chainstrainer

Let's compare two different practical items and their respective price ranges: bikes and wristwatches. A new wristwatch can cost $20 dollars at the low end or $100,000 at the high end. A new upright bike can cost $69 at the low end and $12,000 or more at the high end. I don't hear moans about watches and bikes being "so expensive."

The recumbent bike, however, is perceived as being "so expensive" because the low end price starts higher than it does with conventional bikes. Recumbents are really not "so expensive", rather their price range is not as broad and starts at the low end around $500 to maybe $6,000 at the high end (streamliners and velomobiles excluded).

It's all a matter of perspective.

Von Stively

Basic economics. Producers and consumers set the equilibrium price of any good or service by deciding at what price they are willing and able to produce(and make enough profit to make it worth their while) and purchase goods. I am looking into buying a recumbent at 40 because of comfort and pain issues. So, at what price will i be willing abd able to decide to participate in this market? We'll see. The are bike between 1000-1200 that look very nice to buy new. The used market seems a bit out of it's tree. For example, I found new Rans Formula bikes priced around 1200. New Bacchetta[sic?] Bella for about the same. What accounts for folks selling 10-15 year old Stratus and Tour Easy bikes for what seems way beyond what a new bikes costs? Seems whacked out to me. Incidently if anyone has a used LWB or CLWB for a taller rider and wants to make a fair sale let me know.

oddball

Is this 'bent more in your price range? https://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...ct_id=10983235

Onus

Egads, fifty-seven POUNDS??? Anyway, even with the seat it looks more like a pedal-forward design than a bent. I think we're having sarcasm dripped over us on this one...

Tom Bombadil

57 pounds shipping weight. Could be around 45-47 or so out of the box.

It is strongly based upon the old SUN EZ-Rider bent, almost a direct copy. But with a funny looking seat and downgraded components.

Note that Wal-Mart will not be stocking the bike in their stores. It is an on-line item only.

Tom Bombadil

Given our earlier discussions, I find it amazing that W-M is able to offer this bike at $275. But no one is better than W-M at shaving off costs. No bike company would have been able to hit this price.

Tom Stormcrowe

My wife rides a recumbent, I ride an upright. I can still smile at the end of a 160 mile one day ride. It's a tired smile, but my butt doesn't hurt, and i can still move under my own power. It doesn't make me mad that a bent rider can smile at the end of a 50 mile ride, either. I'm just glad we're both having fun.

oddball

I fully agree with this sentiment. Loving what you ride and riding what you love is all that matters.

JanMM

So, who is going to buy one of these WM 'bents and report back to BF?

BlazingPedals

Presumably, someone who thinks price is the reason why bents aren't more popular. Of course,the only comparison they'll be able to make is to an *upright* BSO (Bike-Shaped Object.) $275 is an amazing price point for a 'bent, but remember that uprights in the same aisle sell for sub-$100.

JanMM

In this case a 'Bent-Shaped-Object.

Tom Bombadil

They won't be able to compare them, as at this time, W-M is not planning to display or stock the bike in its stores.

Now if you change "aisle" to "web page" then you've got it.

Downhillwuss

And in the Far East, folk get paid third world wages - often what we in the 'civilised' world would consider criminally low. We continue to support these by consuming them, and look what happens to our own industries. Britain is just as bad as the US; we have almost no mass production capabilities anymore and look where relying on 'Financial Services' got us!

Support your local manufacturers and save your economy!

Tom Bombadil

Well, buying USA made can be difficult.

Don't buy W-M LWB bent because made in Asia.

Look at ActionBents ... made in Asia

Look at SUN bents, oops, all made in Asia.

Look at Bacchetta bents ... I think all or nearly all are made in Asia.

Look at RANS Stratus ... made in Asia

Not many sub-$2000 LWB options that are made in the USA

LWB_guy

I don't care about buying products made in Asia. What I mind is buying products made in communist countries. I will not buy anything made in Communist china. That's just immoral, in my opinion. Dumb, too. (Never mind that the Communist regime buys U.S. securities to keep the U.S. government going.)

Schwalbe tires, for example, are designed in Germany, and made in Indonesia. Both democratic countries. I haven't had Schwalbe tires, but I understand they're great tires. I plan to buy some.

FWIW, I spent just under $700 to buy parts to build my LWB 'bent. (Not including my most valuable commodity, of course, my time.) I recycled a lot of parts from scrapped road bikes and mountain bikes, then replaced the parts that didn't work well with new ones. I've put over 1100 miles on it in the last couple months and it's still going great.

cat0020

BTW, Taiwan and China output approx. 80% of worldwide bicycles.

What's wrong with items from communist countries?
Have you ever tried living without items made in China?

https://livingwithoutchina.wordpress.com/

https://www.reuters.com/article/reute...070628?sp=true


SEATTLE (Reuters) - Lamps, birthday candles, mouse traps and flip-flops. Such is the stuff that binds the modern American family to the global economy, author Sara Bongiorni discovers during a year of boycotting anything made in China.
In "A Year Without 'Made in China,'" (Wiley, $24.95) Bongiorni tells how she and her family found that such formerly simple acts as finding new shoes, buying a birthday toy and fixing a drawer became ordeals without the Asian giant.
Bongiorni takes pains to say she does not have a protectionist agenda and, despite the occasional worry about the loss of U.S. jobs to overseas factories, she has nothing against China. Her goal was simply to make Americans aware of how deeply tied they are to the international trading system.
"I wanted our story to be a friendly, nonjudgmental look at the ways ordinary people are connected to the global economy," she said in an interview before the book appears in July.
As a business journalist in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Bongiorni wrote about international trade for a decade. "I used to see the Commerce Department trade statistics, the billions of dollars, and think it had nothing to do with me," she said.
The reality was far different.
As the year unfolded, "the boycott made me rethink the distance between China and me. In pushing China out of our lives, I got an eye-popping view of how far China had pushed in," she wrote.
About 15 percent of the $1.7 trillion in goods the United States imported in 2006 came from China, economist Joel Naroff writes in the foreword. Much of that is the manufactured stuff that fills Wal-Mart and other retailers -- the necessities and frivolities sought by lower- and middle-income Americans.
Lower prices have been one benefit of Beijing's rise and make it very hard for consumers to forswear Chinese imports.
LEGOS, LAMPS
And hard it was.
For all of 2005, minor purchases required dogged detective work as Bongiorni scoured catalogues and read labels.
She repeatedly struck out trying to buy inexpensive shoes for her son, and even the chic local boutique that sold fancy European labels had gone out of business. So she shelled out $68 for Italian sneakers from a catalogue.
Broken appliances gathered dust because the spare parts came from China. And, with the Asian country having a near lock on the toy aisles, her 4-year-old son grew tired of taking Danish-made Legos to birthday parties as gifts.
The family resorted to snapping mouse traps when the gentler catch and release kind came from, you guessed it, China.
Bongiorni got a lesson in the global economy after products advertised as Made in USA turned out to have Chinese parts. She decided to keep a lamp with just this problem after speaking to the manufacturer and learning how China is "eating the lunch" of the few U.S lamp producers left.
Since the boycott's end, Bongiorni has chosen a middle ground. Her family seeks alternatives but accepts Chinese products when most practical. But one habit from the boycott remains: It required her to think hard about what she buys.
"Shopping became meaningful," she said.

Robert C

I, for one, am still riding my bike-e.

griftereck

As you say a lot of the customers are older with medical problems.
I have often heard older people saying they got a bike when younger for £15 brand new.
But that was a lot of money then

But surely if the people are unwilling to pay for a £1000 bike, there is a market for a lower priced bike.

Tom Bombadil

Bike-e bents are still popular. They pop up on Craigslist around here and don't last long.

ryancycles

About the cost of building bikes, the key word here is "BUILDING", not "MANUFACTURING", nobody I know of in the recumbent business manufactures bikes, they build them. A friend of mine once took a tour through Trek's factory. At the time one of their products was a carbon fiber bike (not their oclv frame) the frame tubes and lugs were made elsewhere. The frame was glued to gether. The tubes and lugs were placed in a jig that pressed all the tubes into the lugs after they were coated with glue. Approximate time to manufacture a frame, 7 minutes. It took me seven minutes to put a shipping box together. Welding labor cost per frame was $40, seat frame $30, Painting $85. I don't know what the current cost of manufacturers liability insurance is, at the time I was building bikes it was $50 per bike. So before such things as rent, electricity, heat, telephone, argon gas for the tig welding, etc. we had about $900 into the bike including all the components. The cost to build a seat is close to what it costs to build frame and takes almost as much time. Remember, the Idea was to eventually find a company to buy us and MANUFACTURE the bike. But due to all of the problems getting it into the market place, unable to build more than about 150 bikes a year, not making as much money as we would on welfare and just general exhaustion we decided to pack it in. At the last minute Mr. Peek came along and bought the company for short money. He has done a great job building the bikes and has made some good improvements.
But he also can't build the bikes at a low price and has had to raise the retail price of the bike from $1800 to $2600,. Which in my opinion is a BARGAIN.

The bike required a lot more labor because of the additional complexity of the underseat steering and seat. . My typical work day started at about 8am, worked till about 2pm, took a nap for an hour. Worked again till about 11pm, usually standing at the milling machine making parts for the afore mentioned steering and seat stuff. Went to the local watering hole and drank beer and shot pool till 1am.
I should mention that when we sold the company to Mr. Peek part of the agreement was that if he couldn't build and sell as many bikes as we did we would get the company back. Even with their space age facility and six people working they couldn't build as many bikes as we, (my son and I and our part time welder) could. Mr. Peek was no stranger to bicycle building and was building tandems when he bought our company. He was and is a very successful businessman in such diverse fields as manufacturing high tech wheelchairs and dragsters and as I have mentioned before has done a great job with the bikes he is now building. But at the beginning he felt he could successfully build the bike here at a reasonable cost and found that he couldn't.
As I've probably mentioned before the basic Idea was to find a company that could MANUFACTURE the bike. Obviously I failed. Probably because of all that beer drinking and pool shooting I did.
Dick Ryan

gcottay

Though there's no assurance the poster is he, Dick Ryan is a notable person in recumbent history.

tshelver

Very few of even the more expensive recumbents built in USA or even Europe.

HP Velotechnik: frame from Taiwan
Greenspeed 'value' trikes (GT series): frame from Taiwan
Trice (ICE): boom from Taiwan, frame and bike made in UK
Catrike : US built, about the only one I know of.
Terratrike: I believe frame from Taiwan

I think Bike Friday is US built.

And so it goes. Just don't go into the components....

BlazingPedals

So now a cheap recumbent is found and the nit-picking starts... Translation: we want a sub-$300 recumbent made in the U.S. (or other 1st world country) with quality parts and a lifetime warranty. Did I miss any details?

For the record, I believe that was THE Dick Ryan. He has been known to peruse both cycling-related forums and even usenet.

trekker pete

Old dudes with beard's and rocket science degrees can afford and appreciate high quality machinery.

It's really that simple.

DwayneS

Find a REAL road bike for a low price. I just payed well over a thousand dollars for a new Trek 2.1 road bike and you don't see me complaining about how expensive they are. You get what you pay for. The quality of expensive bikes is so much higher than departments store wannabe-bikes. But what do I know, I'm just a wedgie bike rider.