New bike prices

[lechatnoir]

In fact if I could get rid of my reliance on my car I would sell it like a shot.

 

Damn straight. But I have to wonder that going camping in the Kgalagadi on a bicycle may be a poor decision

[lechatnoir]

It would have been great if Ford figured this when building the Kuga to weapons-grade...

 

it IS weapons grade. Have you NOT seen the pictures? 

[stefmeister]

Well firstly, you're not comparing apples with apples. Supercab Ford Bakkie != Cannondale Scalpel. A more realistic comparison would be between a supercar (eg Lambo, Ferrari )and a top of the range MTB. As with the cars, there is no way that the raw material costs of the bike equates to the asking price. It has to do with R&D costs, manufacturing overhead, component costs and then "want/prestige" factor

Hardly,

If you're thinking that there is more R&D involved in a bicycle than a car, you have been drinking too much of the bicycle industry's Kool aid. Even a *** Tata had more engineers working on the car than a simple carbon bicycle frame.

[droo]

Some of this has been said already, but:

 

1. You're comparing a Ranger to a Lambo. For an honest comparison, maybe try a top spec alu Anthem (40k) against a full house Corolla (350k).

 

2. Volumes. Economies of scale. This extends from fully automated production lines vs a fairly large hand-built component to the marketing machine, more streamlined distribution, local production, etc etc.

 

3. Weight. This kinda goes with point #1, but there's a massive amount of engineering that goes into shedding weight since it's an iterative process - remove material from an area until it breaks, then go back a step. Repeat for each area. Each iteration costs money, and FEM is not cheap.

 

4. Shorter product life cycles. This is supply push, so not the consumer's fault, but it is a factor. Cars see facelifts every 2 years or so but the underlying engineering lasts a lot longer than that. Bikes often see ground-up rebuilds every year.

 

5. Supply and demand. If enough people pay the sticker price, it'll go up next year. Cycling has always been an expensive sport, so manufacturers have more or less been given a licence to charge what they like. 

 

I could go on, but I doubt many people have read this far anyway. Because this comes up often, and as with most arguments the opinions on either side are pretty well entrenched and most people want an easy binary answer with no room for grey areas.

 

And let's be fair, most of us would be just fine on a 15k bike, but shiny stuff is cooler. So we pay the money. Some gladly, some bitching and moaning, but we pay.

 

Much easier to blame the industry and its evil profiteering ways than to skip that next must-have upgrade.

[deonkretch]

"Ford can drop in a heavy body for the Ranger, that is cheap, and just up the engine power to push it." 

 I think you are referring to a GWM or a Mahindra :-)

[ChrisF]

Eric there was a link to the prices of the bikes used in the Cape Epic ...   

 

Average bike price was some R96k !

 

Not a single bike under R30k

 

 

And if I remember correctly 17% of the bikes cost more than R130k .....

 

 

 

So why do bikes cost so much ?  Supply and demand .... there IS a demand for such toys .....

 

but for a good chuckle go watch some racing ... when the poor chap on the clapped out 3rd-hand bike has more heart than the spoilt brat ..... 

[FCH]

You can stop at supply & demand.

As for engineering and comparing it to any motor vehicle never mind a marques level sports car is insane; the engineering on a bicycle frame is 99.9% cast in stone; do we drop the angle from 6 to 6.5% is hardly reinventing the wheel.

As an example, does the r&d at Specialized or Santa Cruz cost the same as at Pyga? Because the bikes do.

These guys do not engineer the drivetrain, shocks etc- that is fine tuned engineering; yet a shock has not nearly shot up in prices as the bikes have.

 

What I would like to see is a cost analysis of road bikes vs mountian bikes; you get seriously high specced road bikes for what will give you a "help-my-stoot" mountain bike; that screams of brands have seen an explotion in mtb demand.... refer to first sentence.

[ChrisF]

A quick look at the traffic over these holidays tells the story ....

 

A very high percentage of vehicles had 2, 3 or 4 bikes on the back.  And looking a bit closer, not many were in the cheaper price bracket ....

 

 

 

Supply and demand ..... and the demand is there for MTB's ....

[ChrisF]

To add to my previous post.

 

Having bought a new bike last week I was very up to speed with bike prices.  As we did do some trips I noticed the various "toys" ....

 

Brand new Ranger towing a top notch 4x4 camper-trailer ....

 

many jet-ski's out at Gordon's Bay ....

 

and the guy strapping a bike carrier to the hatch of his Porche Cayenne certainly wont put an entry level bike on that rack ....

 

There are many more expensive ways to spend your money .... at least with a bike there is the potential for it to be a more healthy option.

[Eugene]

Seeing that we are comparing cars, how is it that Nissan can make a car that is quicker than any Ferrari or Lamborghini yet it is around R4 million cheaper.

 

Just like somebody will pay R6m for the status of owning a Ferrari when a R1.5m Nissan gtr will do the same thing, somebody will pay R150k for a Pinarello when a R30k Giant will do the same thing.

Edited May 3, 2017 by Eugene

[keithbe]

 

"1. You're comparing a Ranger to a Lambo. For an honest comparison, maybe try a top spec alu Anthem (40k) against a full house Corolla (350k)."

 

Holy crap. Just checked the price of the Corolla - 1.8 Executive...R349 400. When did EVERYTHING get so crazy expensive?!

Edited May 3, 2017 by keithbe

[daniemare]

Guys, the last time anything sold at a cost plus the Voortrekkers packed their Ossewaens.

 

You sell a product at what the market will accept. This depends on type of product, competition in your product market, barrier to enter said market, disposable income of the market and then the Golden Egg, BRAND Equity.

 

Then, when you determined what the market will accept, you engineer the product to realise a threshold margin that rewards the minimum return on investment required. Again, if Brand Power gets you to exceed that threshold many times over, great. But remember, it took a hell of an investment to get the brand to demand those prices.

 

So it is irrelevant whether a bike has more or less R&D than a car, or more expensive or cheaper materials than a car. It is also almost irrelevant what the volumes are, and effeciencies of the supply chain. All of that determines the cost of a product, not the sales price. The Market determines that based on its (perceived?) value of the product to it.

 

So as long as we WANT to pay R180 000 for a Scalpel, Cannondale will ask R180 000 for a Scalpel, regardless of the fact that almost every component (apart from frame and fork in cannondale's case) is similar to the R70 000 Momsen.

 

Then also, access to credit also increased the asking price, as I can "afford" R180 000 becuase its only R10 000 a month (over many months @13%, but that is irrelevant)

Edited May 3, 2017 by daniemare

[madbradd]

I think that the focus is in the wrong place..... 99% of bike manufacturers put either a Shimano or SRAM drivetrain on their bikes. Each of these guys has a couple variants. But really if you're buying any new bike you're getting one of about 16 different drivetrains (20 if you add the Italians to the mix). How is it that these cost anywhere up to R50k? Really?

 

These guys are coming with mass production, and shimano run the same stuff for about 5 years before changing. So they don't have the same excuse as the frame guys.

 

Same with forks. Most are variations using common components. You'll have a hard time trying to convince me that the stanchions on any of the rock shox or fox forks isn't produced on a pretty intelligent production line.

[Heel Drop]

the price increases on the bikes are not sustainable 

You can sell anything at any price - just depends on what people are willing to pay 

 

Saw a 1000 dollar ice cream on YOU TUBE in NY and people buy it just because its exclusive and they can afford it - is it worth a 1000 USD - NO never

[Serious Panda]

Consumer stupidity is also to blame, because consumers most of the time don`t buy for good value or what is good enough, they want that overpriced top of the range bike that led the Epic for a day or 2, it a stupid status thing.

[JanJan]

Guys, the last time anything sold at a cost plus the Voortrekkers packed their Ossewaens.

 

You sell a product at what the market will accept. This depends on type of product, competition in your product market, barrier to enter said market, disposable income of the market and then the Golden Egg, BRAND Equity.

 

Then, when you determined what the market will accept, you engineer the product to realise a threshold margin that rewards the minimum return on investment required. Again, if Brand Power gets you to exceed that threshold many times over, great. But remember, it took a hell of an investment to get the brand to demand those prices.

 

So it is irrelevant whether a bike has more or less R&D than a car, or more expensive or cheaper materials than a car. It is also almost irrelevant what the volumes are, and effeciencies of the supply chain. All of that determines the cost of a product, not the sales price. The Market determines that based on its (perceived?) value of the product to it.

 

So as long as we WANT to pay R180 000 for a Scalpel, Cannondale will ask R180 000 for a Scalpel, regardless of the fact that almost every component (apart from frame and fork in cannondale's case) is similar to the R70 000 Momsen.

 

Then also, access to credit also increased the asking price, as I can "afford" R180 000 becuase its only R10 000 a month (over many months @13%, but that is irrelevant)

You gave the long answer.:-)

 

The short answer: the guy with the small tottie bought the R180000 bike to impress his buddies also with small totties. Now they are jealous and can't wait to pay R200k for 2018 model with 2mm lower BB.

 

No economics model or engineering involved.