Increasing prices for Bycicles in general

[TEE]

Hi,
there is something about this industry that really starts to disgust me and thats the ridicilously overpriced bikes you can but nowadays.
In my opinion that does not just regard the top end models but even the low end bikes for like 5000€ aswell.
I mean you can get a car for that price. Or when you compair it to a motorbike the price for mountainbikes looks nothing more but hilarious.

The production costs of bikes arent anywhere close to the ones of the car industry or of motorbikes but the profit margin for bike manufacturers seems to be much much higher.

And for me it really feels like a rip off. They prices kept increasing in the last years step by step and now we are at a point were you basically pay more for a new mountainbike than youd do for a new motorbike which needs waaaay more engineering and has much more parts and working hours in developement than bycicles have.

My english isnt the best but i think you guys got my point.
What do you think about this and is the bycicle industry going to far?

 

[apac]

If you can't bare to buy new, there's alway second hand? Here's a link to one on this forum..... Absolute Bargain!

 

[JoeBlow]

I have to agree with you with regard to some bikes, Specialised springs to mind, which are way overpriced IMO but I managed to get an Orbea Wild FS H20 with 160mm Fox suspension, Swiss DT wheels, Bosch Gen 4 motor, Shimano brakes and dropper post fitted for under £4000 (EU 4700) from Bikester in Germany last September. That seems like a fair price to me. A Specialised to a similar spec would have been nearer £7000.

IMO there are reasonably priced bikes to be had but you do have to shop around and in todays market that's not easy.
Al

 

[gbarfoot]

I have to agree with you. Here in the US power sports dealers are starting to carry emtbs and when you see a levo in the same shop as a KTM but with a higher sticker price, there is something wrong. I'm hoping as Yamaha KTM gasgas and Husqvarna join the segment they will keep their prices low and maybe have some impact on prices through competition. One of the main differences in Motos vs mtbs is that suspension, brakes, and drivetrains are supplied by companies that make those as OE components....and as OE components they are very good. Rarely does someone buy a new set of forks or shock or entire brake as an upgrade.....suspension revalves are common but you dont normally buy a complete fork. The production units are very good, just might need to be tuned for you. With MTB components it's the other way around, these components are seen as "upgrades" and the aftermarket is built around selling you these parts direct. The margins on these parts through aftermarket has to have an effect on how they are sold to bike brands and thus increases the price on the final bike. Bike manufacturers make the frames and that's about it....every component they source has margins applied and the prices reflect that.....on the plus side of this, you get many more brands able to play and create bikes....on the downside the prices are quite high for what you are getting.....

As said earlier though if people are willing to pay then that is "what they are worth'"

 

[JoeBlow]

I agree. I think the metric that makes mtb prices feasible is motos scare people and generally have a much smaller playground.

EMTB do totally kill people especially as they’re preferred by people who’ve had no athletics whatsoever ever in their life and just suck at any balance requiring sport.

Really? that's a sweeping, inaccurate statement. I was a rock climber and mountaineer for 55 years before buying an EMTB and used to run 50 km per week.

Al

 

[apac]

they’re preferred by people who’ve had no athletics whatsoever ever in their life and just suck at any balance requiring sport.

like yourself of course

 

[Zimmerframe]

For anyone who's needing a translation (googlefu says):

"Take a breath for gods sake, the forum is also a great place for humour and saying stupid things which cause amusement to many and confusion to some. Try and balance yourself to see the humour ! "

I think if you take every second letter and read the second part backwards it says something about meeting somewhere for a hot date - I can only guess that was directed at Barbara - so I'm guessing that was a compliment.

 

[emtbPhil]

Things are not worth what they cost to make
Things are worth what people will pay for them

 

[JoeBlow]

Usually I find humor in my statements. I often laugh….alone, with a bottle of whisky. Ok I’m not alone but my soulless body is alone. You’d think after smoking so many I’d have a collection of souls.

this forum is for us EMTBrs so rather than make fun of people I don’t understand it’s more fun to point the finger at us. Usually in a blindly incorrect statement that usually humors only me and the few aholes who are unfortunately near the same.

Fair enough, keep up the good work, but IMO sarcasm, irony, subtlety and self deprecating humour tend to lose their meaning on a forum. Unless of course one is aware of the writing style and character of the contributor. I understand you a little better now. For my part I'm not saying I don't have a sense of humour but I do have a tendency to take what I read seriously and to a large degree literally. My loss it has to be said.

 

[A1000]

It's important to remember that the price of a price of a product is not merely the cost of the bill of materials, there are all the costs of R&D etc... and with EMTBs this is relatively high considering that it's a new-ish market and competetive. Hopefully as the market matures we will see prices stabilise. If we were seeing bike co. profitability up with some tech companies then we might have a different view but sadly inflation in everything from labour to raw materials, to shipping is well publicised. Cant's see the increases slowing down in the short term. Lock in now and enjoy the EMTB perhaps

 

[DrStupid]

For anyone who's needing a translation (googlefu says):

"Take a breath for gods sake, the forum is also a great place for humour and saying stupid things which cause amusement to many and confusion to some. Try and balance yourself to see the humour ! "

I think if you take every second letter and read the second part backwards it says something about meeting somewhere for a hot date - I can only guess that was directed at Barbara - so I'm guessing that was a compliment.

Where were you 20 years ago, I could have used this sort of advise. Today, unfortunately, I am happily married, and feel somewhat cheated.

 

[Norange]

Hi,
there is something about this industry that really starts to disgust me and thats the ridicilously overpriced bikes you can but nowadays.
In my opinion that does not just regard the top end models but even the low end bikes for like 5000€ aswell.
I mean you can get a car for that price. Or when you compair it to a motorbike the price for mountainbikes looks nothing more but hilarious.

The production costs of bikes arent anywhere close to the ones of the car industry or of motorbikes but the profit margin for bike manufacturers seems to be much much higher.

And for me it really feels like a rip off. They prices kept increasing in the last years step by step and now we are at a point were you basically pay more for a new mountainbike than youd do for a new motorbike which needs waaaay more engineering and has much more parts and working hours in developement than bycicles have.

My english isnt the best but i think you guys got my point.
What do you think about this and is the bycicle industry going to far?

Thing is though, it's an open market. If the margins were really that spectacular, you'd have a raft of entrants to the market selling volume at lower margin. I do think it's telling that you can see this most clearly in brands selling direct. So you can cut out distribution to bridge the gap. Sure, there are some premium brands. But to be fair, a low end ebike is definitely not £5000. And an sworks has a load of top end kit on it whilst selling in low volumes. What does a top end motorbike cost, £50k?

 

[Mabman]

To be fair to the eBike industry as a whole there are lots of models in the $1500-$2000 price range that have many happy owners, at least here in the states. Unfortunately they are not suitable for use as mtb's and more oriented towards street use. But also to be fair there is a much larger market potential for that type of use worldwide now and into the future.

But still I don't see any reason that now that it has been pretty well figured out how to make an up to date geo eBike frame and all the associated parts necessary to turn it into a serviceable unit that all those parts need to be so expensive as to add up to the high prices the manufacturers are getting, granted including dealer percentage of profit.

But if someone came out with an under 3 grand decently ridable and imminently upgradeable as warranted or from the parts bin in the shed, due to aforementioned frame, they would sell as many as they could stuff in containers.

 

[gbarfoot]

Thing is though, it's an open market. If the margins were really that spectacular, you'd have a raft of entrants to the market selling volume at lower margin. I do think it's telling that you can see this most clearly in brands selling direct. So you can cut out distribution to bridge the gap. Sure, there are some premium brands. But to be fair, a low end ebike is definitely not £5000. And an sworks has a load of top end kit on it whilst selling in low volumes. What does a top end motorbike cost, £50k?

Dirtbikes? which is what's most equivalent here. $11k us for a top end KTM, that gets you fuel injection and traction control on the 4strokes. And cutting edge motors with incredible power to weight. They try to make them as light as possible, while enduring the stresses and without breaking....similar to ebikes.

 

[DrStupid]

Are emtb's doing to the off road bicycle market, what 4 strokes did to motocross... for example make the bikes too easy to go fast, too heavy, too loud, too prone to failure, too expensive?

There seems to be a few comparisons here.

 

[sunstoner]

Hi,
there is something about this industry that really starts to disgust me and thats the ridicilously overpriced bikes you can but nowadays.
In my opinion that does not just regard the top end models but even the low end bikes for like 5000€ aswell.
I mean you can get a car for that price. Or when you compair it to a motorbike the price for mountainbikes looks nothing more but hilarious.

The production costs of bikes arent anywhere close to the ones of the car industry or of motorbikes but the profit margin for bike manufacturers seems to be much much higher.

And for me it really feels like a rip off. They prices kept increasing in the last years step by step and now we are at a point were you basically pay more for a new mountainbike than youd do for a new motorbike which needs waaaay more engineering and has much more parts and working hours in developement than bycicles have.

My english isnt the best but i think you guys got my point.
What do you think about this and is the bycicle industry going to far?

Its hard not to agree with your comments above. Its 'just' a bike and these things to most people shouldnt be getting near £10k, let alone beyond this figure or even £5k.

However my thoughts come from someone who's use of his emtb is a light mix of trail, XC and commute and Im relatively new having bought my first decent (e)mtb in over 20 years, last year. Im not a trail crusher, my demands arent very high, so perhaps the value I place on bikes is different to a majority of those who demand the best hardware available for their hobby.

But..it does seem funny money for bikes these days.

 

[DrStupid]

I look round here, and see funny money for lots of things.

I saw a sticker for a $100,000.00 pick'up truck.

 

[Pdoz]

Dirtbikes? which is what's most equivalent here. $11k us for a top end KTM, that gets you fuel injection and traction control on the 4strokes. And cutting edge motors with incredible power to weight. They try to make them as light as possible, while enduring the stresses and without breaking....similar to ebikes.

Not if you compare an sworks to a ktm rallye , or even a replica. Top end prices seem crazy - until you ride one.

 

[gbarfoot]

Not if you compare an sworks to a ktm rallye , or even a replica. Top end prices seem crazy - until you ride one.

Not sure that's a fair comparison. Those are Dakar race bikes, quite different to their regular 450, and they are only making 80 of them. Rally is such a niche sport even if they made them in huge numbers and drove the cost down the majority of dirtbike riders still wouldn't buy one.

 

[tomato paste]

 

[tomato paste]

 

[#mitch]

To me it sounds like while their wages are competitive they are not good enough….

 

[tomato paste]

To me it sounds like while their wages are competitive they are not good enough….

What I think is rather telling, with regard to the current organization of society (liberalism), is that many of these large monopolists may not (or are not) necessarily interested correcting the issue. Consider being a large monopolist, capable of preventing competitors from entering the market, there is no one to challenge your firm from absorbing excess demand with higher prices. You say to yourself, 'Hey look, I can do nothing, which increases my costs zero, and quadruple my revenue. And, I can borrow at 0% to buyback my existing shares, which combined may increase my share price 2x or 3x this year.'

Meanwhile, no investment is made in expanding productive capacity.

 

[folmonty]

These are interesting times. If you'd lived through the 70's - 80's it's back to the future with a few more caveats. Supply chains are totally screwed up. As inflation ramps up hold on to your helmets. This may seem like a walk in the park in another year or two. If you've got an eMTB teat it with TLC. If you're wanting one, pony up!

 

[Calsun]

With people staying close to home during the ongoing pandemic (thanks to self indulgent people refusing to wear masks or get vaccinated) there has been a huge increase in demand for recreational equipment, whether it is bicycles or kayaks or RVs. Having sales increase by 40% or more is a serious problem believe it or not as the bike company suppliers cannot increase their production overnight and many will not hire more workers or buy new manufacturing capacity for a short term spike in demand.

The bike and components companies have raised prices in part to reduce demand but mostly because their costs have increased greatly over the past year. The cost for a container to be sent from Taiwan or China or Japan costs 4x what it did a year ago. It has been made worse by a lack of drivers for the ports as these people are often not even being paid the minimum wage by their employers. When it costs $6000 more for a container of goods to get to a warehouse that cost has to be spread across products in the container and passed along to consumers.

I bought an aluminum kayak trailer during the period that Trump put a tariff on aluminum coming in from Canada and this made a buddy of his even wealthier but it increased what I paid for the trailer by $400. Same with Trump tax on everything coming in from China which makes goods 25% more expensive for people in the USA (and Biden has kept these in place). 99% of the bikes sold in the USA are now made in Taiwan and China.

A lot of the profit on bikes goes to Bosch and Shimano and LG and Continental and other bike component manufacturers. And even Trek is a very small company when compared to General Motors or Ford. The entire US bike market is estimated to be at around $6 billion which seems like a lot but Ford alone has over $130 billion in annual sales. The world's largest bike manufacturer, Giant in Taiwan, has annual sales of about $2 billion.

More of a concern should be the viability of the bike companies as we currently enjoy incredible products that were not available at any price 10 years ago. We also pay a price for buying the latest and greatest as even a new model of bike helmet costs the manufacturer $100, 000 just to make the new mold for the shell. Need to sell a lot of helmets at $50 a unit to retailers to recover that investment.

 

[BushLevo]

As noted above, supply and demand seem to be the key drivers of bike prices lately. I bought my 2019 Turbo Levo Expert in July 2019 for A$11,500 but the similar current model bike now (Turbo Levo Expert Carbon) is A$14,800. Same bike except for 12-sp drivetrain instead of 11-sp. and Fox instead of RockShox. That's a 28% price hike in just over 24 months. Part of that would have to be the global Brose 2.1 motor warranty claims, but I think mostly increased demand and a little post-covid price gouging by suppliers everywhere would play a big part.

 

[Manc44]

It works like anything else - you can be lazy af and spend a fortune with everything already done for you, or you can DIY and save a fortune but that takes effort and know how.

 

[Calsun]

To me it sounds like while their wages are competitive they are not good enough….

At U.S. ports the people driving the trucks do not even make minimum wage for their work. Their employers stiff them for the hours they have worked and forget about premium pay. Without strong unions the workers are screwed and when they are so is anyone else who works for a living. And these are jobs without healthcare or vacation pay or childcare or any of the other things provided as a matter of course in Europe for the past 50+ years.

There are too few truck chassis to pick up the loaded containers and this is largely due to a poorly managed port that buries containers and does not schedule drop-offs of empty containers and so the ports are at best at 60% of their capacity. No manufacturer is going to produce thousands more truck chassis when the demand will evaporate in 12 months and they would be stuck with them. And the rail system is operating at its lowest level in the past 5 years and with multimodal transportation the truck chassis with their containers need to be loaded onto rail cars. No rail cars available then the container on the trailer is parked.

We have business operations that are designed to maximize profits for CEO's and hedge funds by paying as little to workers as possible and not investing in capital improvements to improve efficiency. CEO's are paid based on the stock price and not how well they manage the business in the United States. It is why we are now so dependent on China for most of what we buy.

 

[#mitch]

At U.S. ports the people driving the trucks do not even make minimum wage for their work. Their employers stiff them for the hours they have worked and forget about premium pay. Without strong unions the workers are screwed and when they are so is anyone else who works for a living. And these are jobs without healthcare or vacation pay or childcare or any of the other things provided as a matter of course in Europe for the past 50+ years.

There are too few truck chassis to pick up the loaded containers and this is largely due to a poorly managed port that buries containers and does not schedule drop-offs of empty containers and so the ports are at best at 60% of their capacity. No manufacturer is going to produce thousands more truck chassis when the demand will evaporate in 12 months and they would be stuck with them. And the rail system is operating at its lowest level in the past 5 years and with multimodal transportation the truck chassis with their containers need to be loaded onto rail cars. No rail cars available then the container on the trailer is parked.

We have business operations that are designed to maximize profits for CEO's and hedge funds by paying as little to workers as possible and not investing in capital improvements to improve efficiency. CEO's are paid based on the stock price and not how well they manage the business in the United States. It is why we are now so dependent on China for most of what we buy.

I fully agree with your sentiments but not about the union’s fully. I mean this thread is about how they can’t find enough drivers to drive the trucks so seems like they are getting that message without the union. But it’s splitting hairs really

 

[Mikehorti]

21st century + supply + demand + latest technology + covid + profit margins + import duty = expensive

For that price though, you get a hell of a lot of fun in return