Why are bicycle tyres so expensive?

[Nick]

The most affordable I could find:

Lots of super bargains on 26er tyres too.

[daveno7]

2 hours ago, love2fly said:

Because we're getting ripped off! Not by the LBS but by the manufacturer. Compare the weight of your car tyre vs bike and that's it. Same with brake pads. Someone mentioned economies of scale - car tyres are produced in their 10's of millions but there are thousands more vrands.

Same goes for bicycle disc pads...

The bike industry is contracting so hopefully some sanity will emerge.

bike in for a service at the moment....quoted bike..."service £75 ( 1500 rand ) then you add the parts...."oh you need new brakes pads...discs...oh then the chain is worn...and then add a cassette  ..." but the tyres bit was the final bit..."they are worn ....." yes "....because I use them..." and I am not doing the epic " ....

sometimes here in the uk the shops will push too much....the cost would have pushed me over the edge...

['Dale]

40 minutes ago, Ncayi said:

This is no expert opinion but my humble opinion. I’m no economist so my logic could be flawed.
Short answer: relative to my position in the socio-economic landscape, bicycle tyres are expensive AF including most things associated with the sport. 

Proceed at your own risk

Long answer: Requires a bit of patience.
There is a scene in The Wire that sums up the cycling industry for me. For context The Wire was a show based on the drug infested city of Baltimore which explored how the drug industry influenced and was influenced by other social issues.

During the show Stringer (a drug lord) is having a conversation with DiAngelo (a minion) about the good thing about selling your product to less than rational customer base that will do anything to satisfy its need for a high.

In this scene DiAngelo is stating that you can’t sell a weak product and expect your customer to not notice and when they do , still buy it and not complain.
Stringer proceeds to explain that even if the product is weak a dope fiend will still buy it. Even if you double the price they will still buy it. Furthermore they will by more instead, as they need a higher dose to try and satisfy their need for a high. The implication being that when a customer has an insatiable appetite for your product and limited options they will buy it.

So Stringer is basically saying, when you sell an in demand product that has a relatively limited life span at an inflated price you make more profit. What does this have to do with cycling you may ask. We are to some extent “dope fiends" who will pay what ever price to satisfy our need for a “high". There is absolutely no justification for a bicycle being worth R200 000 a cycling top being R2000 etc. But our  drug dealer is smart. He dangles  the concept of the customers being able to use the same products used by the pro's as a justification to essentially loot our wallets. 

As I wait for my overpriced helmet to arrive
 

Post of the month. 💋

[love2fly]

Mate of mine sent his MTB for a service ...without suspension service it was like 6k. Went away for Dec to Cederberg for 2 weeks of fairweather farm road rides... Creaks...oops you need new pivot bearings...this is why I do 99% of my own work.

[OVERDRIVE]

1 hour ago, Nick said:

The most affordable I could find:

Lots of super bargains on 26er tyres too.

This tyre is is running accross a gun range because you saw someone you recognized. i.e suicide 🤣🤣🤣🤣

25 minutes ago, love2fly said:

Mate of mine sent his MTB for a service ...without suspension service it was like 6k. Went away for Dec to Cederberg for 2 weeks of fairweather farm road rides... Creaks...oops you need new pivot bearings...this is why I do 99% of my own work.

6k is robbery. I serviced a full Scania G460 for R3960.00. For 6k who is working on it, Yannick himself. NAF. 

[BaGearA]

5 minutes ago, OVERDRIVE said:

This tyre is is running accross a gun range because you saw someone you recognized. i.e suicide 🤣🤣🤣🤣

6k is robbery. I serviced a full Scania G460 for R3960.00. For 6k who is working on it, Yannick himself. NAF. 

new gx cassette , chain and pulley wheels alone will set you back 6k before any other labour or spares 

 

bikes are expensive and so is maintenance if you want it to work properly 

[OVERDRIVE]

8 minutes ago, BaGearA said:

new gx cassette , chain and pulley wheels alone will set you back 6k before any other labour or spares 

 

bikes are expensive and so is maintenance if you want it to work properly 

Geez a lot to be changing at the same time without some kind of crash? Or maybe I’ve just been lucky. That’s costly. 

[Sandro]

Because we haven't stopped buying them.

[dasilvarsa]

At 16 c / km is is cheap compared to Running Shoes up to R5 /km.

If you run tubes I can do about 5 c / km

[Ispeed_V]

It's all relative IMHO.

If you can afford to drop over 3 bar on a car, then 9K for a tyre should theoretically be a drop in the ocean. 

Likewise, if you can afford a MTB in excess of 20/30 k, then 1k plus for a tyre should be understandable.

 

[BaGearA]

10 hours ago, OVERDRIVE said:

Geez a lot to be changing at the same time without some kind of crash? Or maybe I’ve just been lucky. That’s costly. 

I wish they didn't cost that much but i almost exclusively get bikes in that are falling apart.

 

 

and no matter how good you are , 12spd gears cannot be 'set' when they are worn.

 

11spd you can actually get away now and then but it shifts slow and if skipping occurs then replacement is the only way 

[wattnow]

Currently almost R2000 for the new continental GP 5000TR (Tubeless ready)- Road tyre. This is new model apparently, lasts years version (GP5000TL) you could pick up for around R1100/R1200.

Call it what you want but something has got to give, R800 increase between the new and old version. That would be 4k to change both your road bike tyres....

 

[The Ouzo]

1 hour ago, dasilvarsa said:

At 16 c / km is is cheap compared to Running Shoes up to R5 /km.

If you run tubes I can do about 5 c / km

if you're doing this calc then my Pirelli's are sitting at 10c / km, but, at the new price they will be 12.5c / km

And thats me pushing them to their usable limit. Currently running tubes in them because they are no longer air tight to the point where the sealant cant seal all the holes. So the actual cost per km is higher.

 

My take on the pricing, both points have been mentioned.

1) Price gouging by manufacturers and distributors. Because they can, because we are druggies

2) R&D and materials. We all want the lightest with the least rolling resistance and the most puncture resistant.

Thats not to say that car tyres dont have massive R&D thrown at them, they also strive for lighter, grippier, quieter and longer lasting. But as has been mentioned, typically you're getting 10's of thousands of km out of a car tyre, so cost per km is lower.

3) This one has not been mentioned, but material supplies have been in shortage. It has affected the price of car tyres too. And I would imagine that priority is given to the auto industry over the cycling industry with regards to supply.

 

None of this make me happy to pay over R1k for my rubberised drug of choice, which is one of the reasons I'm still riding my tyres, even though they have more holes in them than the colander in my wifes kitchen.

[Mongoose!]

52 minutes ago, BaGearA said:

and no matter how good you are , 12spd gears cannot be 'set' when they are worn.

.

Edited March 30, 2023 by Mongoose!

[betaboy]

To manufacture rubber there is a huge cost factor and that cost Ladies and Gentleman is Oil. Have anybody seen the price of a pack of Durex? Scale economics goes out the window there… 😂😂😂 its got the thinnest walls but best protection! 

[TheoG]

14 hours ago, love2fly said:

Because we're getting ripped off! Not by the LBS but by the manufacturer. Compare the weight of your car tyre vs bike and that's it. Same with brake pads. Someone mentioned economies of scale - car tyres are produced in their 10's of millions but there are thousands more vrands.

Same goes for bicycle disc pads...

The bike industry is contracting so hopefully some sanity will emerge.

Agree, we getting ripped off, plain & simple.

But this is not on tyres only, this is on anything bicycle related.  On the other hand, as been said by others here, we allow this to happen by being willing to pay the high prices, and yes I'm guilty AF on this also .... 🙈