What wild conspiracy are you gonna come up with next, Slim?

The parts list on the Rush Hour is full of upgrades over the Back Alley. Not the whole bike, of course, but every little bit adds up.

There may indeed be some slotting of the prices, putting the track-style bikes a couple hundred higher to seek a different bracket (and to make the upgrades look more worthwhile).

Here's another comparison, between my Bianchi Valle and a Bianchi Volpe of the same year (2009 is when I got my Valle). The Valle, a flat bar city bike, was a couple hundred less than the Volpe, a cyclocross bike with the exact same frame. I figured out that it would cost me a bit more to convert my Valle to drops and STI shifters as it would to add fenders, a dynohub, and lights to a Volpe. Either way, the total cost of both bikes would have been pretty close -- close enough that I decided to keep the Valle and convert it instead of replacing it with a modded Volpe.

Oh sure, I could have wailed about the Volpe being priced too high because it had less stuff on it (no fenders, dynohub, or lights?! OMG!), but when all the parts were counted up, they were priced completely correctly.