Originally Posted by
Atlas Shrugged
I agree times have changed. I too purchased my first top end bike from money earned delivering newspapers it was a Raleigh Professional for $580, you couldn’t do that today for a S-Works Tarmac for example.
Sure you could. The median pay in 2022 for food and beverage service workers was
$13.52hr; it's surely gone up in the past two years as most wage rates have risen, and in some areas it's even higher -- in CA next month, a $20 minimum wage will take effect for such workers. You don't need to be a math whiz to figure out that a high school kid, working part-time at such a job, could easily save up enough for an
S-Works in a year or so, even with payroll taxes
Originally Posted by
Atlas Shrugged
But are the two bike comparable andI would say not. Both are effectively batch made however the Raleigh was made with non proprietary materials and techniques and very simple components. Reynolds tubing, standard off the shelf lugs and dropouts and existing manufacturing jigs. The S-Works on the other hand is basically fully custom build unique to this brand and model with hundreds of thousands of development and tooling costs which need to be amortized into the bike.
And you've identified the key. Some posters seem to recognize this, but some posters - the C&V people - can't acknowledge it. Even an entry-level 2024 Tarmac is objectively superior, on pretty much every metric that matters for actual cyclists, compared to a high-end steel-framed bike from the '70s or '80s. In other words, Dave Stoller can be on a superior bike for about the same real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) expenditure -- maybe even less. If that's inflation, I'll take more, please.
Even though we're not talking about cars, a similar trend has occurred in that market. I've cited the data before, so won't look it up again - it's easy enough for anyone to find. In real terms, cars have actually gotten cheaper in the past 40-50 years -- and on top of that, they have gotten immensely better in every measurable way: acceleration, handling, mpg, reliability, crash worthiness, comfort, features, etc. A new car today, at pretty much any price point, makes most 1970s cars seem like crudely-engineered and poorly built jokes.