Recumbent - Why are recumbents so expensive?

I was looking on Google for an answer to that question, and I found an earlier thread on this forum, (I can't remember what date it was from), but none of the answers given were particularly convincing to me.

Let's look at the average sub £100 mountain bike in the U.K.:
http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_564303_langId_-1_categoryId_165499

(Sorry for the long URL)
That is one of the cheapest bikes you can buy in 2009. Now, I'm sure the components must be the bottom of the range, in order to sell the bike at such a low price, but look at what you get for your money, in terms of all the individual components that go into a bicycle, plus the labour to build it up.

Now look at the frame, which is virtually all that is different between a conventional bicycle and a recumbent (apart from the seat and handlebars.) Look at that frame. It isn't made from bog standard tubing, it's made from customised, variable thickness material, with lots and lots of welds. Not a walk in the park, and certainly nothing that anything homebuilder could make.

Now look at the new Easy Racer frame:
http://www.bentrideronline.com/?attachment_id=1277

and

http://www.bentrideronline.com/?attachment_id=1273

How much does that frame cost to make, compared to the Halfords bike? Would it not be possible to get a similar frame, maybe not as high quality, but perfectly functionable, and only a little heavier, for £100?

When somebody asked this question previously, somebody else replied and said that the frames were handbuilt in the U.S. (not just Easy Racers, but they were suggesting that that was the reason for all the recumbents made in the U.S. being so expensive) - the topic starter replied that almost all recumbent manufacturers have their frames made in Taiwan, and just assemble the bikes in the U.S.
Cycle Genius, for example, which clearly state on their bikes 'Assembled in Texas. Frame made in Taiwan' or words to that effect. I cannot imagine that a recumbent frame can cost more than £150 tops in quantites of at least 100, from Taiwan. A complex mountain bike frame can be bought for £35, for a good quality one.

Now, if you've spent over $1,500 on your recumbent, you have a psychological vested interest in disliking this topic. I haven't got a recumbent at the moment, I have a Dahon 'Jack' folding mountain bike, the frame is harder to make than an Easy Racer one, due to the fact that it has a fold and is in two pieces, and uses non-standard aluminium tubing, not conventional round tubing like the Easy Racer frame. My Dahon cost me £200. So the frame can't have cost more than £30 - £40 for Dahon to buy (from Taiwan or some other part of China, no doubt. They don't build the frames themselves.)

How are recumbents EVER going to take off, when they are so expensive, and there appears to be no competition in the market, with regard to price?

There are even FWD recumbents whose frames are just a single bar of aluminium, so there is hardly any welding involved, thus hugely reducing labour costs for the manufacture of the frame, and even they cost a fortune.

Now, recumbent owners will often make out that spending $2,000 on an Easy Racer is justified because you can also buy $2,000 conventional racing bikes, and the like. But the BIG difference is that you can also buy perfectly usable $140 racing bikes. You cannot buy $140 recumbents.

It's a vicious circle that needs to be stopped as soon as possible. If recumbents came down in price, a lot of people who simply can't use normal bikes, might start using recumbents instead, to commute, and that would save a huge amount of our precious oil.

Also in the previous thread about this subject, somebody made out that recumbents use different components to conventional bikes, when this is untrue. The only different parts are the frame, seat and handlebars (or handlebar stem, depending on the type of recumbent). Everything else is just bog standard, off the shelf - that's the whole point!

Even if you built your own Easy Racer style frames in the U.S., how much could it possibly cost to build one frame? $200 if I'm being generous? All it requires is one jig, no special extrusion machinery, nothing like that, just normal tubing.

supply and demand. Most people want upright bikes.

My guess that the increase in price of a recumbent is due to two factors: economies of scale and the seat.

Most recumbent manufacturers are very small to small outfits and as such they won't be buying enough frames, parts or materials to get the big discounts the large bike companies can. Also because they are small and sell in relatively tiny volume, any R&D, overheads and other costs have to be spread at a higher rate over the very small numbers produced than for a firm making tens of thousands of upright bikes.

The seats on recumbents are often one of the most expensive parts to make and add significantly to the cost over a regular bike.

Rather than comparing the price of an Easy Racer or other recumbent against large volume manufacturers/distributors such as Halfords or Dahon a better price comparison would be with a smaller company such as Mercian.

I realise there are economies of scale, but I don't think they are that high.
For example, if a full suspension mountain bike frame, like the one shown in the Halfords website, can be manufactured for, say, £25 in quantities of 5,000 (I'm guessing here), how much would it cost in quantities of 100? £250? £1,000?
Then look at the Easy Racer frame, which isn't using custom sized tubing, just normal tubes - how much would that cost to be made in China in lots of 100? £500? I don't think so.

Re the seats - I don't understand why they would be so expensive. They don't require exact tolerances, don't require any special welding (just normal welding), etc.etc.

The bit about recumbent companies selling in tiny volumes - don't you think the incredibly high prices could be the cause of this? It's a huge outlay for most people, to spend $2,000 on a bicycle - nobody I have ever known would ever consider spending even half of that on a bicycle - you could get a quality second hand car for that amount of money.

You assume that lower prices would make people buy them, however most people learn to ride an upright when they are young and don't even know about recumbents.

I don't assume that lower prices would make people who didn't even know recumbents existed, buy them, but there are plenty of cyclists like myself who would love to own a recumbent, but can't afford the high prices.

Are there any examples of recumbent bikes which were available at, say, $500, which didn't sell well?

You can buy a Trek, for instance, for less money that the parts groupo costs by itself, and that means the whole bike including frame is cheaper than the main group of components. Trek can do that because their volume sales let them negotiate much lower prices from their suppliers. Recumbent manufacturers are too small to get those kinds of deals, even when they farm out the manufacturing to Taiwan. Volume makes a HUGE difference.

The other factor, as mentioned, is the custom parts required. Instead of a saddle that costs less than $5 to manufacture, a recumbent has a full seat that costs $200+. A recumbent needs 2 or 3 lengths of chain. Most also have extra idlers to help manage the long chains. Custom steering components, extra lengths of cable housing and tandem-length cables... it adds up. Besides, it's not fair to compare a recumbent to a *** department store bicycle, which barely qualifies as a bicycle. In fact, I refer to them as BSOs, or Bicycle-Shaped Objects. Compared to a BSO, even the cheapest bents are of an order of magnitude better quality.

Huffy sold a semi-recumbent model, the Venice. It went for $159 USD. I thought it looked like a GREAT kid's recumbent. It was discontinued due to poor sales. CCM likewise sold several semi-recumbents in the $200-500 range. All are gone now; nobody wanted them.

People always want stuff to be cheaper, but price isn't the only, or even main, reason why recumbents aren't more popular. The main reason is their image. Recumbents are ridden by eccentrics. Riding one requires a submissive body position. And of course, as everyone knows, recumbents CAN'T climb hills! There are probably a few dozen other reasons, some real and some imagined; and price is somewhere below all of them on the list of why recumbents aren't more popular.

I would not be surprised if 20% of the cost of a bent is insurance. The courts have not done this country a good service.

China does not have to worry about insurance. If the plant manager screws up they just hang the offender and appoint an new boss. Quick and cheap

The bit about recumbent companies selling in tiny volumes - don't you think the incredibly high prices could be the cause of this? It's a huge outlay for most people, to spend $2,000 on a bicycle - nobody I have ever known would ever consider spending even half of that on a bicycle - you could get a quality second hand car for that amount of money.

I went on a club ride today with, hmmm, maybe 100 cyclists. I would guess that at least half the bikes cost at least $1000. I noticed a few that cost well more than $2000. I noticed 3 'bents. Average price perhaps a bit less than $2000.
A good used car for $1000? Not around here.
Even an expensive bicycle is generally well less than a motorcycle and a heck of a lot less than a cheap car.

I don't assume that lower prices would make people who didn't even know recumbents existed, buy them, but there are plenty of cyclists like myself who would love to own a recumbent, but can't afford the high prices.

Are there any examples of recumbent bikes which were available at, say, $500, which didn't sell well?

Prices don't drive sales volume, but increase in sales volume will drive down price.


I realise there are economies of scale, but I don't think they are that high.
For example, if a full suspension mountain bike frame, like the one shown in the Halfords website, can be manufactured for, say, £25 in quantities of 5,000 (I'm guessing here), how much would it cost in quantities of 100? £250? £1,000?
Then look at the Easy Racer frame, which isn't using custom sized tubing, just normal tubes - how much would that cost to be made in China in lots of 100? £500? I don't think so.

Re the seats - I don't understand why they would be so expensive. They don't require exact tolerances, don't require any special welding (just normal welding), etc.etc.

The bit about recumbent companies selling in tiny volumes - don't you think the incredibly high prices could be the cause of this? It's a huge outlay for most people, to spend $2,000 on a bicycle - nobody I have ever known would ever consider spending even half of that on a bicycle - you could get a quality second hand car for that amount of money.

Volume, volume, volume. If the numbers are small, the cost of each unit is high. That's just basic production economics. Example:If recumbents are allowed to compete in major events and everyone who sees them wants one, production will ramp up, cost per unit will drop and consumers will see the difference in lower prices.

Let me know where I can find those $2000 cars. My old Caprice is going on the market in a couple months. It's 22 years old, rusty, needs brakes, the radio's broken and I'll easily get $1000 for it.

It is really just economy of scale, nothing more than that. Even if you have a factory in Taiwan manufacture your frames you have to come up with a large sum of money to get them interested.
These factories are often the same ones vying for contracts with larger companies like Trek et al, so you have to come up with a large sum to attract their attention.
In order to get that money to get the contract you need a bank loan or investors, and they are going to want a quick return on their investment. If you don't they won't invest in you again.
This drives the price per unit way up. The parts and the labor are not the biggest cost of most simple looking design, its the debt that the company starts off in.
The way around these start up costs is to do all work in-house with a small staff. This will also drive the cost up since the rate of production is so low.
I might point out that some simple looking designs aren't as simple as they look. Such as the Bacchetta steel and aluminum bikes. They just look like a simple tube with a few fittings welded on but they are not. The tube is actually teardrop shaped. You can't just buy that anywhere. You have to pay a steel (or aluminum) mill to custom draw those tubes. That costs a huge amount of money.
Even though some companies have been in business for awhile their sales are still hurt by the UCI who don't consider recumbents bikes and won't allow them to race. Most bikes bought by adults are bought by people who want the type of bike they see winning races. Since recumbents aren't seen racing young people won't buy them, and older people too often see bikes as toys.
Right now people buying 'bents are really just "early adopters" and as such are paying the financial penalty.

Right now people buying 'bents are really just "early adopters" and as such are paying the financial penalty.

I guess that makes me a "single-celled amoeba adopter". I was building recumbent trikes back in the early '80's- we had to invent/adapt/build just about everything. We sold a couple at about $1500 each. (Full story at http://home.comcast.net/~jeff_wills/aerocoupe/index.htm.) Nowadays you can get a much better designed & equipped recumbent trike... for $1500: http://hostelshoppe.com/cgi-bin/readitem.pl?Bike=1139431294 . So much for "inflation".


Gnome's comment about the seat is important. Upright bike seats are made in the tens of thousands, and I'll bet that none of them costs more than $20 each to manufacture. That's materials for materials and labor. The rest is shipping, warehousing, and profit at each point of the supply chain. A recumbent seat, on the other hand, is at least as complex to manufacture as the rest of the bike, if no more so. Even the simplest molded fiberglass designs require several molds (for different sizes), dedicated jigs, odd materials (seat mesh? breathable foam padding?), none of which is available through the "normal" bicycle channels.

Are there any examples of recumbent bikes which were available at, say, $500, which didn't sell well?

Rebike. It was heavy, had cheap parts and was slow. Some people liked 'em, though.

You can buy a Trek, for instance, for less money that the parts groupo costs by itself, and that means the whole bike including frame is cheaper than the main group of components. Trek can do that because their volume sales let them negotiate much lower prices from their suppliers. Recumbent manufacturers are too small to get those kinds of deals, even when they farm out the manufacturing to Taiwan. Volume makes a HUGE difference.


I know how much the components cost, they don't cost $1500 on an Easy Racer. Even retail, let alone cost.



The other factor, as mentioned, is the custom parts required. Instead of a saddle that costs less than $5 to manufacture, a recumbent has a full seat that costs $200+.

Who says? I can get a Chinese manufacturer to build me a recumbent seat for about $20.



A recumbent needs 2 or 3 lengths of chain. Most also have extra idlers to help manage the long chains. Custom steering components, extra lengths of cable housing and tandem-length cables... it adds up.


It doesn't add up to more than about $50.



Besides, it's not fair to compare a recumbent to a *** department store bicycle, which barely qualifies as a bicycle. In fact, I refer to them as BSOs, or Bicycle-Shaped Objects. Compared to a BSO, even the cheapest bents are of an order of magnitude better quality.


Let's compare recumbents to a £200 mountain bike then - my Dahon is perfectly good quality and I've been riding it for over two years. Why should a recumbent with the same components cost £1,000 or more? The only difference is the frame, seat, and handlebars. None of these are rocket science.





Huffy sold a semi-recumbent model, the Venice. It went for $159 USD. I thought it looked like a GREAT kid's recumbent. It was discontinued due to poor sales. CCM likewise sold several semi-recumbents in the $200-500 range. All are gone now; nobody wanted them.



Have you any more information on those? I'd be very interested to have a look at them.



People always want stuff to be cheaper, but price isn't the only, or even main, reason why recumbents aren't more popular. The main reason is their image. Recumbents are ridden by eccentrics. Riding one requires a submissive body position. And of course, as everyone knows, recumbents CAN'T climb hills! There are probably a few dozen other reasons, some real and some imagined; and price is somewhere below all of them on the list of why recumbents aren't more popular.

I agree about the submissive body position, but how do we know that price isn't a factor? It's certainly a factor for me - I can't afford one!

http://www.amazon.com/Huffy-Venice-Recumbent-Comfort-Bike/dp/B000A33AX6

Read the reviews. The bicycle's price point wasn't the problem, per se, the company seems to be the problem in this case.
First off, it isn't a very good design. A good design of frame costs no more to design or manufacture than a bad design. The wheels are only 20" and 16" - I would use 26" front and rear. The fact remains - this bike was available at a very low price, it had a longer chain, longer rear cables, was designed from scratch, etc.etc., but was badly designed, and badly presented to the customers.

None of the problems are inherent in producing a cheap recumbent...
I can get a Chinese manufacturer to produce me a recumbent frame for little more or even the same price as a full suspension mountain bike frame (custom designed) in units of 200.
Everything else is artificial price inflation, and keeps the recumbent market where it is today - which is where it was 20 years ago.

Rebike. It was heavy, had cheap parts and was slow. Some people liked 'em, though.

Okay, any examples of recumbents at $500 that weren't heavy, didn't have cheap parts, and weren't slow?

A recumbent seat, on the other hand, is at least as complex to manufacture as the rest of the bike, if no more so. Even the simplest molded fiberglass designs require several molds (for different sizes), dedicated jigs, odd materials (seat mesh? breathable foam padding?), none of which is available through the "normal" bicycle channels.

I don't understand this part. How can a seat be at least as complex to manufacture as the rest of the bike?
Look at the Linear seat. (I used to own a Linear). It's hardly rocket science. A foam base, $2, a mesh back and its frame, $25? I realise that you can't just buy one off the shelf, but if you get a Chinese manufacturer to make them for you, I'm sure the prices I've just listed are what you would be looking at.
If you went to a Chinese manufacturer and asked them to build you a recumbent exercise bike, how much do you think they would charge you for the seat? $300? Of course not!

I went on a club ride today with, hmmm, maybe 100 cyclists. I would guess that at least half the bikes cost at least $1000. I noticed a few that cost well more than $2000. I noticed 3 'bents. Average price perhaps a bit less than $2000.
A good used car for $1000? Not around here.
Even an expensive bicycle is generally well less than a motorcycle and a heck of a lot less than a cheap car.

Like I said, the people I know would never spend that on a bike. Go into bike shops, go into Halfords and other shops where the majority of bikes are bought, and you'll see huge numbers from £100 to £200/£300 tops. Those are the majority of sales.
If you were to take all of the bikes in the U.K. and find out what they cost to buy, I would bet that 90% were under £250.

In other words - what is the markup on an Easy Racer at $2,000?
How difficult is it to import a frame from Taiwan and to assemble a bicycle? I can do it in an hour and a half.

It is really just economy of scale, nothing more than that. Even if you have a factory in Taiwan manufacture your frames you have to come up with a large sum of money to get them interested.
These factories are often the same ones vying for contracts with larger companies like Trek et al, so you have to come up with a large sum to attract their attention.


I haven't found that to be the case at all. All the Chinese manufacturers I've contacted about anything at all, in the past, have been more than keen to get my business and to produce what I want.



In order to get that money to get the contract you need a bank loan or investors, and they are going to want a quick return on their investment. If you don't they won't invest in you again.


What sort of money are you talking about? $20,000? $100,000? Some of us have enough to get frames made in bulk.




This drives the price per unit way up. The parts and the labor are not the biggest cost of most simple looking design, its the debt that the company starts off in.


It depends how you start up your company.
I wouldn't start a recumbent company by borrowing a huge amount of money, I would save up beforehand and then use that money to buy a number of frames, then assemble the bikes and sell them. What else is there to it?




The way around these start up costs is to do all work in-house with a small staff. This will also drive the cost up since the rate of production is so low.


No it won't.
If you sell, say, one bike a day, and you make £150 profit per bike, that's £4,500 a month profit. Since it only takes an hour and a half to assemble a bike, you are working for about two and a half hours a day, so don't need any staff.

If you sell five bikes a day, and you make £150 profit per bike, that's £22,500 profit a month. You can employ just one person and pay them £2,000 a month if you wanted, to assemble all of the bikes. What else is there to it?

If you buy the frames for £150 and the components for £150, you can sell a bike for £450 and make £150 profit. Then take off your overheads per month, which wouldn't amount to more than £200. (Presuming you build the bikes at home - if you are selling so many that you need a factory, then you are bound to be making so much profit that you can easily pay for the rent.)

So where do the costs in a $2,000 Easy Racer come from? Assembly is the same - there's nothing special about an Easy Racer, I can build one up in an hour and a half. The frames are made in bulk in Taiwan, and aren't made of gold, so can't cost more than £150. They use conventional tubing, so don't need special, customised tubes to be made.




I might point out that some simple looking designs aren't as simple as they look. Such as the Bacchetta steel and aluminum bikes. They just look like a simple tube with a few fittings welded on but they are not. The tube is actually teardrop shaped. You can't just buy that anywhere. You have to pay a steel (or aluminum) mill to custom draw those tubes. That costs a huge amount of money.



That's their problem, and doesn't apply to Easy Racers or Cycle Genius.




Even though some companies have been in business for awhile their sales are still hurt by the UCI who don't consider recumbents bikes and won't allow them to race. Most bikes bought by adults are bought by people who want the type of bike they see winning races.



I don't think that's true at all. Are you talking about really expensive bikes, or just the majority of bikes? Because the majority of people who buy bikes, buy them to go somewhere, nothing more. Go to a big store like Halfords and look at the bikes they sell, and the prices.





Since recumbents aren't seen racing young people won't buy them, and older people too often see bikes as toys.
Right now people buying 'bents are really just "early adopters" and as such are paying the financial penalty.

As somebody else has said, recumbents have been around for 30 years. There should be no financial penalty.

You seem to know a great deal about manufacturing and price points that I don't. One item has been left out of every discussion so far. Overhead or the more common term today, resources. Put simply, if you need 5 people to run the company and you only sell 500 bikes a year then you will need to charge more for the bike. I also have to disagree that the $400.00 bike that you can buy at the local store offers the same level of quality, components as my $ 2,300.00 Bacchetta, Corsa. But they are different machines intended for different purposes. Recumbents have been around for years but don't seem to be able to break into the main stream, it isn't because of the UCI, or the price of the bike or the submissive position. It is because they are a small market like the 5,000 to 10,000 upright bike market is a small market. To take the recumbent market main stream like the mountain bike market, it will take a visionary and great entrepeneur. I am not that guy but you might be.

Bacchetta just came out with a new CA 2.0 for $ 4,500.00, it is a beautiful bike and I hope will sell well as I want them to stay in business. It is Carbon Fibre, the Trek, Madonne series in carbon fibre start at about 2,200.00 and go up to 6,900.00. Are any or all over priced? I believe that what I paid for my Corsa was a fair price, isn't that what it is all about?

I believe Sun sells recumbents that are MSRP around $700. With the equivalent components on a department store bike the price comes in around $300 for a DF. The $400 difference is easily in the seat and frame, especially at the quantities involved.

Take the $100 Walmart bike. Bottom level components and the cheapest mass-produced frame. The same bike can be had at any number of stores for up to $200. This bike probably sell 10-20X the quantity of the Sun. And that's only from Walmart. Take into account all the LBS, sporting goods and department stores that sell this bike and you are looking at 100X the volume of the least expensive Sun.

Now, if Sun managed to strike a deal with Walmart....

:)ensen.

The real reason that recumbents are expensive is that the manufacturers have huge mansions, private jets, and spend exorbitant sums on monocle polish and mustache wax.

They would go out of business if only a hard-working entrepreneur would apply sound business, marketing, and manufacturing principles to the market to sell a $300 'bent. Put your energy into providing a solution instead of blaming existing mfgs for failing you.

I had a $590 EZ1-sx. It had decent components, complex seatback frame, cheap & heavy steel frame. Even the cheap frame required approx. twice the linear length of tubing and 3x the welds of a conventional bike. I rode it about 1000 miles before upgrading, and now my wife rides it. Other than being a bit heavy, it's a quality bike, with components equivalent of what I've seen on $400 conventional bikes.

In my personal experience cheap bikes don't last me long at all. My cheapest bike cost $600USD. Its a cruiser with 3 speed IGH and coaster brake. Yes, I ride it often and I do like it. This is the only style of bike I would buy at a department store and expect to service me well. The last 2 bikes I bought at a department store years ago cost $150 or less. They were 21 speed mountain bike style. They were made by large well known manufacturers. The gear shifting components constantly needed to be fiddled with. These components were made by Shimano and shouldn't have been so problematic even if they were low-end components. The problem I learned was caused by the frames. Weak frames bend and cause the derailleurs to go out of adjustment or auto shift. I could literally cause the frame bend to a visible degree in my hands. Nobody believed I could do those until I showed them. Yea I am strong but not that strong. A few others opined it was supposed to do that. That was disproven when they both broke even though they were only used on the street.
I imagine that the price will come down when people start seeing more of them and wanting them at lower prices. Many people here in the US still have never even seen a 'bent as judged by the amount of attention I draw with mine. Right now the only ones interested in them are enthusiasts, and they are willing to pay more.
It would be nice to see some 'bents in department stores but hopefully they will be of better quality than the DF's I have bought. And I hope they will supply them with simple components, single speed or IGHs. This will make them easier for the casual rider to use since they will probably not want to spend part of their day maintaining another piece of equipment.

I went on the Bacchetta forum and posted this question
http://www.bacchettabikes.com/forum2/tm.asp?m=53043
I hoped to get one of the owners who frequent the forum to respond. According to John Schlitter the seat is one big kicker at $100 a pop. A normal DF costs around $10 to manufacture. Doesn't account for all of the price difference but some.
I think the biggest cost difference is because 'bents are marketed to enthusiasts who would normally spend a lot on the bikes anyway (like me).
After listening further discussion it seems to be that one reason that cheaper 'bents aren't available is because no has tried to startup a company with this goal in mind, 'bents for the masses. Or at least no one has been successful yet. Once someone does make a successful one I am sure many will follow.

After listening further discussion it seems to be that one reason that cheaper 'bents aren't available is because no has tried to startup a company with this goal in mind, 'bents for the masses. Or at least no one has been successful yet. Once someone does make a successful one I am sure many will follow.

Bike-E? Oh, wait, they went under. Maybe Soleto will be the first.

The frame might use a little more metal, USS is harder to design, it uses a longer chain. BUT I think one of the main reasons is the seat. The seat is 5 times wider than most bike seats, maybe 10 times more comfortable, 15 times the material and just makes all up right bike riders mad at the fact that you can still smile after doing a 50 mile ride.

Like I said, the people I know would never spend that on a bike. Go into bike shops, go into Halfords and other shops where the majority of bikes are bought, and you'll see huge numbers from £100 to £200/£300 tops. Those are the majority of sales.
If you were to take all of the bikes in the U.K. and find out what they cost to buy, I would bet that 90% were under £250.

In other words - what is the markup on an Easy Racer at $2,000?
How difficult is it to import a frame from Taiwan and to assemble a bicycle? I can do it in an hour and a half.

If it's so easy, and can be done, then why don't YOU do it?
If you are correct, then you'll make a lot of money. There's a reason that it hasn't been done, and you are totally missing the points that you are being given here.
The Huffy you showed is not really a recumbent, it's more of a crank forward bike.
The Chinese ARE making recumbents and selling them, and most of those are still over $1,000, and above that.

If it's so easy, and can be done, then why don't YOU do it?
If you are correct, then you'll make a lot of money. There's a reason that it hasn't been done, and you are totally missing the points that you are being given here.
The Huffy you showed is not really a recumbent, it's more of a crank forward bike.
The Chinese ARE making recumbents and selling them, and most of those are still over $1,000, and above that.

+1. If you don't like the prices of the specialized recumbents such as Easy Racers (which by the way you should be comparing with something like a Mercian, a Thorn or a Gunnar) and you can import, assemble and sell recumbents cheaply and still make enough profit to pay your taxes and provide you with a reasonable income do it yourself.

Or build your own from salvaged or scrap bikes if you want a really cheap recumbent.

Exactly! Find two bikes at the curb on trash day and make one. Like this.



Or, check out Flea-Bay for recumbents. Actionbent is just one of many companies who sell those Taiwanese bikes direct to the consumer. Cutting out the LBS saves a bit of cash. The shop isn't liable to be sympathetic when you need help putting it together, though.

I'm not a bent rider, but I'll chime in with a couple of observations anyway.

1. Recumbents are pricey. Sun probably comes closest to what the OP envisions for a mass produced line of bents at a lower price point. But the very bent community is preventing that. Hear me out before you let the air out of my tires. Sun products seem like a decent deal for someone (like me) who has little to no knowledge of the recumbent. But there are those that will scoff at the build quality, the weight, performance... that puts a potential recruit into the 'bent world off.
2. Bents don't have the outlets that DF's enjoy. Of the 12 LBS around here, only 3 deal with bents. All of those stock or can/will order Sun, but the vast majority of their sales are DF's, except for one shop. He does nothing but bents (Rans, Greenspeed, Catrike, Easy Racers) and Sun folders. He doesn't stock, won't order, or even service DF's.
3. Bents are harder to transport. For the most part, they won't fit on standard racks, nor will they be allowed or fit on the busses. Harder to store when not riding*, more difficult for people living in high rise apartments.
4. Bents are not one type for all riders. There are just as many variations among recumbents as there are among DF's. Each type has its own pro's/con's.

As stated before, I have no direct knowledge of the recumbent. So I think that I will stop before I really say something stoopid.

*Does not apply to trikers. They have no need for other furniture. They merely use their trikes as comfy chairs.

Two corrections
Easy Racers are made in California USA, not Taiwan or China. There will be a Sun Tour Easy available this year which is a licensed copy of the E R version.
When I referred to starting a small company with a small staff would drive price per unit up I was implying that the staff would also be manufacturing the frames, not just assembling the bikes. I should have been more clear.

I'm not a bent rider, but I'll chime in with a couple of observations anyway.

1. Recumbents are pricey. Sun probably comes closest to what the OP envisions for a mass produced line of bents at a lower price point. But the very bent community is preventing that. Hear me out before you let the air out of my tires. Sun products seem like a decent deal for someone (like me) who has little to no knowledge of the recumbent. But there are those that will scoff at the build quality, the weight, performance... that puts a potential recruit into the 'bent world off.
2. Bents don't have the outlets that DF's enjoy. Of the 12 LBS around here, only 3 deal with bents. All of those stock or can/will order Sun, but the vast majority of their sales are DF's, except for one shop. He does nothing but bents (Rans, Greenspeed, Catrike, Easy Racers) and Sun folders. He doesn't stock, won't order, or even service DF's.
3. Bents are harder to transport. For the most part, they won't fit on standard racks, nor will they be allowed or fit on the busses. Harder to store when not riding*, more difficult for people living in high rise apartments.
4. Bents are not one type for all riders. There are just as many variations among recumbents as there are among DF's. Each type has its own pro's/con's.

As stated before, I have no direct knowledge of the recumbent. So I think that I will stop before I really say something stoopid.

*Does not apply to trikers. They have no need for other furniture. They merely use their trikes as comfy chairs.

Actually, you did pretty good. Sun recumbents weigh more than many other bikes, but I'd say their quality is as good as any other. The extra weight will matter on hills, but they are sturdy bikes.

The biggest barrier to most cyclists buying a bent is image, not price.

I made a recumbent bike out of scrapped mountain bike parts, for about half the cost of a used recumbent. I'm glad I did. I've ridden it over 700 miles in the past couple months. I did not enjoy making it. But now that it's made, I really enjoy riding it.

No1mad,

A lot of what you say is true. Recumbents ARE more expensive, and probably always will be. Sun products are fine as low-end recumbents, although I'll make one caveat - someone coming to recumbents expecting speed will be disappointed by a Sun, and that's how recumbents get a bad reputation for being slow: the rider eventually goes back to his upright and tells all of his friends that bents are heavy and slow, and anyone who claims otherwise must be a liar. Bents DON'T enjoy a large LBS base. We complain about that, too. SOME bents don't fit on standard bike racks. Most do, though. I've seen TourEasys, Bacchettas, RANS and Sun on trunk racks. Bus racks which are designed for a particular wheelbase can be a problem for anything other than SWB. And certainly, longer recumbents are harder to maneuver up winding stairways. Recumbents have other disadvantages, too; but most of us are more than willing to put up with them to get the comfort. I don't know if you consider your number 4 good or bad, but I consider it a good thing. It does tend to make choosing one more difficult, though.

No1mad,

A lot of what you say is true. Recumbents ARE more expensive, and probably always will be. Sun products are fine as low-end recumbents, although I'll make one caveat - someone coming to recumbents expecting speed will be disappointed by a Sun, and that's how recumbents get a bad reputation for being slow: the rider eventually goes back to his upright and tells all of his friends that bents are heavy and slow, and anyone who claims otherwise must be a liar. Bents DON'T enjoy a large LBS base. We complain about that, too. SOME bents don't fit on standard bike racks. Most do, though. I've seen TourEasys, Bacchettas, RANS and Sun on trunk racks. Bus racks which are designed for a particular wheelbase can be a problem for anything other than SWB. And certainly, longer recumbents are harder to maneuver up winding stairways. Recumbents have other disadvantages, too; but most of us are more than willing to put up with them to get the comfort. I don't know if you consider your number 4 good or bad, but I consider it a good thing. It does tend to make choosing one more difficult, though.

And that is probably a roadie who doesn't think twice about dropping 5 grand on a full carbon DF, but refuses to spend more than $1200 on a bent. This is the way I look at it: the current land speed record holder is Sam Whittingham and he did it on a 'bent. If you take two people with similar aerobic conditioning and put one on a racing DF and the other on a 'bent designed for racing, who would win? The one that has done the most training on their machine.

I do consider my number 4 a good thing. Other wise, there would be nothing but One Size Fits Most, Bike(bent in this case) Shaped Objects available at X-Marts.

Bike-E is the case study for this argument.

They used a simple design, contracted all of manufacturing out to China, had a reasonable large dealer network, and sold over 20,000 bents, so they were able to reap some mass production cost benefits.

Yet their cheapest bents were around $700, going up to $1200 to $1500, and that was 8 to 10 years ago. Would definitely cost more now with the dollar vs yen exchange rate.

And what did this mass production and aggressive pricing and high sales yield them? They went bankrupt. Their revenues fell well short of their expenses.

The other case study would be Sun. They sell far more bents than anyone else today. They mass produce all of them. Many of the designs were unchanged for several years. They had models that used very inexpensive components. And they were able to sell a low-end bent for around $600-$650. But it was slow, heavy, and about the overall quality of a $250 mountain bike.

Their new X-line, which is a modern design, mass produced in China, distributed through a large, existing dealer network, and managed by a relatively small US company. These start at around $1100, in their steel frames and using pretty low end components. The lighter, higher performance X-2 AX, while still not a top-end bent, is $1600.

These two companies both went after the low-end market, using many cost-cutting techniques. Yet they cannot produce a bike like an Easy Racer's Tour Easy for $1000. The total cost model doesn't seem to support that premise.

I'm sure prices would be lower if someone were selling 100,000 bents a year. Where dealers were rapidly turning over inventory and supply channels were more efficient.

We also have the example of ActionBent. A direct-sales importer. Can't have a model with much less overhead than this. And they do have $700 bents. Like this one:
http://us.st12.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/actionbent_2048_312764

And this $1200 one actually has higher-end components, like Shimano XT and 105:
http://us.st12.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/actionbent_2051_210129

But I can't see how one could get these bikes out into a dealer network without having to inflate the prices by a few hundred.

Could it be that the "cheap vs expensive" issue is directly related to people who buy bicycles to make themselves feel better, vs people who buy bicycles to actually ride them extensively?

I mean, even if the frame was free, you'd still need quality components if you don't want to have to replace them every other month of hard riding.

When people start arguing about price with me, I point them to the tv show "Time Warp" episode with the trial bikes, where they compare doing stunts with high end bikes and with mass-produced full suspension MTBs. Long story short: a simple low jump trick destroys the mass produced MTB.

Just another guy who thinks great bikes should only cost $300.00. Always plenty of them out there. bk

Exactly! Find two bikes at the curb on trash day and make one. Like this.


Betcha the seat & bars weren't found in the trash or purchased for "$20" ...

Betcha the seat & bars weren't found in the trash or purchased for "$20" ...

The seat was a broken one that I repaired. Alternatively, I could have made one out of plywood. It's not a complicate design. The handlebars were bent from 7/8" aluminum tubing. Almost everything on the bike was salvaged from the donor bikes or from my used parts bin. I spent about $100 on it, for the cassette, shifters, and that length of aluminum tubing. If I could have been happy using 5-speed stuff, the only thing I would have had to buy new would have been the aluminum.

Another observation that I came up with while running the sorter at work today:

Bent owners/riders tend to be older, correct? They enjoy being outside, riding bikes, but have started having health issues that either limit or prohibit them from riding DF's. They seek out recumbents for the comfort that will allow them to keep riding, being fast is not a top priority.

And as with anything else in our society, that comes at a premium. People who care about their health and have the means will pay to maintain their lifestyle. Accordingly, manufacturers are more than willing to oblige by charging a premium price.

So it's a catch 22. So long as people are willing to pay x amount of money for any given product, then there is no reason for the manufacturers to sell for less.

Having said that, if the OP thinks that he can actually build a bent for practically nothing, then I challenge him to do it. Let him post his design specs for review. If the authoritative members here think that it even halfway a valid concept, then I'll do my best to buy one. (My preference is for a trike; I'm tired of coming home and finding someone has been using my recliner when I'm gone.)

If typical bent consumers are older, they tend to have more discretionary income, and have learned through experience that buying cheap often means buying twice.

And as has been shown, there are always alternatives: DIY, used, upgrade an entry-level model. Berating a fluid market is like shaking a fist at the wind.

Check out thread: What could contribute for greater market share for recumbents? (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=343026)

Berating a fluid market is like shaking a fist at the wind.

Or wanting Communism while enjoying Capitalism

I had an inexpensive, heavy and cumbersome bent. Hated it. Bought a Gold Rush and it's worth every damned penny!!! Fast Freddie does a great job building these bikes!! I haven't been on a DF in over two years.

It takes much more effort to sell recumbent bikes. The small market share makes it much more difficult. So much of a salesman's time is spent teaching customers about the bikes. That must help make recumbents more expensive.

It takes much more effort to sell recumbent bikes. The small market share makes it much more difficult. So much of a salesman's time is spent teaching customers about the bikes. That must help make recumbents more expensive.

That's true to a certain extent. But if the sales staff would just put the prospective buyer on them, they'd sell themselves. But it's much easier to point a customer at a 'comfort' bike rather than a recumbent, because that's what the sales staff knows about. Since most shops don't know how to sell them, recumbents end up on the showroom floor longer, and that translates into lower profits, which creates a catch-22 condition: They don't know how to sell them, so they sell other stuff instead, which means they don't sell them. Often, after putting one or two in the window for 2 years, the shop will clear it out and vow to never stock another one.

Those who believe a good recumbent can be produced at a low price can always test the validity of their belief by building a few. I suspect the experience will be educational.

By the way, prices on some very nice Volae's are reduced at the Hostel Shoppe. (http://www.hostelshoppe.com/) You can also get a brand new RANS V2 LE for less than $1,200.