, or cleverness or some misplaced satisfaction if having tubes welded together by white people instead of yellow people. By making and selling less your overheads per bike are higher, which means you have to charge more, which means even fewer people will buy one, which means...... Thats why the difference between a £500 bike and a £5000 bike isn't as great as between a £50 bike and a £500 one.

The other might be to control the quantities you sell. If Orange (for instance) priced their bikes to match Specialised they'd sell as many bikes as specialised. They might not want to make and sell that many bikes, deal with that much work, make the investments that that requires, be that kind of business and live that kind of life. They might just want to sell enough bikes to be happy, have happy customers and nothing more.

There might be a third reason - that cycle buyers and weak willed weirdos who'll buy any old crap at any old price and the manufacturers are all laughing at them and rubbing their hands with glee as they shake us til all the housekeeping falls out our pockets. But in reality buyers set and limit the prices things can be sold for to a much greater extent than they realise, especially as not one of use [i]needs[/i] to buy a bike, let alone one that only gets ridden in circles that start and end in carparks.

i payed 3220 for my alpine 160 2011

By way of comparison, back in '89 my rigid M600 Cannondale was about 600 quid..

Bear in mind the exchange rate's not helped over the last few years - I bought a German recumbent (ok, frame's probably made in Asia) about two years ago for about 2k, pretty much the same spec is now about 3k. A pity I didn't buy it with a Rohloff...

[url= http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/3322682/c_1/1%7Ccategory_root%7CSports+and+leisure%7C14419152/c_2/3%7C15701421%7CBikes,+cycling+and+accessories%7C14419153/c_3/4%7Ccat_14419153%7CDual+suspension+bikes%7C14419175.htm ]Mountain bikes expensive?[/url]
I mean that's full sus with discs [b]and[/b] it's a Muddy Fox - why exactly do you need to spend 35 times as much?

Mountain bikes expensive?
I mean that's full sus with discs and it's a Muddy Fox - why exactly do you need to spend 35 times as much?

Motor vehicle companies run a different pricing structure because they make most of their profit over the life of the car in the sale of parts, especially highly profitable crash damage repair parts. In general bike manufacturers can only make their profit at the initial sale point of the bicycle. Therefore the pricing and business structure is much different.

Bike companies charge a fortune

that's right, there's no competition at all 🙄

anyway I bet this is just a genius troll 😀

Orange are hardly Aston Martin though. More Land Rover.

you dont think the damper from cane creek etc. or the brakes from hope are sophistacted?

[b]Nope.[/b]

A bike is a collection of parts, Orange (in this case) do not have control over the cost of the majority of these parts

I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment in the OP particularly as many of the components in the Hope brakes and Cane Creek shock are, beneath all the bluster and sheen, toy (rubber) parts which are prone to breaking down in, for example, cold weather conditions (cf a number of recent posts on here) - surprising given they're made in Yorkshire. Hope/Cane Creek/Fox bleat about this but the fact is you never hear about MX/car shocks blowing. It's like how each B-2 costs a billion bucks (due to politics more than the inherent cost), and the tech doesn't work in the rain. Stupid.

Why Are Mountain Bikes So Expensive?

I would imagine that the manufacturers have done a break even analysis and a bit of market research and decided that enough people have enough money to buy enough units to give them a profit. Unfortunately you appear not to be one of them. 😉

Even the cheapest cars are assembled from thousands of precisely made components, but bikes from barely a hundred.

Not an easy comparison.

Even the cheapest cars are assembled from thousands of precisely made components, but bikes from barely a hundred.

Precisely made? Have you [i]been[/i] in a French car?

And in what VOLUME are cars made, and how many models share the same parts? Think about it.....

motorbikes would be a better comparison

I was at Bionicon last week. Their bikes are assembled from 350+ parts.

A 250 gas gas trials bike with Marzocchi forks costs about £5000. more tech, decent suspension, decent brakes plus an engine. More R&D investment and a load more raw materials.

In comparison, bikes are a massive rip off.

I can understand why mountain bikes are so expensive. What absolutely baffles me is the whole bling fixie thing.

Components - steel frame, wheels, no suspension, token brake, no gears. Minimal moving parts at all really.

That'll be £1000 please sir. For what exactly?!

Manufacturers will charge 'whatever the market will bare'. We're slightly down the gullability index from your average fixie rider. But not that far

You don't have to make it an expensive sport... take an entry level Specialized or a Cube Attention for instance. Strong enough for mountains and around £500.

Or an On-One Inbred or a Dialled built up with cheap bits.

All amazing bikes - granted they aren't dripping in hi tech but ultimately they will allow you to go up and down a mountain and repeat til bored. For a long time.

Are people suggesting there is a price fixing cartel of bike and component manufacturers ?

If the choice is between over priced quality bikes or under qualitied cheap bikes, then surely there is an opening for someone to make good quality bikes at a reasonable price, which is pretty much what the majority of car manufacturers do.

At the end of the day, when walking into a bike shop, most of us behave like a newly-discovered tribe of primative natives on being shown some shiny beads.

Bike manufacturers know this. Its that simple.

What don simon says
its demand and supply (yes some times demand comes before supply); if people want to pay that sort of money then there will be that price of bike.

Typical British company though: Stick your head in the sand and keep trying to sell the same old stuff year after year with just a new fancy colour. Think 70s Triumph. That's what they remind me of....

I don't think you could be wider of the mark. Orange bikes don't rust and fall apart, they're reliable, well received in the press and sales seem to get stronger year on year. Doesn't sound anything like those two Rovers I was unfortunate enough to own.

[i]motorbikes would be a better comparison [/i]

True, and none of my m/c's have had a set of forks (no Ohlins, yet) with the ability to 'tune' like my 36's (rebound, talas, ride-height and low/high speed compression).

bikes from barely a hundred.

look a little deeper:

chain = 104 links; four side plates, two rollers and two pins in each link = 832 parts. All precision made.
wheel = 1 axle, 1 rim, 18 ball bearings, 2 cones, 2 lock nuts, 32 spokes, 32 nipples, 32 spoke reinforcement grommets = 130 parts.

Because shiny thing make it all better.

It's that simple. Middle aged men are leaving the golf course splashing out on a 4k bike and heading for the hills as they try and get fitter and have a bit of fun. I'm all for it.

MTB needn't be that expensive. Orange bikes are made in England and that pushes costs up a bit but really they have a bit of a winner in the five and you know, make hay while the sun shines.

As for parts it has been my experience over the last 20 odd years that cheap parts are shite.

I'd say a good, robust, light MTB will cost around 2k and considering the amount of people involved and the level of tech that seems about right.

A decent pair of skis, boots and bindings are around 700 quid and have much better economies of scale in manufacture. Whatever we might think 90% of bikes sold are cheap general purpose bikes from Halfords not 4k uber bikes. It's a niche pastime and therefore expensive.

Why Are Mountain Bikes So Expensive?
Compare it to a car then yes (but then why would you compare to a car?)

would it not be better to compare a MTB to a ROAD bike?
then the asnwear is NO MTB are NOT so expensive!

you can speand £3500 on a road bike and for what? no suspension, front or rear (small bits that have to be made to fit in the forks etc normally adds to cost)
no swing arms, pivits on a road bike, (no extra process/time/tooling)

Road bikes still have 2 wheels, gears, bars etc just like a MTB (thou more desgined for the road)
Yes I say a road bike would have a bit more carbon but a lot of MTB's have as well and can come in less £ than a high end road bike.

Bikes aren't expensive. Cars aren't precision made and are incredibly basic really.

To get shocks all round on my car (TVR) that have the adjustment of my bike shocks would be around £4k so there's a good comparison.

Bikes aren't expensive. Cars aren't precision made and are incredibly basic really.

To get shocks all round on my car (TVR) that have the adjustment of my bike shocks would be around £4k so there's a good comparison.

Bikes arent expensive says the man with the TVR.

£4-5k for a top of the range bike, thats like 25% of what alot of people take home in a year.

£4-5k for a top of the range bike, thats like 25% of what alot of people take home in a year.

true but what are you trying to say? Many things are expensive and out of reach of most people. I ride what I can afford and despite recently buying a new bike, it make very little difference to my enjoyment of riding.

£4-5k for a top of the range bike, thats like 25% of what alot of people take home in a year.

true but what are you trying to say?

That mountain bikes/biking is expensive (if your not earning TVR money)

Fair enough you can buy a cheap 2nd hand bike and go and cycle round your local trails in jeans and a T shirt and have a great time.

But moutain biking is all about selling expensive gear to well paid IT workers.

isn't the real driver behind mountain bike prices the wealth of those who buy them? Mountain biking (and road riding) is a *very* middle class activity. A lot of mountain bikers are well paid types with large amounts of disposable income. A market will adapt to suit the customer. For instance, BMXers are generally younger, and have less income. A BMX bike as a result is generally less sophisticated, and a lot cheaper.

The best way to see this is golf vs surfing. Golf uses straight bits of metal with a head on the end. Surfboards are single pieces of foam handcarved (generally) and covered in fiberglass. Both could cost a similar amount (ie both pretty low end kit) - however a top end set of golf clubs will be in the several thousand pound mark, wheras a top end surfboard is about £600. Golf is generally played by rich golfers, surfers are generally poor.

People earning "average" wage can happily buy mid-range.
People earning top end can buy top of the range (if they want to).

TVR's aren't that expensive, far cheaper to buy a 2nd hand trevor than a new golf gti which is frankly crap.

If it's £1k a corner for an advanced performance sports car shock then 1/3rd that price for a rear shock on a bike is pretty good and half for a good front fork.

Now if you don't earn enough and can't justify it then that is completely different to being expensive.

If i was earning less than £35k a year I'd deem my life a failure and on £35k a year then £4k is easily affordable.

Oh, my TVR is my only car as i cycle my commute and don't need a boring plasticky cheap every day car.

As for modern cars being high tech that's a joke. My partner just had a new astra for a week as courtesy and it wash orrid, plasticky, basic, cheap and nasty and was barely more fuel efficient than my trevor.

If i was earning less than £35k a year I'd deem my life a failure

You aren't serious are you?

All those nurses and key workers must stink of FAIL!

If i was earning less than £35k a year I'd deem my life a failure and on £35k a year then £4k is easily affordable.

You sound like the ideal mountain biker then.

Happiness doesnt come from within, it comes from loads of money and shiney bits of metal and plastic that you choose to surround yourself with.

The most basic car in the world has suspension more sophisticated than most mountain bikes..

Define sophistication?

Hope stuff definately compares with the stuff fitted to kit cars and motorsports stuff like willwood. (i.e. non ABS, non servo brakes). Its certainly well up there with aftermarket stuff for superbikes.

CC dampers, just a miniturised ohlins unit. And very definately better than the stuff fitted to a car. A set of 4 dampers for the average family car is arround £200-£300 fitted! And plenty of manufacurers are still fitting solid axel/torsion bar/traling arm setups to their sports models! Even a full IRS setup is only marginaly more complicated than a 4-bar (the kona DOPE is pretty much a trailing arm/torsion bar) setup.

If i was earning less than £35k a year I'd deem my life a failure and on £35k a year then £4k is easily affordable.

You sound like the ideal mountain biker then.

Happiness doesnt come from within, it comes from loads of money and shiney bits of metal and plastic that you choose to surround yourself with.

Hee hee he

Even the cheapest cars are assembled from thousands of precisely made components, but bikes from barely a hundred.

Not an easy comparison.

Yes, and a bike gets you 15kg of materials, a car gets you around 1500kg!!

That mountain bikes/biking is expensive (if your not earning TVR money)

Fair enough you can buy a cheap 2nd hand bike and go and cycle round your local trails in jeans and a T shirt and have a great time.

But moutain biking is all about selling expensive gear to well paid IT workers.

It's expensive if you must have top of the range. You have gone from top of the range to a cheap second hand bike in one swoop. There is a lot in-between. MTBing is cheaper than drinking and many people drink. It's only expensive if you get carried away on the upgrade band wagon. It's not insignificant in cost but compared to many common hobbies it's comparable.

Well I'm on little more than "average" wage for the UK (I'd imagine I'm well below median on here), but didn't find it too difficult to afford a top of the range bike. In an absolute sense, £4k for top of the range really isn't that expensive - lots of people splurge that much in depreciation on new cars every couple of years.

bassspine - good point.

If we decompose to that level, then I guess cars are made from 10's of thousands of parts.

Yes, and a bike gets you 15kg of materials, a car gets you around 1500kg!!

Low weight and miniaturisation is expensive. Who wants to ride a heavy bike!?

cars are sol with very little profit. The manufactures make money from spares and servicing.

It's only expensive if you get carried away on the upgrade band wagon.

This seems to be what mountain biking is all about now though. Buying parts, chatting about parts, buying more parts etc.

You can tell special77 is no engineer with statements such as "Cars aren't precision made". Jeez, theres a man with no understanding of anything mechanical, the kind that James May often bangs on about.

As for his statement about not earning over 35k and considering his life a failure? Pure trolling.

my TVR is my only car as i cycle my commute and don't need a boring plasticky cheap every day car.

So you bought an unreliabe, plastic bodied car from a bankrupt company instead? 😕

Only kidding, I love TVRs 😉

If i was earning less than £35k a year I'd deem my life a failure

Thats pretty much at the top of the list of things to say on an internet forum that will make everyone think you are a giant bell end from now on.

Oh, my TVR is my only car as i cycle my commute and don't need a boring plasticky cheap every day car.

Oh there we go, job completed.

UK bike prices are pretty mad, compared to the US. Someone told me a trick where you go to the US with a crap bike in your luggage, buy a good one there and take it back isntead without having to pay any of the costs. No idea if it works.
I can't see how people think disc brakes are hi tech, do you have any idea how simple they are and what actually goes on in there? Do you have any idea what is going on to make the computer you spend far too long at?

davidtaylforth - Member

This seems to be what mountain biking is all about now though. Buying parts, chatting about parts, buying more parts etc.

Ha! Maybe this is the problem.

"Do you have any idea what is going on to make the computer you spend far too long at?"

I think you'll they are called pixies, the more pixies the better the screen resolution.

If i was earning less than £35k a year I'd deem my life a failure

I think you should probably deem your life a failure for saying that. 😆

Yes mountain bikes are expensive, but as said, you don't have to spend anywhere near that to have fun. I bought a Specialized Hardrock s/h for £140. I had great fun on it, and rode all the same stuff I ride now, just not as fast.

And buying a 'top-end' bike the law of diminishing returns kicks in pretty heavily imo. If you are small, £800 will get you a Trance X4 with Fox rear shock, Rebas, XT rear mech etc

http://www.paulscycles.co.uk/products.php?plid=m1b4s1p2272

That would be considered a pretty fancy bike in normalpeoplesworld