Decent tires are the price of cheap car tires-what's the deal? There's lots of competition, the material cost seems to be fairly low. Marketing costs are probably high, trying to sell us on the latest silliness. I guess engineering costs could be higher due to higher pressure and the need to handle that, but then shouldn't mountain bike tires be cheaper? Similarly, it seems as though the need to engineer car tires to withstanding 30,000+ high-speed miles would be equally resource-consuming. So that leaves us with low volume of sales, and simply what the market will bear. Anyone have better ideas?

Cheap bike tires are $10-20 while cheap car tires are $40-100. Expensive bike tires are $50-100 while expensive car tires are $150+

That didn't answer the question. Decent tires are 45 bucks, cheap car tires are 55 bucks. Why are Conti GP4000s the same price as a cheap car tire?

Simple principle of supply and demand. THEY supply and THEY demand high prices.

Good tires are often not so expensive if you get them from PBK. I stocked up on Conti GP4000s' last year at 30 bucks each. I get about 3000 miles out of each one.

Because you're shopping at the wrong places.

Because roadies will pay it.. look at bmx, where their clientele is broke 13-17 year olds and the occasional 20-somethings, there are some really nice parts being made that are 1/4 the price of what they would be if they were sold to 45 year old dentist road cyclists.

this too.. I have no idea who pays some of the tire prices that I see in local shops.. ~$85 for p3r's????

Short answer is that it's what the market will bear. But the analogy for your car tire would be a $10 bike tire bought at Wall Mart.

Continental GP 4000s would be more like a Continental Sport Contact2, which is going to run about $300 a tire.

In either case if you want stuff marketed as high performance, you're going to pay for it.

And given the samller economies of scale for the bike tires, it likely to be proportionately more.

So why do folks pay 2+ bucks for a cupa coffee?
I get mine for a buck or less . . .

Why do you bike snobs pay $5000+ for a bike, you can get a fine one at walmart for $150.

And on my car, experience a casing failure with 1/3+ of the tread life left.

But I digress.

I can get vittoria zafiros for $12.56. Yeah, they're not plush, but they're more equivalent to the $50 car tires you're talking about.

Just think, some amateur auto racers pay a premium for tires that don't last as long as the cheepies and sometimes pay even more to have the tread shaved down a bit.

If you want to compare it to car tires, it's not really fair. Car tires are very different in both the design, composition, and manufacturing process. Sure there are similarities, but you certainly don't want a bicycle tire with a steel belt and stiff sidewall of a car tire. Think about demand too. Bicycle tires certainly are a niche market compared to car tires. You can get bicycles tires that approach the durability and life span of car tires, but they weigh a ton and likely will not fit on most road bikes. Also, for high end tires, consider the cost of having a couple guys sit around in a shop stitching up tubulars versus a massive factory full of automated machinery pumping out car tires by the truck load. I myself don't mind paying the 55$ each for the tires I currently use on my road bikes. Worth every penny. I could be wrong on some of my thinking though. Also, wouldn't it make sense to compare a bicycle tire to a motorcycle tire? A bit more similar I would think.

Tires are so expensive because cycists are willing to pay the high price.

If we suddenly wouldn't buy a tire over $20 in price, there would be very few tires offered for over $20.

It's the same for oil or gasoline or electricity or cars or bicycles or chewing gum or concert tickets or . . . .

Starbucks coffee is gross at the store... great ground and brewed at home and much less than half the price! Wait what does a cup of coffee have to do with bike tire prices?

1) Demand economics. Road racing bicycle tires are a very niche market: low demand = high price. Car tires are a huge market: high demand = low price.

2) It is oftentimes easier to engineer and build bruitish things like a 40lb car tire than to engineer and build finesse things, like your 200g bike tire.

3) Economies of scale dictate that you can afford to finance the $100 million factory so you can pop out $55 car tires and get a return on investment in a very short time. Bike tires are made on a lot smaller machines with a lot more human contact. Your $55 car tire likely didn't see a human hand until it was unpacked from it's shipping crate at the door of the local Les Schwab. Your bike tire was moved from machine to machine and loaded into it's little package by a set of human hands. Humans are expensive.

remember camhabib? he bought a cervelo with zipps by saving his starbucks pennies.

Your whole argument is flawed from the get-go because how do we know what "decent" means?

And just for your reading enjoyment (since it seems you don't understand the supply/demand concept)...
https://www.sportscarmarket.com/articles/archives/939

but then he threw away all the savings on overpriced Michelin Pro race tires.

You can get those same conti's for 25% off. Just stock up when the sales come as they do.

Why? Because our bikes are so worth it!!









/not really

My point was that comparing a good bike tire to a bad car tire makes no sense. The law if diminishing returns works with many products.

Yep, I have two sets of the GP4000's sitting in my closet, which I got on sale at a great price.

Now I'm waiting for the Vittoria Evo Corsas to go on sale.

Hey, I've come across some comments on them, but anyone use the Veloflex Pave? Seem to be similar to the Vittoria Evos (very nice riding, not great wearing) but cheaper.

This thread has been here for a little over two hours. In that time, I've stopped at two Starbucks and had a Monster. I don't know how many pennies I could save but my tongue is sweating right now.