Originally Posted by
EvilV
'Is the price of the real Strida any sort of a bargain, given that we are talking about buying three tubes, a plastic transmission system, a crank spider and two small wheels?' The answer in my opinion is NO. By any standards, in a global market, the Strida is far too expensive...
I know that Mr Saunders is not involved in marketing the Strida 5, so he can't be blamed for its ridiculous price, and nor can he be blamed for being cheesed off at people copying what he designed...
You've hit the universal dilemma of manufacturers and designers square on the head there, EvilV... and one can only hope that those that come out winners in this particular instance are the ones that deserve to be rewarded.
I must admit, when I found out how much a genuine Straida cost in my country, I was a taken aback. However, I have some inside knowledge in the industry (however limited), so I know how incredibly expensive R&D can cost, not to mention the minimum legal and patenting expenses that are necessary in claiming and protecting a "new" idea or product. The Straida is not merely three tubes, a couple of wheels and some pedals put together as it would appear now that the rest of us have the benefit of hindsight. Behind the scenes, it represents years of critical thinking, design refinement, material selection, tooling and marketing investment, and so on... a lot of buckaroos. Somewhere along the line, those that took the risk and coughed-up the "initial" cold hard cash (and time) have to factor-in this investment in order to recover it.
Unfortunately for the Straida bike, the beauty and brilliance of it's design may also prove to be it's achilles heel. It just looks too simple to cost that much (however justified I'm sure). Because the bottom-line is, the public will and can only compare it with other existing bikes already in the market. The public does not see what goes on behind closed doors to be able to relate the cost to those factors. It's about a thousand bucks over here and that - is the price of a pretty good medium spec MTB hardtail with front suspension fork, 27 speeds, and so on... It's just too hard for the consumer to bridge the mental gap between price and value.
One thing's for sure, if I (or one of us) came up with that design and put a considerable portion of our lives on the line to see it through, I'd be pretty piss'd-off too if other factories grabbed the idea then marketed the product based on manufacturing costs alone. But what can we do? Who wants to spend more money with litigation?
T'is the times we live in...