Originally Posted by xenologer

Interesting situation
typically, at a department store different sizes of the same pants cost the same, even though different amounts of cloth was used... why? shouldn't i get a discount since my smaller size used less material? maybe its an issue of political correctness, where no one wants to give the impression of discrimination

with bikes, the differences will be more extreme than mere cloth, larger sizes need to be built more robustly, materials and design may need to be different.... at least in theory. instead we often see that all frame sizes are priced identically, and use identical components -a freewheel on a 15" frame for a 90lb woman is fine, but is it really acceptable that the 23" version of the same bike still uses that freewheel? 250lb male rider will break the axel in no time....

Seen that particular example at the shop where i work... usually we try to avoid using personal descriptions like 'overweight' etc and instead use deliberatly vague terms like 'riding style' or 'abuse' when dealing with bikes that havent withstood large customers....

maybe we need to be more pragmatic, spec and price items based on rider size instead of pretending all are equal (politcal correctness) ?