Garfield Cat

I think we all know the answer. Diminishing returns. But still, subtle differences are there. Its what that bike was designed to do. Mostly riders don't do what it was designed to do or not often enough for lack of physical or mental abilities. How often do I get to ride down the Col Du Tourmalet at 50 mph.

jefnvk

Odd, when I look at Ninjas, I see bikes with MSRP above $30k. Of course, we need to stay on topic and not talk about why a motorcycle costs more than a 4x4 F150, and it would be silly to pretend like there are motorcycles that cost above what the OP wants to reference...

Furthermore, the cheapest one I see is $5000 for a 296cc. Why the heck does a 296cc cost SO much? I mean, I can buy a 250cc Chinese motorcycle for $1800, you can't tell me there is three times the material cost in the Kawasaki: https://countyimports.com/inc/sdetai...25--/384/47058

rgconner

It is 2003 pricing, the old carb based 250cc ninja. (It is from that stupid video posted)

Love them chinese bikes! Belong to a small bike club, and people riding those generally got a mile out of them for every dollar they paid before they broke down.

Not even as reliable as my 45 year old Honda. =)

jefnvk

Is Thailand really any better? I know at least for a while, all of Kawasaki's cheap bikes came from there.

But yeah, I hear you on the old Hondas. I commuted on a V4 500 Magna all through the summer in college, great bike mechanically, but electronics from the early 80s sadly were not as robust as today.

rgconner

Well, back in 2012, Vespa (Piaggio) started making engines in Vietnam.

Reportedly 3 out of 4 engines failed QA during the first year. It is better now, but they still reject a big number.

Those engines are sold to a scrapper and they often end up back in the supply chain as grey market.

That is typical of a lot of these imported small displacement bikes. They are clearly Honda 200cc engines, or at least rebadged versions of it.
Many are probably rejects from the Honda line in China, but Honda also licenses the design to Lifan, so they could be Lifan rejects.

Kymco has the same relationship with Kawi, they make the small Kawi engines and they make their own engines/bikes too.

Kymco has been better about protecting their name and you don't see too many leak to the grey market, but the GY6 (200-300c) Kawasaki engine is a widely ripped off design for small bikes.

1500SLR

To surmise your problem is to say that cycling is a class based sport. People with lots of money will throw $15k at a bike. I was looking at one hanging on the wall where my brother worked from Cinelli. He proceeded to tell me to not even breath on it

Don't even worry about that. To be honest when I even someone ridding around on an S-Works bike such as a Venge with disc brakes and eTap, I do not get it, especially older non-competitive men and women. I'm just like meh... "They're having the same experience as me but they spent about one quarter of the average persons wage on a bike." Then I think "reassess your priorities, lose the sense of ego, and then come and talk to me about bikes."

I like bikes, I don't like mantle pieces for your ego to hang on. I see the point that the Australian cycling team set a new world record in the Anna Mears Velodrome riding against the best England has as the next best nation. I see they're riding $15000 bikes. But when I see a fat old man on a $15000 bike I kinda just look at them sideways and have to hold back the laughter really. Are you that vapid that you need to justify yourself like that?

Slick Madone

I find this humorous to say the least. I have both S-Works Roubaix, and a Venge that are Di2 equipped. I'm 52 and have zero interest in competing or even group riding. These bike were not purchased for racing.

Am I fast, no, do I care what other people think, no.

It's disposable cash, and I decided that I ride for the health benefits. The sedentary lifestyle isn't for me and I see real benefits in riding. If I can afford to ride something I like, nobody should care at all.

I also respect technology and carbon bits, etc......So i like to ride something I find interesting. To me, the steel bike thing, I just don't get at all, but that's just me. I respect that others are into what they like. Doesn't effect me one bit either way.

1500SLR

If you've gotten to the point where $15000 is disposable cash then more power to you.

Slick Madone

I figured the bikes would be less expensive than doctor bills down the road.....and a lot more fun too!

robertorolfo

No, sorry, but they are nowhere near analogous. And suggesting so is beyond laughable. So, tell me, how much does a current F1 car cost? Or a current MotoGP bike? Can't answer? Yeah, that's because they aren't for sale. You couldn't even but a slightly inferior version of a MotoGP bike if you were a MotoGP race team, you could only lease it.

So tell me how these literally unobtainable vehicles compare to a bike that I can but on the internet in all of 2 minutes with my credit card? Please...

Likewise, don't go posting those silly valuation articles where they put a price tag on an F1 car or MotoGP bike, because that is simply a bunch of silly speculation on the value of R&D and one-off parts. I've spent a bit of time around MotoGP garages and bikes in person, and I can tell you that they are somewhat underwhelming in person if you are expecting something truly mythical. Again, any perceived value would come from the fact that you CAN'T buy them, and because they have secrets inside that are worth a lot to the companies that built them.

The 959 Panigale is neither middling nor average. It's not the top of the Ducati range, but among all the bikes on the market, it is most certainly near the top.

But, again, for the umpteenth time, the comparison wasn't about placement in a product range, but rather what you are getting for your money. More on that in a bit...

Actually, you are helping my argument here. Harley's can be put into the same general category as these expensive bikes: heavily overpriced to the point that the sum of the value of the parts falls well short of the end price. Harley's use old technology, and nothing about their performance, or the materials used to build them, is in any way superior to their competition. People pay extra for the name, that's it. And as many have pointed out, they are not alone in having a brand that customers where customers are willing to pay based on name recognition.

And, honestly, I'm not sure how Trek is regarded on the racing circuit these days, and if the same holds true for them.

Don't you work in automobile electronics sector or something? A statement like this is similarly laughable to the one you made earlier. If I'm not being generous with the "few decades" comment, we will have to go back to bikes from the 1980's and 1990's, and you will find that today's bikes, especially sport and adventure bikes, are light years ahead of those from that time period. It's night and day.

Even going back just 10 years, there have been some very big steps forward, mostly in the area of electronics. ABS systems, for example, were extremely rare a decade ago (if they were even available, although Honda might have had a few models that offered it), and variable engine maps were virtually unheard of on production bikes. Then you can get into reliability, emissions and power output, where the HP per liter numbers have steadily improved in most categories, and practically exploded in others, all the while with engines that are running cleaner.


Yeah, a circuitboard, servo or solenoid here and there? Don't compare a few parts to the entirety of a product. And your own link claims Trek produce 1% of their bikes here, so does that include the $5k and $10k bikes, or just the $15k version?

Finally, for the last time, this isn't about a person's decision to spend that money. This isn't about passing judgement. It's about how you can add up the value of simple parts like a frame, bars, wheels, gears... and arrive at $15k, or even $10k or $5k.

jefnvk

I know lots of folks with $15k toys, a few not out of their 20's. $15k in disposable cash isn't really that high of a barrier, or really all that much in some hobby worlds. Is it really that much more foolish to spend on a bike, if that is your passion, than a Harley that gets ridden twice a summer?

1500SLR

I just don't see the point in it. I am not an elite athlete. A $15000 bike is not going to make me any faster. I concede I am not everyone, but my worldview comes from myself, and my brother who works in bike shops putting together $15000 bikes.

Now the fun part is even exposed to expensive bikes my choices stay the same. I choose to ride a 10year old bike that has cost me $800-$900 in parts including frame to make it into something cool and unusual running a 6770 DI2 groupset. Meanwhile my brother who works in a bike shop that is one of the leading shops in Australia still chooses to ride a CAAD10. It seems the more you are exposed to this habit, the less money you tend to actually spend.

OBoile

With every post he makes I'm becoming more and more convinced that the OP is trolling.

logical

Ignoring the whole comparison of bikes to cars and motorcycles do you know what the cost is behind making a top end bike(not just the frame)?

Whats the cost of 15-20 pounds of raw carbon to start?

Then you have to factor in all the man hours it takes to make the right frame for the bike? How many thousands of man hours did it take to come up with just the right shape for what a bike manufacturer wanted to accomplish? How many iterations did a company go through and how many hand built prototypes were made? All that time, effort, and raw material used to make the end result bike is factored into the retail price of the bike.

Just because you dont see a major change in bike geometry doesnt mean there wasnt thousands of hours and hand done iterations to get the bike to where it was.

Since we are talking about Trek lets have a look at the madone. Heres the last gen madone vs the current model.

Last Gen



Current:



Id say there was quite a bit of engineering going on there to get the bike where they wanted. The Madone is mostly regarded as one of the best Aero bikes in the world and they didnt get there by slapping some random pieces of carbon together.

The frame is only one piece of the equation. The wheels most likely(for a 10k+ bike) have going through the same rigorous R&D process as the frame. Thousands of hours of hand molding, testing, iterating, and creating the wheels cost money.

Dont forget about the group set as well. The same process to make each and every one of those parts to a world class level.

After all the R&D is done then you have to make custom machines for creating the bikes.... but thats only after you find a proper process of making the bike. Then once you have the frame R&D done, the process to make the bike, and the tools to do it you have to train people to actually do the process. You have to pay people to supervise the process because each bike is custom hand built(at least top level carbon) and then they are checked over and over again before they even get painted. Then checked again once painted, and checked again when components are put on. Again, this is all human hours and none of it is free. You can check any youtube video for the process. There are multiple videos in Giants factories where they show how the hand work is done. Bikes put together with pieces of carbon, heated up, hand sanded, sanded some more, and then painted.. etc etc.

The point Im trying to make is that you are just looking at the finished product and what raw materials it has rather than everything that went into the bike to get to a finished product.

Im not trying to justify the price of the bike but I am saying its not as cheap as it seems.

I too own an expensive bike that I cannot take full advantage of because I am just not fit enough to do so. But I bought the bike because I wanted the bike to always be better than I was just in case I ever got fit enough to use it to its capabilities I wouldnt have to purchase another bike.

OBoile

I think if I won the lottery and had absolutely no concerns with money, I'd still likely ride the same bike I have now (~$2000 Giant Defy). I'd probably buy a bunch of other similarly priced bikes with different specialties (cross bike, mountain bike etc.) but nothing much more than that. Maybe (okay probably) I'd upgrade the wheels.

But, I think I'd just feel embarrassed riding a $10k or $15k bike. I, and everyone who cares, would know that much bike is wasted on someone like me. If I were good, it would probably be a different story but I'm not.

jefnvk

I don't personally see the point in it either, but I also don't see the point in a lot of things people spend their money on. Heck, I'm boat shopping right now, did you know you can buy pontoon boats that are north of $150k? They certainly don't seem to have $130k more in value to my eye than the $20k basic models, but obviously someone thinks they do, and I'm guessing if I really looked into the business side of why they were priced as they are, it would make more sense.

So, I can't compare a high end race bike to similar things in the motorized world you initially brought up to try and make comparisons. Still got it.

Which is pretty much what these bikes are. Rare race bikes sold to the public, either high level amateurs who benefit from them, or people with deep pockets that want what the pros ride. They are not mass produced, nor are they common. I've seen exactly two bikes with a MSRP over $10k in person in my life. On the opposite end, I've seen charity rides with literally thousands of $200 bikes. You want to talk the price of modern bikes, be realistic. You are picking some one off things to try and make a point.

And, after telling me that you don't care about engineering costs, because what your eyes see tells you they obviously haven't done anything in years, that argument kinda falls flat.

Odd, because a couple of the motorcycle nuts I work with would drop money on a touring Harley over any of those $15k sportbikes in a heartbeat, as they see value in a big engine on a heavy stable bike that can cruise all day long at highway speeds comfortably.

Really? And bikes that have to add weight to bring them up to the UCI minimum, with CF everything and electronic 11s groupsets are the exact same as 6 speed downtube steel bikes of the mid 80s?

Odd, because my 2005 F650GS has ABS, and it was nowhere near a high end bike back then or even close to the first year it was available on that bike. As far as power, my old 1984 Honda VF500 made 62HP, the current 500cc Honda offerings look to be about 50HP. Even that 1984 had computer controlled spark. Sure, you are going to get advancements, but the base technology was already there. Same goes for bike parts.

You mean, all the technology advances that you just cited that make the bikes better than they were decades ago?

And again, I can't do that with any number of executive level cars or higher end motorcycles, let alone the top echelon of racing bicycles. Do I really believe that a few creature comforts can push a truck to two to three times the cost of its base construction model (especially knowing what these systems actually sell for)? They all sell at a price people are willing to pay for their perceived usefulness, exclusivity, or whatever personal value folks put into them. I don't pretend, however, that that seven figure supercar (or even a $90k pickup truck) is in any way relevant to the price of the average car being sold, like you are trying to do with fairly uncommon race models.

HTupolev

Simplicity does not guard against the abyss of diminishing returns.

Ald1 

Great point. Ask them, next time, how much they have already spent in buying, using, upgrading and replacing their cell phones!

Koyote

Ha! I think most of them have phones provided by their parents.

When I tell them that cell phones aren’t really necessary, and that we all got along fine without them until 10-20yrs ago, and that they should occasionally try leaving them at home, some of them act as if I’d recommended that they walk around naked.

Metieval

all this car blah blah blah

and bicycle blah blah blah

and I didn't catch any "budget" Posts.

I drive a clunker, and have expensive bicycles. It's a choice. Some people drive Expensive Cars, and ride clunker bicycles. some people do clunkers in both, and others have expensive both.

not only do I drive a clunker, I just don't drive it, when riding is a better option than buying fuel. I also don't have a smart phone data plan, wifi is free and lots of it.

Bottom line, I think eating from the $1 value menu, Or eating anything from McDonalds, is insane. but IT's not my body , and not my health, and not my choice. I also don't go out for $100 meals of fillet mingnon at the upscale restaurants. Partially because they frown on cargo shorts and T'shirts. lol

1500SLR

If hypothetically I won the lotto I'd be riding the bike I own now also. Not really because I'd be embarrassed, but because of other factors. I have since seen what can or may happen to an expensive carbon bike. Expensive carbon bikes can and do fail especially when they get torsion in the wrong direction for various reasons. Crashes, accidents, what ever. I'd rather keep a bike like that if hypothetically I had one for road racing.

Now my brother had a BMC Teammachine SLR that can be considered to be an expensive bike, for whatever reason he was riding along one day and it managed to snap both of its seat stays. I just don't trust carbon bikes. I'm not sure I ever will trust carbon bikes even with a lifetime warranty.

I'd have one for racing, but I would never own one for riding daily around where I live.

Stucky

When one speaks of bikes which cost as much as more than many new motorcycles or even some cars, one is essentially talking about "jewelry", rather than performance or sport or leisure. Such bikes don't really "do anything" for ya. They're status symbols and ego boosters [puts on fireproof suit and prepares for flames]. Virtually no one at any level will notice any performance or even much of an aesthetic difference between such a bike and any other competent quality bike of similar style at a fraction of the cost.

They're just bikes. You pedal them and they go. The pound or two in weight saved over a bike that sells for a third of the price, makes absolutely no difference, except to a professional racer (or someone who can afford to race and crash such an expensive bike) to whom one or two seconds over the length of a course matters.

The best proof that such bikes are about status, prestige and ego-massage, is found in the fact that they depreciate after a couple of years like a pile of dog do on a hot afternoon- just like status cars, because a few-year-old superbike, much like a few year-old luxury car, impresses no one- but yet is more delicate/less durable, and more expensive to maintain and repair than common ones.

I had to try a "good bike" just to see what it was all about, and see if I could figure out why people are willing to pay so much for them- so I bought a one year-old Venge for less than half of it's new price....rode it for six months. It was nice...but not THAT nice. I sold it before it got old, so that I wouldn't lose any money, and chose to keep my 20 year-old Klein. I actually like my old Klein better!

Slick Madone

Maybe you just don't know how to actually compare a good bike from a great bike?

My 2017 Roubaix expert is no where near as good as my S-Works version. Its lighter, shifts better, and feels much smoother.

If you can't tell..... Maybe you need more time in the saddle?

1500SLR

Any road bike within reason can have its weight lowered. I could turn my Trek into a bike that would be on the limit of the 6.8kg as specified by the UCI if I really wanted to spend money on the most exotic and light parts. The thing is, I'm not a weight weenie and lighter parts have the habit of not lasting as long and breaking more frequently. That's fine on a race bike, but not on a bike you intend to ride regularly. When it comes to lighter bikes I'm a bit blase about it and don't really care.

There are some aero advantages but since the UCI has said a standard triangulated frame must exist if you want to race it it's all fairly minimal. In fact its easier to make the rider aero than it is to make the bike more aero. In most cases an average person would benefit more from a skin suit, an aero helmet and losing more weight than they would from a lighter bike.

In recent years I've had the opportunity to use both of the more common Shimano and SRAM groupsets. I now have a bike with SRAM and Shimano. My Shimano bike has undergone transformation to electronic. So now I have had a bike running SRAM Rival, Shimano Ultegra 6600, and Shimano 6770 DI2.

Shimano mechanical shifts better than SRAM mechanical, but I would not give up the double tap system for anything on a mechanical bike. There are times with my Shimano bike that my hand has simply slipped off my Shimano mechanical shifter. It's not very often but you have the opportunity to brake and shift with Shimano and sometimes for some people that can go wrong. Shimano electronic is more like my SRAM bike, it has separated the shifter and brake mechanism again. You can't slip on the bulk of the brake lever when you have sweaty hands especially not on the shiny edges of a 6600 Ultegra shifter.

By the time you get to DI2... DI2 is DI2, is DI2 in terms of what it offers. The derailleurs have the electronics system that determine how many speeds you have whether that is 10 or 11. All of the other DI2 parts are directly interchangeable once you're on the DI2 platform. The only thing apart from derailleurs that is not interchangeable is the whole of the original Dura Ace DI2 that runs on a completely different electronic platform.

As to feel, once again its a personal preference thing. Some people prefer steel, some aluminum, some titanium and some carbon without getting into the realms of other exotic materials to build a bike out of. That argument goes around in circles and no ever really wins in it so I don't like opening that can of worms.

gettingold

I have to disagree with the OP. Your post is like looking at the cost of a Lamborghini and then complaiining that car prices are ridiculous. It has no relation to what most people are buying.

I believe bike companies have actually done a pretty good job maintaining prices over the last decade. My last road bike was purchased in 2008. Mid level carbon Trek with ultegra groupset for about $2,800 plus tax. You can still find similar quality for similar prices in many different brands. I bought a ti road bike recently on sale and it was not that much more than the price of my 2008 Trek, with a 105 groupset. Plenty of great bikes out there for a whole range of prices. Who cares what the elite are buying and what those bikes cost?