This article might be a good few years old, but the message is still similar. The quality of the components and bikes we buy now are way better than a few years ago, don’t you think?
I’ve noticed more and more complaints along the lines of “HOW MUCH?” about the price of bike parts,”You could buy a car” etc.
It’s true that especially in the last couple of years there have been price hikes which have been more to do with the power of the pound and dollar, but I think things are still good value – possibly better than they’ve ever been.
I can imagine a lot of you are already think that I’m talking bollocks or that being in the privileged position that we are at STHQ we are too far removed from the day to day to know what’s what price wise. That may be true but we need to wander back in time.
Back in 1996 at the bike shop I worked at, a pair of Rockshox Judy DH’s were around £600.00. For that you got elastomer 80mm of undamped suspension (well damping as we know it ) and we could sell those all day. After, you were sold a pair of White Brothers hard body cartridges and a pair of springs for another £200.00 so they’d go up and down.
..and check out the reviews..
If you adjust for inflation, Rockshox at today’s prices would be £840.00 and the cartridge and springs would be another £280.00!
So looking at the fork market today, A pair of Rockshox Lyrics U-turns are £799.00. For that you get a 170mm fully adjustable fork that has real damping, proper internals and you can adjust them to pedal uphill as well as down.
Propbably something closer to the old Judy would be a SID. How much? £639.00 for 100mm of travel that weighs 3.27 pounds. That’s just one example of one brand of forks.
I remember my first full suspension bike was a GT LTS 2. It was £1799.00 with canti brakes Rockshox Indy forks and a very basic Rockshox coil rear shock – it never got full travel as the nylon bushes were so useless. It didn’t stop and flexed more than a Mastercard. Before a year had gone by I had the bearing kit (which you needed to make the thing work), V brakes and a pair of Bombers, which were astronomical at the time.
That’s £2500.00 now. I’d probably go and buy a Specalized Pitch or equivalent and take the bike on holiday with the change.
So yes things seem to be expensive – but view it in the whole and bikes are still ace value for money ;]
There = They’re
😉
I’m sure these products weren’t made in the volumes they are today though
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and how much were grips in these halcyon days of yore?
were they £30 minus inflation = £22?
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what I don’t remember from yester-year, and what really boils my widdle, is that just because items are classed as a consumables then bike shops put a premium on them. inner tubes for a fiver, powerlinks for £3, brake blocks/ pads for £15
and just because it’s good business and because people will pay that, doesn’t make it right
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BAH!
You are talking bollocks. Bikes, the same ones we buy here, are 25% cheaper in Spain. We are being ripped off in the UK, end of.
Thanks for the eloquence Stevie – I imagine stuff in Spain has been cheaper the last couple of years with the strength of the euro to pound, and i’m not here to defend the bike industry – I was just trying to make an equal comparison with the UK market 14-15 years ago and now. £3.00 for a powerlink seems ok as well, how many do you need! – Brake pads are another thing- from my previous expereince as an IBD margins on pads were better than bikes but then you also had tons of stock siting there a lot doing nothing trying to keep pads for all the major manufacturers and year models… I Bet my old IBD Still has 4 bolt rotors and f bolt rotors and coda pads – and the old hayes and the new Hayes etc ;].
were judy DHs really £600? surely not…
“position that were in are to far removed ”
pardon?
What makes 1996 of particular value as a standard against which to compare todays prices? If you compare them to a few years ago, say 2008, todays prices seem vastly worse value for money, what if you compare them to 1896? Pick any year you like to get the result you want.
Maybe its that we have less available cash now than in 1996 making things seem more expensive…
Soma_rich is on the money…average income in the uk increased by only 2% last year, whilst inflation has reversed it’s decline and is now over 3% (I think). Price rises have consistently outstripped wages meaning that the amount of disposable income people have to spend has over time been falling in this country.
We need an equivalent of the CPI/RPI for bike parts! So what should go in a typical bike part shopping basket?
On the bright side bikes now work and offer a level of comfort (hence descending speed) and lack of maintenance only dreamt of 15 yrs ago. In 1996 I was having to take RST elastomer sprung forks apart every time it rained. These days (different forks) it’s an annual service if they’re lucky. Do we really want to go back to elastomer sprung forks or worse still stems and cantis? I’m not keen.
totally agree – if you don’t like the prices, don’t buy the kit. market competition will take care of all that, if things really were a rip-off then companies would be undercut by competitors making the most of the situation. plus, no-one needs £600+ forks, it’s a want. i have loads of fun on complete bikes that cost less than that.
soma rich, agreed, the UK is generally a poor-value place to live / earn a living these days.
like enjoying simpler bikes, there is a less-is more attitude that takes care of this lack-of-cash-for-material-wants ‘problem’.
“companies would be undercut by competitors making the most of the situation”
Really?
Yes really. Unless the bike industry was operating a fairly illegal monopoly.
anyone want a pair of mk1 manitou? dual travel – 30mm in the cold and 45mm in the summer lol
“£3.00 for a powerlink seems ok as well, how many do you need”
CRC do them for £1.33 a pair (posted), EBC used to do them for 99p a pair
Some people can really get through them (myself included, though its getting less)
What Chris S said, compare stuff to 2008 (early-mid), I know the £ has dropped loads, but the change in prices over a relatively short amount of time makes the high prices so much shocking
In 2008 prices were cheap, so when you compare today’s pretty high prices with 2008’s pretty low prices things look worse than they are. So you get madness like people thinking this year’s Pitch Pro is bad value because they remember when you could get one for a grand. It was basically theft at a grand, at £1500 it’s still great value.
Some things are better just now than they were a few months ago, Shimano frinstance.
“Look at what you get for your money now” seems a disingenuous argument, what you got then was as good as the rock shox etc could make at the time, same as always. Cars and pretty much everything else is the same, trickle down trechnology and that. A better comparison would be cost of XT in 96 vs cost of XT now, purely cost not performance (which will always be better)
But the basis of your argument is probably right, we’ve been spoilt with low prices last few years – I just hope stuff “seems” cheaper again soon.
The late 90s are a good time to compare because that is when the pound last had the same value relative to the dollar.
I also like the fact that stuff works a lot better now although Manitou have tried very hard to reverse the trend.
Agree about ’08 being a bit of a Golden year! We’ve all been spoilt rotten!
What I miss is the entry level bikes of old. You could go out and get a rigid steel HT with a full shimano group for about £350 and it would be light, reliable and brilliant.
Sure you could probably coble an On One together using the classifieds and come in on that budget, but why aren’t there more off the peg bikes like that? I dread it when a friend wants buying advice at that budget these days.