greatscott

Ok, $3 for an odd ball nut isn't to bad out of line; these companies that make that stuff is simply grabbing cyclists by the balls and squeezing because they can. It doesn't cost anything more to make a LH nut as it does a RH nut, but it's different and it's for bicycles so lets burn people for it. I needed a bolt for a seatpost clamp, I took it down to a hardware store and found a bolt that worked that saved me $8 from getting it from some bicycling source that had them, and I didn't have to wait for it to be sent from the warehouse to the LBS. I rarely need parts like that anyway so in all reality all this talk about small bolts and screws is sort of silly, but it does point out a problem with how much stuff that is related to cycling can cost.

The only really good news in the cost to cycle is that LED lights has made it cheaper to buy a good light that runs longer on batteries and the bulb will last forever, geez back in the day when HID headlights were the brightest thing to get I use to know people who had spent $1,200 for one of those lights, and I thought back then that was insane, now you can get LED lights with as much light and more then those HID's and spend $120 for it. Tires are another huge waste of money, yes of course we need them! but so does our cars, yet in 60,000 miles you spend roughly $480 for a pair of car tires, but you'll replace roughly 20 sets of bicycle tires in 60,000 miles and pay an average of $2,000 for them (based on $100 a pair); and bicycle tires are no where near the technology level of car tires.

All this profit on cycling gear is going somewhere, but it ain't going to LBS's!