[Closed] £6250 for a mountain bike?

I've just edited my post as I realised I cocked up and said it was directed at you!

Sod's law, the one bit I thought "i'll make sure i get this right" 🙄

Ah - only takes the one specific word eh? Thanks for the detailed answer though. 😉

This is incorrect.

No its not

Nice to see the level of debate hitting the usual lofty standards 😀

No its not

Well then we disagree 🙂

I also meant to add another thing:

Bike retailers make more, precentage-wise, out of low-end bikes (hybrids, sub £1k mtbs) than they do out of high end bikes. Though [b]at best[/b], this is around 40% (and that's only if they sign up to a big commitment of bikes in advance.)
Even so, a 40% margin on a bike wich costs under £500 isn't all that big, and they make a living by selling volumes of these bikes.

It's all a bit mad, and I don't like talking about money that much, but it really gets to me when people complain about prices like they're being held to ransom, and implying that bike companies are out to make billions and bankrupt their customers in the process- This is the behaviour of the banks and the property industry, not the bike trade.

maybe the maufacturing costs of a Porsche are 8k different but then the nature of assembly is greater?

pinetree. What got me thinking about margins was seeing the thread on £500 hartails. I saw [url= http://www.decathlon.co.uk/81-2011-id_8168695.html ]this[/url] and thought 'how on earth can they shift that at that price per unit'

Look at the spec. They must be shifting one hell of a lot of them to make anything. The profit must be wafer thin on that

maybe the maufacturing costs of a Porsche are 8k different but then the nature of assembly is greater?

Say what?

maybe to actually manufacture the different parts of each car yields an £8000 difference but that may not actually take into consideration build costs?

Okay gotcha

Binners,

That frame probably cost buttons to make (most likely a malaysian catalogue special) so all the money goes into the parts on that.
Not much r&d needed for a generic cheap frame, eh?

But yeah, they'll shift a hell of a lot of em at that price. Almost worth buying that, along with a decent frame and use it as a donor bike!

Pinetree - Great minds. I've got a Pace RC305 frame sat around doing nowt, and I was thinking much the same thing. You'd struggle to build that spec up with second hand parts for that price!

My new frame, which should be along shortly, costs £4300 and a bit....

Add some carbon wheels, then it makes the 6k bike look cheap!

Worth every penny.

Net margin, so after all costs, tax etc has been taken out, for Giant Bicycles as a whole is 7.9%. So for your £6,000 bike Giant will make £474*.

They will?

I thought Giant sold to a national distributor, who then sold to a retailer, who then sold to you.

I would imagine "Giant's" profit on it to be more like £250ish.

@ Binners, Decathlon also cut out the distibutor & almost all retailer costs for their products too, as the cut from the bike to run their shops is smaller than a usual bike shop has to be.

**** a duck maybe the wrong question to ask?

Alternately maybe being an engineering type I think engineers just look at a product like a bike and in all honesty go It's just a bike. Apologies but to me a bike that costs 1k is as indifferent as a bike that cost's £6250 ,no jealousy or slating anyone that wants to spend their hard earned but more a case of it does the same thing.

Maybe these things aren't aimed at customers like me

They will?

I thought Giant sold to a national distributor, who then sold to a retailer, who then sold to you.

I would imagine "Giant's" profit on it to be more like £250ish.

You will know more about the specifics than i do. That figure was just taken from their latest set of results and is for the entire company so includes electric bikes, kids, race bikes etc as well as any parts they make. I presume some things are significantly higher margin than others which drags the blended number up.

Edit: Sorry, reading the wrong line trying to do it quickly. That figure is pre tax and interest. Net margin is actually 6.4%.

If the poor bike industry is barely breaking even in 2012, how on earth did they survive 3-4 years ago when the prices were significantly lower?

'cos their material costs were much lower?

Lower material costs, slotting a load of staff, lower r&d expenditure, relocation of manufacturing to lower cost areas etc etc....

In fact I'm pretty certain if you set your mind to it one could easily build a bike that cost in excess of £10K.

Go on then, what's the most expensive build you can come up with?

thedevelopmentengineer - Member

**** a duck maybe the wrong question to ask?

Alternately maybe being an engineering type I think engineers just look at a product like a bike and in all honesty go It's just a bike. Apologies but to me a bike that costs 1k is as indifferent as a bike that cost's £6250 ,no jealousy or slating anyone that wants to spend their hard earned but more a case of it does the same thing.

Maybe these things aren't aimed at customers like me

As an engineer how can you say that....

Perhaps if you were a middle aged housewife with no interest in bikes, you might say that.

Are you a middle aged housewife with no interest in cycling?

If you're seriously considering buying a £6k bike, then changes are you have a £50k Audi sitting in the drive.

molgrips - Member

In fact I'm pretty certain if you set your mind to it one could easily build a bike that cost in excess of £10K.

Go on then, what's the most expensive build you can come up with?

I'll tell you what, it's bloody difficult!

Go on then, what's the most expensive build you can come up with?

These are full RRP

Storck Adrenelin 1.7 - £2800
DT Swiss XRC 100 Twin Shot Race Forks - £1149
Acros A-GE Hydraulic Shifting - C£2200 or the K-Edge Di2 stuff for similar money
Enve wheels on king hubs - £2500
BrakeforceOne Brakes C£1000
Enve finishing kit - lets say £600 but probably more
Tune Smartfoot cranks - £550
Saddle? - £140

Total: £10939

You could go much more expensive though. Tune have a super trick magnetic hub and there's all the AX lightness stuff that if you have to ask you can't afford it - seriously, I can't find prices anywhere.

Roadie stuff is much easier to get over 10k, Storck 0.6 is 7k for the frameset

Lower material costs,

Hmm,
[url= http://www.infomine.com/investment/metal-prices/aluminum/5-year/ ]5 year aluminium price[/url]

A bike is too expensive at the point you become scared of riding it properly for fear of damaging it. For me I'd say that'd be £1.5k max. I'd never have XTR, or a wheelset costing more than £250 etc etc. Though a lot of the time this is related to disposable income, it certainly isn't always. You pay your money and you take your choice.

I find it pretty sickening. But to be honest more worried about the price of bills and bog standard mountain-bike parts.

Amazing to see how things like the Specialized Pitch went up year on year with limited changes in spec...

In the car industry at least, more profit is made from selling at the high end of the market.

This is why ford and Chrysler stopped making their cheaper pick ups. The difference in production costs was small compared to the difference in what people would pay for them.

It is the same reason that car companies need a luxury brands and models to sit alongside their cheaper cars. The additional profits fund development while a wide range of brands assist growth for the company as a whole. I imagine something similar occurs in the bike industry.

For the record I love expensive bikes and only spend money on cars because my wife pays for them.

These are full RRP

Storck Adrenelin 1.7 - £2800
DT Swiss XRC 100 Twin Shot Race Forks - £1149
Acros A-GE Hydraulic Shifting - C£2200 or the K-Edge Di2 stuff for similar money
Enve wheels on king hubs - £2500
BrakeforceOne Brakes C£1000
Enve finishing kit - lets say £600 but probably more
Tune Smartfoot cranks - £550
Saddle? - £140

Total: £10939

You could go much more expensive though. Tune have a super trick magnetic hub and there's all the AX lightness stuff that if you have to ask you can't afford it - seriously, I can't find prices anywhere.

Roadie stuff is much easier to get over 10k, Storck 0.6 is 7k for the frameset

That Tune rear hub is around around E1,000, so less the £400 for the King adds about £400 to the total above. DT Aerolite spokes would be around £240 for 64.
£140 for the saddle? The AX combined saddle/seatpost is around the E600 mark. Looks very nice though, I've tried (but not bought!) a standard AX seat and it was surprisingly comfy.
The Enve stuff is reasonably expensive but try Schmolke for eye-watering (£800 for a set of road bars for example)
.
EDIT Looking for something else just found a $575 stem http://moots.myshopify.com/collections/components/products/moots-rsl-stem
.EDIT2 found what I was looking for, Moots Divide frame is $5k, so have one those instead of the Stork and add another £400. Probably another £150 to upgrade the shock to a BOS Vip'r. Must be approaching £13k now?

A bike is too expensive at the point you become scared of riding it properly for fear of damaging it. For me I'd say that'd be £1.5k max. I'd never have XTR, or a wheelset costing more than £250 etc etc.

With you there Dave. For me to put an XTR/Carbon XX rear mech on would be like throwing a gauntlet down to every big pointy rock in the area. It wouldn't last 5 minutes. And I'd get upset

I think my record was a set of eggbeater pedals, smashed into a rock on their first ride out after 2 hours max use! I snapped one of the 'bars'. Not so expensive but annoying. Granted, cr@p riding for sure.

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Somewhere around E1,000, without rings.
Power-meter compatible version available too, and power meters aren't cheap.

I buy what i can afford.dont care what other people can or cant buy.
I have a pretty good bike,but if it came to it i would ride a £300 hardtail,as long as i can ride i will be happy.

Supply and demand.

On the wheels surely you go for AX Lightness tub rims with Sapim Superspokes on the Tune King/Dezibel hub. That'll be well over £3000!