mikev102

hey

i have been wondering this for a long time:

why are the trek madone carbon road bikes cheaper than the cervelo carbon road bikes?

is the madone carbon not as good as the cervelo carbon for racing?

please help!

--mike.

EdZ

Why is a porsche more expensive than a corvette?

EatMyDust

My guess is that Trek sells way more madone bikes, even if they claim that they are hand-made.
The more you make, the cheaper it gets. You get various discounts, production gets more efficient and so on.

HolyInstantRice

Top of the line Cervelo = Soloist Carbon = $5200
Trek with comparable components = Madone 5.9 SL = $5499

The Trek's got a few more carbon components (handlebar, stem, etc.) but the Cervelo frame has got it made.

ElJamoquio

Cervelos are pretty.

Blaireau

Simple. Trek is desperately trying to offset their association with "Lance EPO Armstrong" through lower prices.

DrPete 

Given Basso's predicament the price war would still wage on...

pinkrobe

Economies of scale. Trek makes way more frames than Cervelo, the cost per frame is ultimately lower than what Cervelo can do. The savings are passed on to you [somewhat].

Psimet2001 

This should be fun....

1. Trek found a great deal on forks. Just ask George...
2. The dollar is finally so weak that the Canadians just bought Michigan.
3. NAFTA - It's free trade now...you just have to pay for someone to do all that paperwork...
4. Cheese is a known stimulant - workers have higher throughput.

...anyone?? I just wanted to get the ball rolling....

Talewinds

Duh, because it costs more to have the exact same bike as everyone else in the transition area.

alex909

speaking of Cervelo, this is pretty hilarious:

https://cgi.ebay.com/CERVELO-SOLOIST-...QQcmdZViewItem

check out the feedback and the feedback items.

pinkrobe

The seller is from Sweden, the bike is in BJ, China - and all the feedback is within the last 24 hours. I'm sold!

johnnny

Because Cervelos are grossly overpriced for what they are

roadwarrior

So, it would appear that the thread is irrelevant.

Psimet2001 

Uh...yeah, but it can still be a heck of a lot of fun!

cs1

Good question seeing as the Corvette is better.

Tim

velocipedio

Trek Team Time Trial with Dura Ace: $5200
Cervelo P2C with Dura Ace: $3600

fmw

Nobody has addressed the OP's question. Trek is a big bike company. Cervelo is a little one. Trek operates with higher volume and, in order to acheive that higher volume, it needs to sell its bikes for less. That's possibility #1.

The second possibility is the result of that volume. Sometimes, smaller companies don't use manufacturing costs as a basis for pricing. Sometimes they add up the expenses and target profit and divide that by the number of units they sell. That becomes the selling price. A larger company like Trek can price based on manufacturing costs. A smaller one like Cervelo may not be able to.

The third possibility is image building. People often mistake price for quality. In the bike business there is absolutely no correlation. However, some people think there is and will gravitate to more expensive bikes for that reason. This might be the market segment that Cervelo targets. Above there was a discussion about Corvettes and Porsches. I haven't driven either and don't know about the relative quality of each but Porsche certainly has a brand image that is better. That's a good analogy for the Trek/Cervelo case, I think.

There are a few more I could conjur up but these three can at least get you thinking about it.

daytonian

+1
My moneys on the Madone bb holding up long after the Cerv de-laminates.

velocipedio

The problem is that it's a specious question. Cervelos aren't any more expensive than Treks. The shop I work at is a Cervelo and Trek dealer. Off the top of my head the model line-up is something like this:

Cervelo R3 w/ Dura Ace: C$5200
Cervelo Soloist Carbon w/ Dura Ace: $5900
Cervelo P2C w/ Dura Ace: C$4300

Trek Madone 5.9 SL: C$6300
Trek Madone SSLX: $13000
Trek Team Time Trial w/ Dura Ace: $6200

Admittedly, Cervelo downspecs the wheels -- Easton Circuit on the R3 and Soloist Carbon -- but it's really not much of a downspec compared to the Bontrager Race X Light wheels.

The cheapie carbon Treks like the 5000 [$2300] and the 5200 [$3100] are not in the same league as the Cervelos. They're, at best, Ultegra bikes with old-school CF frames [the 5200], or sub-105 bikes with Cane Creek and Bontrager component downspecs [the 5000].

You get about as much bike from each company at the same price points. The R3 is quite a bit lighter than anything Trek has, and the Soloist Carbon is lighter and stiffer than the Madone 5.9 SL, though it is roughly comparable in those respects to the SSLX.

daytonian

What about Cervelo's durability issues with bottom bracket? Lighter means nothing if it's broke.

velocipedio

CF has durability issues.

I have only seen Cervelos for two years or so. I was not very impressed with their alu bikes for quite a long time, though I was always a fan of the Prodigy and Super Prodigy [steel]. So far this year, we have not seen any major or minor frame failure from any of the Cervelo models that we sell or service. We have only been a Cervelo dealer for one year but, now that we are, we see a lot of bikes purchased from other dealers in past years.

On the other hand, we've been a Trek dealer for almost a decade, and in the time I've worked there, I have seen a number of cracked and damaged Trek OCLV frames, often with cracked BB shells.

I'm not saying that Treks are not good bikes, or even that they are more prone to failure than Cervelos. All I'm saying is that they are not IMMUNE to failure, and that Cervelos don't appear to be any more prone to failure. In fact, have seen a lot of R3s this year, I can say that, if one of those frames is going to fail, it sure won't be at the BB. That's one huge blob of fibre and resin.

And, of course, all of this is irelevant to the OPs original question, which was spurious since Cervelos are NOT demonstrably more expensive than comparable Treks.