Why are road and TT bikes so expensive?
09-19-20, 01:29 PM
#126
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And here it is.
People have been manipulating markets since there were markets. People have been cheating and scheming ever since there were rules to break. Some people are just bad people---short-sighted and selfish and willing to hurt any number of others to get a little for themselves.
The whole point of "Regulation" is to prevent people from cheating .... but there will always be ways to cheat. Regulations have to be enforced, and once the regulators are crooked .....
Bikes cost so much because we keep buying them. You want prices to come down? Ride your old bikes, only buy used, and in a few years prices might drop.
People have been manipulating markets since there were markets. People have been cheating and scheming ever since there were rules to break. Some people are just bad people---short-sighted and selfish and willing to hurt any number of others to get a little for themselves.
The whole point of "Regulation" is to prevent people from cheating .... but there will always be ways to cheat. Regulations have to be enforced, and once the regulators are crooked .....
Bikes cost so much because we keep buying them. You want prices to come down? Ride your old bikes, only buy used, and in a few years prices might drop.
09-19-20, 02:02 PM
#127
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And here it is.
People have been manipulating markets since there were markets. People have been cheating and scheming ever since there were rules to break. Some people are just bad people---short-sighted and selfish and willing to hurt any number of others to get a little for themselves.
The whole point of "Regulation" is to prevent people from cheating .... but there will always be ways to cheat. Regulations have to be enforced, and once the regulators are crooked .....
Bikes cost so much because we keep buying them. You want prices to come down? Ride your old bikes, only buy used, and in a few years prices might drop.
People have been manipulating markets since there were markets. People have been cheating and scheming ever since there were rules to break. Some people are just bad people---short-sighted and selfish and willing to hurt any number of others to get a little for themselves.
The whole point of "Regulation" is to prevent people from cheating .... but there will always be ways to cheat. Regulations have to be enforced, and once the regulators are crooked .....
Bikes cost so much because we keep buying them. You want prices to come down? Ride your old bikes, only buy used, and in a few years prices might drop.
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"Everybody's gotta be somewhere." - Eccles
09-19-20, 02:24 PM
#128
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And here it is.
People have been manipulating markets since there were markets. People have been cheating and scheming ever since there were rules to break. Some people are just bad people---short-sighted and selfish and willing to hurt any number of others to get a little for themselves.
The whole point of "Regulation" is to prevent people from cheating .... but there will always be ways to cheat. Regulations have to be enforced, and once the regulators are crooked .....
Bikes cost so much because we keep buying them. You want prices to come down? Ride your old bikes, only buy used, and in a few years prices might drop.
People have been manipulating markets since there were markets. People have been cheating and scheming ever since there were rules to break. Some people are just bad people---short-sighted and selfish and willing to hurt any number of others to get a little for themselves.
The whole point of "Regulation" is to prevent people from cheating .... but there will always be ways to cheat. Regulations have to be enforced, and once the regulators are crooked .....
Bikes cost so much because we keep buying them. You want prices to come down? Ride your old bikes, only buy used, and in a few years prices might drop.
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09-19-20, 02:25 PM
#129
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I wonder if bike prices have outpaced inflation. In 1989, I paid, as I recall, full MSRP of $289 for a Giant Perigee road bike, with 2x7 gearing. I believe it was Giant's cheapest road bike. According to the inflation calculator available at the BLS website, that price equates to $606 today. Do any of the big brands sell an entry-level road bike for only $600? I'm not sure, but I doubt it. I'll have to look around to see what Giant's cheapest road bike costs today.
Last edited by UnderDawgAl; 09-19-20 at 02:32 PM.
09-19-20, 03:26 PM
#130
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I wonder if bike prices have outpaced inflation. In 1989, I paid, as I recall, full MSRP of $289 for a Giant Perigee road bike, with 2x7 gearing. I believe it was Giant's cheapest road bike. According to the inflation calculator available at the BLS website, that price equates to $606 today. Do any of the big brands sell an entry-level road bike for only $600? I'm not sure, but I doubt it. I'll have to look around to see what Giant's cheapest road bike costs today.
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09-19-20, 03:40 PM
#131
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Everything I'm finding online says the Giant Perigee was introduced in 1994 at $370, which comes to $648 in 2020 dollars. The lowest priced Giant bike today, the Contend 3 I linked to, lists for $680.
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09-19-20, 05:08 PM
#132
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09-19-20, 05:31 PM
#133
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Why didn't you post this at the Start iof this thread? We could have saved so many pages of this crap merely by saying, "They aren't. See @genejockey's post."
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09-19-20, 05:37 PM
#134
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Thanks for pointing out the Contend. If the cheapest Giant would have been significantly more expensive than $606, I was going to call for legislation and over-regulation to stifle that Free Market bike company! 😆. Just kidding of course.
Edited to add one I found: https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...t-perigee.html
Last edited by UnderDawgAl; 09-19-20 at 05:39 PM. Reason: To update with link
09-19-20, 05:41 PM
#135
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Why didn't you post this at the Start iof this thread? We could have saved so many pages of this crap merely by saying, "They aren't. See @genejockey's post."
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09-19-20, 05:57 PM
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You need to separate the cost plus R&D that goes into making a bike and its final retail selling price. Those two are not related at all !
The first cost is set for you as manufacturer and the second, the retail sticker you put on it, you make it as high as you believe you can sell it for in sufficient numbers to make at least the minimum profit rate you set for your business, but really you aim for profit as high as you can make and sky is the limit if you can swing it.
If then you can sell your bikes for double or triple or whatever more than what it cost you to make them, good for you. Point is, nobody is setting his retail price by what it cost him to bring it to market plus some profit usual for that market segment. You set it as high as you think/believe you can sell it for. For every goods, there is a certain limit in people's minds what they would be willing to spend on given product range and normally you need to fit your expectations to it.
But if you were a genius and managed to make high end bikes for a third of the cost of everybody else, why should your set your retail price sticker proportionally down by two thirds... Your bikes would be overpriced even if you undercut others in the business by some margin to sell your bikes like hot cakes, but why should you sell for less than what you can get? Just so you could do good for the folks out there?
Well, look at it from the other side, if you fail to make any profits, will the public be willing to come to your rescue and buy your bikes so you don't go out of business? Dream on. It is - make for as little you can make it and sell for as much as you can get for it.
As I wrote at the start, those two costs are not related, or only in as much that you want to be able to sell at least for what it cost you to make it, so you don't make a loss.
When I was growing up, I read in a book for kids a free market lesson
, how little Joe at a yearly town fair asks a seller of some 'sweet nothing' what it costs and the old guy asks Joe, how much did your mother give you along to spend? Joe replies, five cents and the seller of the sweets retorts "it costs five cents". 
It was meant for old days, when five cents for that would be way overpriced, robbery indeed. Nowadays, the price levels are of course somewhere else.
The first cost is set for you as manufacturer and the second, the retail sticker you put on it, you make it as high as you believe you can sell it for in sufficient numbers to make at least the minimum profit rate you set for your business, but really you aim for profit as high as you can make and sky is the limit if you can swing it.
If then you can sell your bikes for double or triple or whatever more than what it cost you to make them, good for you. Point is, nobody is setting his retail price by what it cost him to bring it to market plus some profit usual for that market segment. You set it as high as you think/believe you can sell it for. For every goods, there is a certain limit in people's minds what they would be willing to spend on given product range and normally you need to fit your expectations to it.
But if you were a genius and managed to make high end bikes for a third of the cost of everybody else, why should your set your retail price sticker proportionally down by two thirds... Your bikes would be overpriced even if you undercut others in the business by some margin to sell your bikes like hot cakes, but why should you sell for less than what you can get? Just so you could do good for the folks out there?
Well, look at it from the other side, if you fail to make any profits, will the public be willing to come to your rescue and buy your bikes so you don't go out of business? Dream on. It is - make for as little you can make it and sell for as much as you can get for it.
As I wrote at the start, those two costs are not related, or only in as much that you want to be able to sell at least for what it cost you to make it, so you don't make a loss.
When I was growing up, I read in a book for kids a free market lesson
, how little Joe at a yearly town fair asks a seller of some 'sweet nothing' what it costs and the old guy asks Joe, how much did your mother give you along to spend? Joe replies, five cents and the seller of the sweets retorts "it costs five cents". It was meant for old days, when five cents for that would be way overpriced, robbery indeed. Nowadays, the price levels are of course somewhere else.
Last edited by vane171; 09-19-20 at 06:09 PM.
09-19-20, 06:47 PM
#138
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Thanks, Captain Hindsight! A lot of these were smart people being worked on by predatory lenders whose incentives were to get the deal to close whether it made sense or not, and they would convince the buyers of pie in the sky scenarios. People without any finance background were being told by "experts" that they could expect for things to work out. it was deliberate deception by people who got a commission at closing whether or not the mortgage ever got paid. Perhaps the consumers should have known better, but there were literally millions of them. What you're missing is that the logic works out to be profitable if the value keeps increasing infinitely, the bubble part becomes obvious only when that inflation stops. Maybe you're not old enough to remember this, but the notion of profitable flipping was being hyped by trained professionals throughout the popular media as well.
You do realize that several banks collapsed based on this logic, right? Are you arguing that all of the blame for that should go on the consumers? No one was forcing the banks to make the stupidest loans possible.
You do realize that several banks collapsed based on this logic, right? Are you arguing that all of the blame for that should go on the consumers? No one was forcing the banks to make the stupidest loans possible.
Last edited by u235; 09-19-20 at 06:57 PM.
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09-19-20, 07:33 PM
#139
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Note also this was a worldwide phenomenon - the housing/building/mortgage boom - which makes it even harder to sell the idea that a law passed 30 years prior, and two Senators and a Congressman who were in the minority for over a decade caused it.
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09-19-20, 07:42 PM
#140
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Am I on Bike forums?
Sure looks like it.
And where's the Cup o'Noodles topic?
Sure looks like it.
And where's the Cup o'Noodles topic?
09-19-20, 07:51 PM
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09-19-20, 07:53 PM
#142
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Especially when you can pick up ramen at Safeway for as low as 10 cents a package. "Amortizing the R&D costs" won't cut it.
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09-19-20, 07:54 PM
#143
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09-19-20, 07:56 PM
#144
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09-19-20, 08:00 PM
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My only qualm with Cup o' Noodles is that they're really only affordable with financing.
09-19-20, 08:07 PM
#146
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Can you get a good rate when you're likely to consume the collateral?
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09-19-20, 08:09 PM
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09-19-20, 08:19 PM
#148
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Now you have me thinking of the vacation planet of Bethselamin, in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:
For years, the fabulously beautiful planet of Bethselamin increased its booming tourist industry without any worries at all. Alas, as is often the case, this was an act of utter stupidity, as it led to a colossal cumulative erosion problem. Of course, what else could one expect with ten billion tourists per annum? Thus today the net balance between the amount you eat and the amount you excrete while on the planet is surgically removed from your body weight when you leave; so every time you go to the lavatory there, it is vitally important to get a receipt.
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09-19-20, 08:51 PM
#149
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09-19-20, 08:53 PM
#150
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A lot of people who weren't involved in any other way than being part of the economy took a major hit. Many lost jobs - 800,000 a month for a while - and a lot of people lost savings, and the whole economy dropped for years, and most people did nothing to cause it.
Note also this was a worldwide phenomenon - the housing/building/mortgage boom - which makes it even harder to sell the idea that a law passed 30 years prior, and two Senators and a Congressman who were in the minority for over a decade caused it.
Note also this was a worldwide phenomenon - the housing/building/mortgage boom - which makes it even harder to sell the idea that a law passed 30 years prior, and two Senators and a Congressman who were in the minority for over a decade caused it.
But I don't want to support the use of facts here .... this thread was just starting to get good ....
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