Originally Posted by
Leisesturm
'Simply Red' was $550 complete in 2018 and is 2x Claris with Alex wheelset. If $1K complete is a 'budget' commuter in 2023 then I'd better baby 'Red' because the CFO is not going to allow any n+1 at that price point.
I don’t think I used the word “budget” in my post. Nonetheless, a $1000 complete bike is very constrained and the kind of steel frame a company can afford to hit that price point is extremely unlikely to deliver on great ride quality and isn’t even going to be meaningfully differentiated from a similarly-priced aluminum bike in that respect. That’s all I was saying.