TakingMyTime

Don't worry. Not all of us are buying $10,500 bikes.

shelbyfv

More fiber in your diet might help.

puma1552

$2500-$3000 is the sweet spot IMO. Beyond that, maybe with the exception of another jump for electronic shifting, you hit asymptotic diminishing returns.

/real response to troll thread

I-Like-To-Bike

If you own one like this, one is enough!

shelbyfv

Or one like this- OP's from one of his other threads

DrIsotope

Value is relative.

Banzai

Top end bicycles have significantly outstripped normal economic inflation over the past decade.

Whether you think the money is worth it or not doesn’t obviate this fact.

DrIsotope

That statement is meaningless. A $10k bicycle is a non-essential commodity, and is priced at what the market will bear. You would have a point if all bicycles were $10,000, but they are not. A tiny minority of bicycles are $10,000+, just as a tiny minority of automobiles (that is: super/hypercars) are $1,000,000+. What does a comparison of economic inflation relative to top-tier bicycle prices say about Rolex watches, Bugattis, or villas in the south of France? Luxury items cost more. No one needs a Veyron, a Rolex, or a $10,000 bicycle. They are sold to the people with the proper combination of want and means.

HarborBandS

I would rather have the $10k bike than ANY of those other things. Guns and expensive motorized toys that puke smoke and turn peaceful trails in to redneck monster truck rallies? I guess I could use a new bedroom set. LOL.

That said, none of my bikes are worth anywhere near $10k. Wife would never agree to it.

guachi

I won't ever own a gun. Or an ATV. Or a powerboat. Or a snowmobile.

Car? Yeah. I'd ensure my car was functional before I got a bike.

For me it would be "think of all the Legos I could buy or a sweet PC". And then I realize I already have way too many Legos, which is why I spent too much on a bike.

indyfabz

Do you like oak?

devianb

Everything is more expensive.

fietsbob

Agreed , looked at buying a house today?


My nearby local shop sells (& services) a good number of bikes at the lower price points..

none are the high end that has captured the original Poster's attention ..



Professional racing.. the bike sponsorship is Marketing..

mtb_addict

Ironically, prices are jacked up to "increase their appeal", according to marketing experts.
Wealthy customers wants "exclusive" products.
They don't want to ride $200 or $700 bikes...those are for peasants.
There are too much $3000 bikes around already.


But are buyers paying full price for these high end models? Cannodale could easily jack up the msrp...and then do a "kick back" to the dealer to move these top-end bikes.
Either way, having a bike with a big dollar sticker tag enhances the brand image.

seamuis

This is true. Problem with the OPs “opinion”, is that it has literally always been true.

JW Fas

Point of comparison: A Cannondale Multisport 2000 from the year 2000 was about $2200 MSRP. According to the CPI Inflation Calculator, the same exact bike today would run you $3330. Now, that bike had less advanced carbon, a less advanced frame and fork design, and less fit and finish than a 2019 System Six Hi-Mod with SRAM E-Tap AXS (MSRP $10000). It also didn't have carbon wheels as a stock component. Obviously, it did not have electronic shifting, and that year's Ultegra is a pale shadow compared to today's Ultegra mechanical (let alone Di2). If you added carbon wheels to that Multisport 2000, you wouldn't have had too many options either. Zipp was pretty much the big cheese operating in that year, and their wheels were easily running $2500-3000 per set. Let's say you go with the lower end of that range. Now you have $4700 of year 2000 dollars invested, which today would be equivalent to $7115. You're $2885 away from the System Six Hi-Mod which has stuff on it that didn't even exist 19 years ago, and SRAM E-Tap AXS as a standalone groupset is approximately $3500. That would put your final price at $10615, so realistically bikes today pretty much cost the same as they did years ago, but they also have more stuff and better technology.

Ogsarg

You could make the same argument about virtually anything. Cars, stereo equipment, cameras, guns, clothes, wine, food, and on and on. There are expensive luxury items for virtually any product imaginable.

You could also make the argument that bikes are more affordable as well because of what you can buy for $100.00 from a big box store. Sure it's crappy, but it's cheap. I would guess that the average paid for a bike now is less than it was in 1970 when adjusted for inflation.

There are a small percentage of people who see the value in these high end products and are willing to pay for them. There is another group, who will only by the cheapest thing they can get from Walmart or wherever. When it comes to bikes, I expect most of the people on this forum are somewhere in between the extremes based on their financial situation and their personal values.

Pretty much everyone I know has something they spend money on that most people would find frivolous. I don't judge them and expect that they don't judge me.

FiftySix

My princess wife still hasn't claimed the throne of Druidia, so we've been on a budget.

Slightspeed

When I was a kid, bread was 29 cents a loaf as was gas. Cokes were a dime. My full race all Campy Legnano was $175 new after trading in my 40 lb. Schwinn Continental. My parent's house was $17.5K. Things cost more these days, that is not a new thing. Why should bikes be any different? We bought our house for $43.5K in 1975, about what the last car I bought cost in 2011. Time marches on, prices keep marching up.

JonBailey

Which is what most people who pedal their vehicles buy because most people can't afford or are not willing to spend any more money than BSO prices.

I got my first ten-speed, a Japanese Free Spirit, for Christmas in 1974. It retailed for about $70 back then. To my parents and grandparents, $70 was a big deal then.

My father was a DOD electrician who worked for the Department of the Navy and my maternal grandfather was a retired union Operating Engineer
heavy-equipment operator then. To my parents and grandparents an American dollar had significant meaning. I'ma ge 55 now. I can remember when a
a 12-oz Coke or a candy bar was 10 cents. A loaf of name-brand bread and a box of national brand cold cereal was well under $1.00 This was in 1971.

Some things as home electronics have gotten much cheaper over the years. my mother bought our first microwave oven in 1982: a Quasar. Retailed close to
$300 back then. That same year we bought our first VCR: a large, heavy top-loading Sylvania VHS that retailed for $1,200 and had a remote control with a long cable, two-head mono sound and very complicated instructions and procedures for setting it up to tape TV shows.

I bought a large Hamilton Beach microwave at Walmart for a paltry $53 new 3 years ago. In 1990, I bought my first new VCR at Montgomery Wards for about $200 called a Symphonic. It was front-load, wireless remote, somewhat compact, two-head mono sound and somewhat easier to program than our old Sylvania. It lasted for about five years. I think the last new VCR I bought was in 2000: a Sony Hi-Fi 4-head model for about $100 then. Wireless remote, front-loading, very compact and light and much simpler to set up. The Panasonic Blu-Ray player I bought new in 2014 was about $100. In 2014 I bought a new Samsung 40" LED Smart TV with resolutions up to 1080i in excess of $700 at Best Buy. Walmart now has Samsung ULTRA HD 40" Smart TV's for as low as $228. I remember when those plasma TV's were new-car-priced and they stunk badly in design due to burn-in troubles.

Jon T

If every one bought new bikes as often as I do, the bike companys would all go bankrupt. My last new bike purchase was in '85. Got an '84 Peugeot PH10 for a good price because it was "last year's model". I still ride it and it's still my only bike.
Jon

FiftySix

I had a Sears Free Spirit banana seat bike back then. When the BMX wave hit my part of the world, my parents weren't about to replace my Free Spirit with another bike. So, I saved up my shekels and converted it into a wannabe BMX bike with new tires, new seat, new handlebars, and gave it a rattle can paint job.

I'm 54. The past is full of some awesome memories (and hardships), but it sure is hard to live there.

I-Like-To-Bike

Funny; I can remember when in about 1971 little old (probably senile) ladies would clip me in the back of the ankles with their shopping carts at the checkout line at the A&P while mumbling the same tune about "I remember when bread cost...blah, blah, blah."

seamuis

Yea inflation, devalue of the dollar, rising cost of living due to rising cost of producing despite advances in technology along with stagnant or downright falling of wages is a real *****. And we can have one hell of a political discussion about this. But your nostalgia doesn’t change the fact that top end (mostly racing) bicycles have been extremely expensive for over 150 years. So you’re nearly 100 years too late to be complaining about this phenomenon. When the first bicycles were invented, only the rich could afford them. Bicycles played a large role in the invention of mass production. Once that was a thing, there were cheaper bikes that the common man could afford, while the ‘high end’, ‘luxury’, ‘best of the best’ as marketed, bicycles remained extremely expensive. Literally nothing has changed. This is just another useless ‘nostalgia’ thread about your childhood and how you’re a crabby old man now who wishes time hadn’t marched on. Or just a troll. Same overall effect. Your Schwinn, like your 10c Hershey chocolate bars were generally pretty crap back in the 70s and still are today. While unchecked capitalism really does suck, you have the trickle down of that insanely expensive racing technology to thank for modern wal-mart bikes being as advanced as they are. Most of us can’t afford or want even if we could, a 10k bicycle but there’s nothing new under the sun about their existence.

Maelochs

If bicycles have gotten insanely expensive ... you should buy a ton, and then wait a while for prices to rise still further ... and sell them.

You could call your business ...oh, I don't know, maybe "Local Bike Shop."

Guaranteed to be rolling in riches ... and rolling down the road in a Bugatti Royale or Atalanta.... don't you think?