Originally Posted by topflightpro

Focusing on the absolute top end of the sport is kind of disingenuous. That $25k is pretty much only used by the national team members, and not even all of them.

There are a couple of issues when it comes to track equipment: 1. It's not a high-volume area. So it's hard to build scale when you're not producing a lot of frames/wheels/bars... 2. It's super competitive at the international level. Every national team with a budget is trying to out do their competition with equipment. A lot of the items are intentionally priced prohibitively expensive to prevent others from buying them. Also, track equipment development tends to follow the Olympics, so new equipment comes out the year before the Olympics games, but it's not available to the general public until after the Olympics are over.

Still, there are plenty of middle-ground, affordable options in the used market. It just takes time and effort to find them, and they may not be available when you need them.