Why Motorcycles and Mountain Bikes Cost the Same

[LazyTrailRider]

7 hours ago, sirmoun10goat said:

We cannot measure value in terms of price, and we cannot put it down to ego. 
 

People are unique, and driven by different things. Some people spend 80% of their money buying overpriced bikes, some people spend 80% of their lives working and making more money than they could ever spend in a lifetime.

Some people spend their lives surfing/mountain biking/trail running? Others live in their fancy apartments in CT overlooking Table Mountain or the Waterfront.

 

At the end of the day, we persue what gives us the most pleasure . Who are we to judge?

This.

But also, the unpopular fact that high-end bicycles aren't relatively speaking any more expensive than they were 30 years ago.

When I was a student in the late 90s, a top-of-the-line carbon machine (full carbon 😆) cost as much as a modest hatchback. Guess what? It's still the same today.

A Polo Vivo these days starts at R255k. Both the Polo Vivo and the S-Works xxxx (insert any other halo model here) at that price have improved dramatically since then, albeit with what is always seen as disappointing small improvements each model year. But over 10 or 20 years, it adds up.

What has changed is:

1) The introduction of electrification. This was logically always going to come at a higher cost.

2) The current long-term economic cycle (I'm talking about 50-year cycles) has made large parts of the middle class less affluent than the previous generation, and this effect is amplified if you're a South African earning ZARs.

Bottom line: The hard-to-swallow truth is not that bikes are too expensive, it's that many of us commenting here are too poor.

[DieselnDust]

17 hours ago, lechatnoir said:

have you ever seen a coffee ride through Camps Bay? 

True … Italian bikes Italian coffee not a word of Italian except after an Italian coffee every cyclist is suddenly “Ciao”ing

14 hours ago, thebob said:

Same can be said for anyone buying a high end car

To a certain extent yes. A car is the sum of its parts. A high end car usually fetches a good resale value, sometimes more than the buyer paid. And in a country where the public transport is abysmal at best , the average middle class commuter spends roughly 1/6th of their day in a passenger car , the desire to travel in some degree of comfort is understandable. Ego is another layer on top of the base of necessity.

bicycles are recreational toys so equating it’s purchase to something this is a necessity is a bit of misdirection. 
many things are over valued currently but per gram nothing beats a sports bicycle.

 

[thebob]

55 minutes ago, DieselnDust said:

True … Italian bikes Italian coffee not a word of Italian except after an Italian coffee every cyclist is suddenly “Ciao”ing

To a certain extent yes. A car is the sum of its parts. A high end car usually fetches a good resale value, sometimes more than the buyer paid. And in a country where the public transport is abysmal at best , the average middle class commuter spends roughly 1/6th of their day in a passenger car , the desire to travel in some degree of comfort is understandable. Ego is another layer on top of the base of necessity.

bicycles are recreational toys so equating it’s purchase to something this is a necessity is a bit of misdirection. 
many things are over valued currently but per gram nothing beats a sports bicycle.

 

I'm thinking more like Bentleys, Ferraris etc. Pay a fortune and then take a bath

[DieselnDust]

1 hour ago, thebob said:

I'm thinking more like Bentleys, Ferraris etc. Pay a fortune and then take a bath

The level of engineering in even a Bentley is 1000’s of hours whereas a bicycle is designed I less than 50. If you’re spending more time on it than that then there just hours been spent on making coffee that an end consumer is being charged for. A bicycle is a cottage industry no matter how hard you know who would like to compare it to putting a man on the moon. 
The man hours that goes Into a Bentley or a Ferrari is at least in order of 20x  higher. sports bicycles are one of the most efficient ways to extract money from participating wallets.

e.g the latest and great Spez Epic weighs 10kg (claimed) and costs R300k (with dropper)

thats R30/gr.

lets compare it to the bmw x5m competition that costs R1.28 per gram…..

 

please …. How can the bmw not be a rip off?!!?

[Hairy]

15 minutes ago, DieselnDust said:

The level of engineering in even a Bentley is 1000’s of hours whereas a bicycle is designed I less than 50. If you’re spending more time on it than that then there just hours been spent on making coffee that an end consumer is being charged for. A bicycle is a cottage industry no matter how hard you know who would like to compare it to putting a man on the moon. 
The man hours that goes Into a Bentley or a Ferrari is at least in order of 20x  higher. sports bicycles are one of the most efficient ways to extract money from participating wallets.

e.g the latest and great Spez Epic weighs 10kg (claimed) and costs R300k (with dropper)

thats R30/gr.

lets compare it to the bmw x5m competition that costs R1.28 per gram…..

 

please …. How can the bmw not be a rip off?!!?

The BMW is only that cheap per gram as they do not fit the indicators

[Hairy]

What does a high end MTB tyre look like these days ... R1200.00 for a Maxxis, more if you roll on a Schwalbe?

Cost to fit a tyre with sealant, rim tape and valve R300.00

So R1500.00 for a skinny tyre fitted

Should I compare this to my motorbike, that uses a wider tyre than most, and is rated for a heavier motorcycle (All cost increasing factors) with a high end in the rage Pirelli fitted with valve, balancing, etc = R3500.00

Other motorcycle setups can be a good bit cheaper where both tyres can be replaced as a combo price around the 3.8K mark.

 

[DieselnDust]

21 minutes ago, Hairy said:

The BMW is only that cheap per gram as they do not fit the indicators

I didn’t include the indicators as the Soz doesn’t have them either 

[NotSoBigBen]

9 minutes ago, Hairy said:

What does a high end MTB tyre look like these days ... R1200.00 for a Maxxis, more if you roll on a Schwalbe?

Cost to fit a tyre with sealant, rim tape and valve R300.00

So R1500.00 for a skinny tyre fitted

Should I compare this to my motorbike, that uses a wider tyre than most, and is rated for a heavier motorcycle (All cost increasing factors) with a high end in the rage Pirelli fitted with valve, balancing, etc = R3500.00

Other motorcycle setups can be a good bit cheaper where both tyres can be replaced as a combo price around the 3.8K mark.

 

Reminds me the time a few years ago my wife accompanied me to get a road bike tyre at a local bike shop ....

Shop assistant - "that'll be 780"

My wife - "stuff that I just replaced a tyre on my f#£%ing car and it cost less than that!" (My wife doesn't swear as a rule)

I did get some discount!

[The Ouzo]

comparing tyre prices is not really accurate.

If you're comparing to car or motorbike then you need to compare to a high end tyre in a size that is not common.

I have sitting in front of me a performance vehicle with performance tyres in a not so common size. you're looking at close to 6k a tyre.

 

There is an economy of scale that needs to get factored into high end bike prices.

 

Also if you compare depreciation, I'm sure you'll find the % depreciation on a bicycle much higher than that of a high end motor car.

 

B.T.W. I'm not saying we're not being charged more than we should for cycling related things, just that you cant really compare.

[Chadvdw67]

Even bicycle wheels, I can never really understand how a "highend" bicycle wheel can cost more than a motorbike wheel, here we have a bespoke Carbon wheelset for a motorbike, made in small quantities, has to meet much higher safety standards, and is ised in some of the most expensive motocycles in the world, yet is still cheaper than many bicycle wheels???? The mind boggles

Edited October 16, 2023 by Chadvdw67

[Hairy]

7 minutes ago, Chadvdw67 said:

Even bicycle wheels, I can never really understand how a "highend" bicycle wheel can cost more than a motorbike wheel, here we have a bespoke Carbon wheelset for a motorbike, made in small quantities, has to meet much higher safety standards, and is ised in some of the most expensive motocycles in the world, yet is still cheaper than many bicycle wheels???? The mind boggles

BOOM, and hello BST 😍

For those that do not know, BST is a SA co.

I was in a high end bike customisation workshop recently, being shown around and chatting away ... one of the bikes was being set up with a nice set of BST's a set of top of the range Ohlin's suspension with their own custom designed for this bike and fork triple trees that they CNC on site and when talking pricing for these items I chuckled to myself thinking that this is "so cheap" compared to cycling.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Hairy

[Headshot]

18 hours ago, thebob said:

Same can be said for anyone buying a high end car

That's a very broad statement. What is high end? A Ferrari vs an X3 or an X3  as opposed to say a Hyundai SUV or an X3 vs a Suzuki Espresso?  At some point you're just paying for the name but there are also significant performance and quality differences between entry or lower level cars and more expensive ones.

Those performance differences exist in bicycles but a cheaper model with no gold on the suspension stanchions or a different brand eg a Giant vs a Yeti makes a minimal performance difference if any, in certain cases.

[Hairy]

10 minutes ago, Headshot said:

That's a very broad statement. What is high end? A Ferrari vs an X3 or an X3  as opposed to say a Hyundai SUV or an X3 vs a Suzuki Espresso?  At some point you're just paying for the name but there are also significant performance and quality differences between entry or lower level cars and more expensive ones.

Those performance differences exist in bicycles but a cheaper model with no gold on the suspension stanchions or a different brand eg a Giant vs a Yeti makes a minimal performance difference if any, in certain cases.

would be fun seeing a sheet showing a couple of car types associated to a bicycle type.

eg. car x, y and = Makro Raleigh special

or

45 year old corolla = spesh epic

[Hairy]

1 hour ago, Chadvdw67 said:

Even bicycle wheels, I can never really understand how a "highend" bicycle wheel can cost more than a motorbike wheel, here we have a bespoke Carbon wheelset for a motorbike, made in small quantities, has to meet much higher safety standards, and is ised in some of the most expensive motocycles in the world, yet is still cheaper than many bicycle wheels???? The mind boggles

A set of wheels being sold as "second hand" on Bike Hub for 55K (Apparently 75K new) ... so cheaper to get the carbon wheels for the motorbike instead.

https://bikehub.co.za/classifieds/item/road-bike-wheels/671370/corima-mcc-dx-32mm?referrer=homepage

[Hairy]

https://blackstonetek.com/technology/

Let's just say this is a high end wheel co.

[DieselnDust]

26 minutes ago, Hairy said:

https://blackstonetek.com/technology/

Let's just say this is a high end wheel co.

They build the Pyga Mobu frames…