vonfilm 

I never said I thought Rolex was worth the money. I’m just saying because of Rolex’s successful marketing scam, their watch’s appreciate in value. A $14,000 bicycle 5-10 years later will sell for much less than their original price.

Another example of a wildly successful marketing scam is the promotion of Diamonds by Debeers.

When I was in business school, they taught us the last thing a manufacturer wanted was to price their product according to their cost. Instead they prefer to try to establish a high perceived market value.

Don’t invest much in items of depreciating value.

Lombard

The biggest marketing scam IMO is bottled water.

Eric F 

I have a couple road bikes from the early 2000s. One is aluminum, one is CF. They run the same (or very similar) pedals, seat, seatpost, stem, handlebars, and tape. Multiple wheelsets have been swapped between them, all with the same tires at the same pressure. The ride quality difference between them is noticeable to me, every single time. I'm not making any generalizations about one frame material vs. another, only that sometimes the differences between frames are real, and can be detected by the rider.

genejockey 

I agree. When I got the Ritchey, after riding the Cannondale for a couple years, I ran the same tires on it that I had been running on the C'dale. Same pressure, etc. Same saddle, too. One thing I noticed, heading into a turn where the C'dale used to hop a little sideways on the rough pavement was that the Ritchey held its line. Yeah, you could feel the bumps, but it didn't hop.

Koyote

What a ridiculous debate.



It was the pickup, obviously. 😀

Camilo

I will agree with this. I had a CAAD 7 Cannondale. I never figured it was super harsh, but when I got my CF Felt Z with a longer wheel base and more relaxed geometry, I did notice a difference. I can go faster for longer simply because it's more comfortable to ride. I had no hesitation in leaving N constant when I got the Felt and sold the CAAD.

But to your point, I also have a mid-80s Sannino Columbus SLX frame that has very steep angles and short-ish wheelbase. I have it set up to fit as close to the Z as I can. It handles quicker than the Z, about the same as I remember the CAAD to be, but it is as harsh or harsher than the Cannondale. The plush "steel ride" does not apply! It's still fun to ride though. My tires are consistently 23-25mm, similar quality. (FWIW, I do fine with 23's at 85-90psi, plenty comfortable for me on the road)

Camilo

Not me.

I'm perfectly happy with my 5 bikes which range from $0 (old MTB) to $5000 (newish Lynskey GR300 w/ AXS Force and decent wheels), the other three in the $1-2,000 range. Very happy, have no current desire for n+1.

But if I had, say, tens of millions in ready assets, I'd easily consider spending the subject amount on and n+1, either a top end "relaxed" CF, custom steel or ti, or an as-new or all original classic British steel bike. Probably the last one is the one that would be most likely to cause that sort of n+1 purchase.

I would not replace any of my current bikes unless they broke. But if I did have to replace them, I'd do what I described above.

If it caused me to make a choice between a bike and a $14K trip, I'd take the trip, but I doubt if that would be a choice I'd have to make.

Eric F 

No way. It was obviously the super-extra-premium grade patch cable between his distortion and delay pedals. Duh.

bbbean 

Watches, shoes, jewelry, antiques, cars, collectibles, precision instruments, art, musical instruments, shotguns, etc. Lots of things cost more than the bare minimum of ingredients and labor. At the simplest level, anything is worth what someone would pay for it. A Rolex is worth nothing to me, and it doesn't do 1/10 of the things my Garmin watch does. But people line up all day long to pay 5 and 6 figures for Rolexes, so they're clearly worth a lot of money to them. My wife loves Jewelry. It all looks like pretty rocks to me, but she has a decidedly different opinion about why one piece is worth more or less than another, and why some colored rocks are worth more than others.Why is a Stradivarius worth more than a pawn shop fiddle?
The fact that a bike isn't worth $14K to you doesn't mean it isn't worth 14K to someone else.

There's a reason Baskln Robbins makes 31 flavors.

Trakhak

Same or different wheelbases? Same or different frame sizes?

Eric F 

This may be the best argument yet.

genejockey 

Pickup? Like, "What's your sign?"

Calsun

Only 3 significant changes to bicycles over the past 50 years - disc brakes, 7+ gear cassettes, and electric motors. I have a $7,000 ebike and a $2000 carbon fiber bike I bought in 2001 and I use them both equally.

When I was doing boat deliveries when one needed to use a sextant and tables an accurate timepiece was critical. Smart sailors had $20 digital watches that lost far less time than a $10,000 Rolex mechanical watch. But for most people the perceived gain in status with conspicuous consumption (and waste) is all that matters - small men with big egos.

The good side is that the profits generated for companies like Shimano has led to an amazing amount of innovation for all levels of cyclists. In 1970 I bought my bike shoes and cleats from Italy and my touring panniers from the UK and had to go to a fellow who made custom frames to get the geometry I wanted for touring. I laced my own wheels to minimize spoke breakage with my touring loads over bad roads. Lycra and Gore-tex did not exist nor shoes that one could safely walk in when off the bike.

Camilo

Careful - a lot of marriages have ended that way.

tomato coupe

Because there’s 30 people in the world that don’t agree with my favorite flavor?

Eric F 

Same frame size - both bikes fit me with the same length stem and a similar amount of exposed seat post.. I haven't measured, but the wheelbases are probably pretty close. These are both race bikes with tight rear ends. I think the aluminum bike has a slightly slacker head tube angle, but probably by less than a degree. The most noticeable difference I feel between the two is in lateral stiffness under heavy power, but there is also some difference in the smoothness of the ride.

Eric F 

IMO, the development of integrated shifter/brake levers is more significant than those.

bbbean 

No accounting for taste...

big john

As I posted earlier, the difference between two of my bikes was huge, even with the same tires, wheels, and pressure.
The two road bikes I have now are different even switching the wheels between the bikes.

Atlas Shrugged

Don’t say that over on the C&V sub-forum them are fighting words. Down tube friction is the highest form of shifting with the odd rogue advocating for bar end shifters.

Random11

I've wondered the same thing as the OP. I'm not disagreeing. I'm wondering.

I have two bikes with carbon fiber frames and mechanical Ultegra groupsets that have a new price less than 1/3 of a $14,000 bike. What extra value would I get if I spent another $10,000 to get the $14,000 bike? What differences would I notice on my rides compared to the bikes I have now? One answer is electronic shifting, which I don't particularly want, but that's a difference. What else would I notice in the more expensive bike? That''s a serious question on my part and I don't know the answer because I've never tried a bike like that.

Don't tell me it has higher quality carbon or something like that. Tell me what differences I would notice riding the more expensive bike. I'm not saying there aren't any. I'm saying I don't know what they are, so back to the OP's original question: Where's the value in a bike that expensive? Why is the riding experience better?

Koyote

The OP was likely just trolling...But even if we take him seriously, I'm not sure he's asking the question that you're asking. In fact, it's unclear just what he's asking or suggesting. This line suggests that he merely thinks there are better ways to spend $14k:

This line suggests that he thinks that $14k is simply too high relative to the production cost:

And now you're asking a sensible question, which is: how would it benefit me? The answer depends on the specific bike vis-a-vis the bike(s) that you're currently riding. Suffice it so say that a significantly more expensive bike will likely be a bit lighter and more nimble, will accelerate and climb a bit more easily, perhaps ride a bit smoother (but maybe not), and the drivetrain components will work very smoothly, precisely, and quietly. You will also likely get top-notch customer service and warranty support, and the bike may be beautiful from a design and style standpoint.

The broader question which seems to be the root of these threads-- 'is the bike worth it' -- is totally subjective, meaning that it depends on the individual. And this is a source of sooo many argumentative threads on bf, since some individuals think that their own preferences and budget constraints are sensible, and other people's (different) preferences and budget constraints are stupid, or wasteful, or whatever. But each of us knows more data about ourselves -- our values, priorities, preferences, incomes, bank balances, competing financial needs -- than anyone else will ever know about us. Bottom line: no one can tell you whether that $14k bike is "worth it" to you, or even what you'll get out of it. And no one can tell you that it's not worth it.

Maelochs

Thank yo, sir, for agreeing with my point----that point being, that at no time was the pricing of expensive bicycles a mystery to you and that your original question and all your following comments were disingenuous.

You learned all this in business school all those years ago .... and just wanted to pretend to some sort of warped moral superiority because you place different monetary values on some things than do other people.

Just a troll thread, folks, nothing to see here ......

Maelochs

Well, possibly for you there wouldn't be.

I was chatting almost a year ago with a guy who was riding a brand new $18K bike. We were joking because he was riding on what turned out to be a restricted road near where I live ... a road down which i have ridden, in fact. The difference--besides his being a lot faster and more fit, and having a very nice bike---was that he attracted the security team, who summoned the local police, who would not even let him ride back down the road to the partially obscured "Restricted Access" sign.

He mentioned that he got a ride and I commented that I would be worried about some random cop slinging my bike into the trunk of his car, with the lid bouncing up and down on it. he assured me that he was very certain to explain to the officers that this was a brand-new, unmarred, $18,000 bike and he expected it to still be that three minutes later when they let him out (he said it politely of course.) And so it was.

The point being that to him, even though he was not mega-rich, upgrading from his $14K bike to a new $18K bike was totally worth it. The sum of the incremental improvements was more than the dollar value To Him.

Would they be to you, or me, or some random person? The answer is random ....

In fact, the OP was not pointing out that he could not see the value, because as he has explained repeatedly, he fully understands that "value" is SUBJECTIVE. The OP was saying that he was better than everyone else because his subjective choices were smarter than everyone else’s .... and I think we all need to give him a round of virtual applause for his comedy stylings …..

As far as whether you would notice the differences …. Not sure. I know audiophiles can hear things most people cannot. I know that when I played regularly in a band I could hear things that I cannot hear now. For all I know you would notice tiny differences, and still think the experience with the cheaper bike was sufficient ….

But to be really fair about the bike and not the price tag ….

Imagine, if you would a world in which every bicycle sold for one dollar. Hand-built wheels or machine-built, quality materials or garbage, well-adjusted or so poorly engineered as to be unadjustable … a Walmart beach cruiser and a full-custom hand-built bike of whatever frame material, plated in gold and studded with diamonds, with a hand-crafted 2x13-speed full-electronic group …. Or a NOS vintage 10-speed Masi or something, with 120-mm dropouts and downtube shifting …. Or the bike the Wright Bros. rode to win their first race (I think Orville did most of the riding …) but whatever … no matter, One Dollar US, no negotiation.

Tell me you’d do the same cost/benefit calculations you’d do now?

The people who claim they’d want exactly the same bike they have now ….. I simply do not believe them. Money wouldn’t be an issue …. But I could get four bikes built with custom geometry, nearly identical, to see which one was best for me …. And five mm to or subtract it from each dimension, to find The Perfect Fit …. And next year, when I was older, I could do the same again …. For less than I pay today for an inner tube.

In fact, it would be much better Financial value to buy a new bike whenever I got a flat ……

If the Cost of the bike was not an issue, what would you ride?

As a poster above noted, I wouldn’t get rid of any of my bikes …. Just because no one would buy them and I feel bad about trashing good enough tools … but I wouldn’t give them to poor people or something because each of them has some idiosyncratic flaw …. Stripped BB shell, tricky shifting due possibly to a minute twist in the frame, an odd mix of after-market parts ….. I have two completely different brifters with different shifting mechanisms on my Cannondale …..

But if I could find my bikes good homes, and for a dollar each replace them with full-custom bikes with exactly the components which best suited my uses …. I’d be an idiot not to.

When people start to talk about the different definitions of value (as I am sure the OP learned in business school---another business-school grad mentioned it upwards in this thread) the thinker has to Think, not feel. The analysis must be dispassionate. When a person says $X is a valid amount to spend for a bike but $X+2 is not, that person is reflecting his/her own financial situation, whether he/she knows it or not.

OP never even tried. OP decided that his rant was the Real Truth and everyone who disagreed was an idiot.

This thread speaks for itself.

Sy Reene

Evian spelled backwards is Naive