Originally Posted by
neil
Yeah, that was kind of my point. I probably can't. You've bought a bike, not a BSO.
I suppose, technically, all bikes are bike shaped objects, but the moniker is normally reserved for objects whose quality is so low that referring to it as a "bike" isn't exactly accurate.
I think people on BF are shocked by the prices, but it's pretty much at lowest price point here for a bike. I would say it's like a 200 USD bike in US. We don't really get the cheap end of stuff here even for the same products ... you have a very hard time getting a bike out the door at a LBS for £300.
this example usually helps non-UK people understand the price difference for the same object and why £300 would really be a UK BSO. it also shows that stuff is really cheap in the US.
That's retail pricing for the same Levi's 501 jeans and the reason I stock up on denim when in the US. Even 64USD to 70 GBP demonstrates that they're almost 70% more here ... same with bikes.
But, we can debate the BSO issue all day long, but £300 is on the really cheap end of bikes (really, really cheap) ... don't even get me started on house prices.
http://www.statisticbrain.com/home-sales-average-price/ vs.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/h...tml/houses.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Househo..._United_States vs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_...United_Kingdom
so, 300GBP is in the range of a UK BSO.