I hear what you are saying. However Assos gear works exceedingly well. It is extremely well designed and engineered. It is well fabricated. They do not change their basic colors so that one can assemble a wardrobe of their products over years and it will all match. It great stuff and it lasts. Unfortunately it has an expensive price tag to match. What is annoying is that their pricing in the US is exorbitant in comparison to what they charge fellow Europeans. Assos is trying to grow the underachieving US market for their products. If they are serious they should charge us based upon what it costs to make their products as opposed to their current strategy of charging what the market will bear with an inflated fixed retail price structure.