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I see Specialized have obviously read the room regarding global markets etc.
I mean why else would you release a $20,000 / £17,000 ebike.......
WTF!!!
Give them their due, it's a bloody impressive spec with the Podiums and Trickstuff brakes etc. Of course the rest of the spec is pretty damn high too.
How you compare that to one of the cheapest cars money can buy is beyond me.
That's like saying a Lambo is the same price as a helicopter.... So what, they're totally different things 😀
Tubed tyres?!
People will buy them though, much to the disbelief of comments section dwellers, and it generates a load of articles focusing on Specialized.
All bikes come with tubed tyres, so the sealant isn’t just sitting there going off in the shop.
It is a lot of money but it's a proper 'tomhoward' spec, can't see much to upgrade apart from the tyres and a paint job 😀
Specialized dealer will set up tubeless when you pick it up.
Happy with my gen 3 but if I wanted to build another it would be frame only and swap my components onto it.
I think it looks nice though
I'm sure specialized have read the room and the markets and are fully aware that the people who buy halo models aren't affected by them. 😀
I don’t hate the paint job, but if one was really going for ‘Limited edition’ one would have a custom job done, Shirley?
or would folk thing you had the povvo spec one and painted it? #1%problems
I'm a Spesh fan, but that paint is hideous
I think the frame only colour looks better
The frame in that Dacia orange would look nice. Maybe they need a crossover collaboration.
Had a spare 5min...
A quick google search and you can buy all the components/frame/fork, without any special discounts or serious searching for...
£14,605
And you don't have to live with the horrendous paint job.
Specialized are laughing...
@Weeksy - I got the impression in that article that the comparison was a bit tongue in cheek because they had a survey last week asking “does your bike cost more than your car?” And PinkBike commenters (usually yanks) spend all their time bitching and whining about e-bikes and that they could buy a motorbike for the same money.
I got the impression in that article that the comparison was a bit tongue in cheek because they had a survey last week asking “does your bike cost more than your car?” And PinkBike commenters (usually yanks) spend all their time bitching and whining about e-bikes and that they could buy a motorbike for the same money.
The decades old cliche is that you can buy a used car for the price of Boutique Bike X. This has now tipped into a mainstream brand offering their halo model for more than a new car. (Makes no difference whether it's a Lambo or Dacia.)
But it's a bit like when the cost of a coffee went past the cost of a pair of jeans. They aren't the same thing so no need to compare but it's an interesting comparison.
Mission accomplished for Specialized. This story is everywhere.
I live near a Spesh dealer and know some of the lads in there. Yes, they do sell the halo models at full price occasionally. Usually to someone who already has every other toy and for whom and 12-15k makes no difference.
It still weighs 53lbs! I find that the most astonishing thing really - they're somehow disproving the old 'strong, light, cheap...pick 2' adage in the weirdest way.
Had a spare 5min...
A quick google search and you can buy all the components/frame/fork, without any special discounts or serious searching for...
£14,605
And you don't have to live with the horrendous paint job.
Specialized are laughing...
But it does price the paint job at £2400ish which, like it or not, looks like a fair bit of time goes in to doing it, so isn’t utterly ridiculous in the context of high end custom paint jobs (Fat Creations and the like)
Your forgetting about the cost of paint on the sworks frame you need to buy so 3k for paint?? Also it's not being done by fat creations. It's a factory finish, with a clean starting point. Orbea do similar for a few hundred?
The point is it's a complete bike that saves you nothing over building your own, in fact it costs you significantly more.
Bargain, I'll take ten! 🤪
The decades old cliche is that you can buy a used car for the price of Boutique Bike X. This has now tipped into a mainstream brand offering their halo model for more than a new car. (Makes no difference whether it's a Lambo or Dacia.)
Of course it does.
Because if we are going down that route, may I present to you the Dacia Duster:
Your forgetting about the cost of paint on the sworks frame you need to buy so 3k for paint?? Also it's not being done by fat creations. It's a factory finish, with a clean starting point. Orbea do similar for a few hundred?
The point is it's a complete bike that saves you nothing over building your own, in fact it costs you significantly more.
Ah, spec lists it as ‘custom Strata paint’ assumed that was some artist doing it for them.
Millionaires (particularly American ones) don’t want to build bikes themselves. They want to got to a shop and walk out with the best of everything, without having to wait. Same with cars. So they pay a premium for it. My old lbs concept store had a customer fly in, do a bike fit and walked out with 2 £15k Shiv TT bikes
The seatpost not being slammed is the most annoying thing to me.
... i'm seeing full face helmet, full body armour rider doing XC tracks, sitting down with the dropper down.
I mean why else would you release a $20,000 / £17,000 ebike.
Because wealth is increasing rapidly at the wealthy end, among the top few %. Disposable income has been flat for the most people for a long time. This is the sort of thing that tells you what's going on there.
Price aside, aren't we all overlooking the fact that it's absolutely gopping
In terms of goppingness per £ I'd suggest this one would give it a run for its money. € 23,400 so get your pre-orders in!
Was convinced that was a scam until saw they’re based in Monaco.
I guess as a Halo product, like any lime green eye-catching supercar, its drawing attention to the brand. Job jobbed and they might sell a few.
Comparing it to a car is pretty stupid IMHO, when you can find a Porsche for GBP500.
Plenty of the bike stage races I've worked on have pretty expensive bikes around GBP 14-18k without motors! A quick google brings up road bikes which easily go past 20k and you can't use them off road...
Dangerholm does top end bikes, no prices naturally so I guess if you need to ask, you can't afford it...
https://www.pinkbike.com/news/building-the-worlds-lightest-e-mtb.html
Dangerholm doesn’t (often) sell his bikes though, he’s all concept & marketing for Scott/the brands that send him stuff, imagine they all end up in storage at a HQ somewhere eventually.
I live near a Spesh dealer and know some of the lads in there. Yes, they do sell the halo models at full price occasionally. Usually to someone who already has every other toy and for whom and 12-15k makes no difference.
That sums up the majority of people who buy these kind of things.
For some people, once they run out of Rolexes and gold iPhones to buy, the next thing is a bike.
We sold a couple of really top end bikes to guys (always men!) who just wanted the most expensive bike in the shop. I did a ride-leading job on a corporate event once where one of the punters had a top of the range Cervelo, arguably better (lighter) than the actual TdF models. He knew nothing whatsoever about it, he simply had £15,000 to spend on a bike that was better than the £12,000 one his mate had bought the previous month.
It's the standard adage - if you were good enough to justify a bike like that, you'd be paid to ride it.
The motorbike analogy doesn't really work anymore either.
Stock motorbike suspension is really awful, conceptually it's like Rockshox Turnkey suspension, only without the adjustment.
I'd actually be interested to know how much it costs someone like Honda to buy the bog standard Showa forks that are spec'd on pretty much every one of their 'normal' bikes. They're a lot more substantial than MTB forks, and the inside of the sliders has to be finished as a sliding surface*, but the damping system is simpler, and there's no air piston, IFP, etc.
Rear shocks are similar, my bike has twinshocks, and a PAIR of shocks for £175 outperforms the Showa originals.
A £6k e-bike probably does have as much tech and complexity and better quality parts than a £6k motorbike. They're just made to exploit different rules.
If you browse the aftermarket parts for motorcycles it's relatively easy to be spending Fox Podium money on a fork, or even double, or triple that if you want the clever electric controlled ones.
*rather than just 2 bushings in the lowers there's one bushing in the lower under the seal, and one fixed on the stanchion that slides in the lower
It does look awful, and I suspect it's primarily a marketing exercise - i.e. getting these kind of headlines and outraged comments for having the most-expensive mainstream MTB
and if you built it yourself you'd get the same finish is brown which I still think is ugly but not quite so in your face
https://www.specialized.com/gb/en/s-works-turbo-levo-4-frameset/p/4218701?color=5363244-4218701
Well give them due, Specialized are currently a talking point on every major media publication and many social channels.
Having seen the brown frame linked above built up, it looks like it came straight out of the dirty protest in the Maze prison circa early 80’s.
Truly revolting.
all ebikes are aimed at middle aged men. this is just aimed at rich middle aged men.
I don’t actually mind the paint job.
but . . . It looks like an early 90s claud butler.
Not true...' all ebikes are aimed at middle aged men' - also delivery riders and commuters. But while the paint jobs are absolutely awful on this I'm not so horrified by the price as frankly any bike that's more than 5K still strikes me as ridiculously expensive
tbh, the car pricing has gone nuts as well. If we are comparing extremes, the most expensive new Rolls Royce in year 2000 was about 300,000 gbp?? Now the most expensive is Rolls Royce Droptail for 25 *million*.
all expensive bikes are aimed at middle aged men, as they have the disposable income
FTFY, I mean ffs don't tell all the teenagers around here they not allowed to own one (mainly second hand bargins tbf)...
Not seeing much in the way of cheap crappy parts on this
Stark Varg EX - The fastest electric off-road bike in the world | Stark Future https://share.google/oerVlruewQhRU7l9S
Or this
Honda CRF 250R 2025 - Marsh Powersports https://share.google/byAK9twp7E12DeIWb
The stupid price doesn't surprise me but that woeful paint job really shows what an ugly frame it is.
All bikes come with tubed tyres
Partner's Trek Rail came tubeless from the shop. I know because she got a puncture last week. Just sayin.
Now the most expensive is Rolls Royce Droptail for 25 *million*.
A one off custom Roller? That's like asking Richard Sachs, Tom Sturdy and Peter Weigle (*) to spend 2 years in a workshop making just your bike, and asking Shimano Skunk Works and Ritchey to create the parts for it. A few 100 grand would do it I reckon?
(* this says something about my 'billionaire bike' ideas anyway - A Levo just isn't it)
I see Specialized have obviously read the room regarding global markets etc.
I mean why else would you release a $20,000 / £17,000 ebike.......
WTF!!!
There is a specialized concept store near me and they make pinarello look reasonably priced
Not seeing much in the way of cheap crappy parts on this
Yep, and once you've bought the basic bike with the basic suspension, you can start tricking it out. £3000 for a set of RXF48's? I suppose if you're on a budget then you could just do the damper and keep the Showa chassis, that's a bargain at £1700 + labor and shipping.
www.brooksuspension.co.uk/forks/honda-crf-250-r-ohlins-ffx-1202-complete-rxf-48-usd-forks-18-24
Want to swap the rear shock to match the front, that's another £1750.
www.brooksuspension.co.uk/motorcycle-shock-absorbers/honda-crf-250-r-ohlins-dmx-0209-ttx-flow-dv-shock-absorber-22-24
Think Ohlins is a bit too showy and want to keep it 'factory? The Showa equivalent is a bargain at £6450....... but it does have kashima coating so really it's the logical comparison to those Fox units.
www.brooksuspension.co.uk/forks/honda-crf-250-r-showa-a-kit-25
Then there's the bike itself? You're not going to race with the OEM steel exhaust are you? £1800 and you could have a Yoshi or Akrapovic system.
Let's not get into stripping down a brand new engine, £70 for a K&N filter, £500 for a tuner and another £200-£300 for some time on a dyno should be enough for now.
Stock wheels? What is this, armature hour? £1150 for some Talon hubs and Excel rims should save a few grams. May as well stick a renthal sprocket on there whilst it's in bits, £50.
CNC'd foot pegs £200
Frame protection £100
So we're upto £18,000 (plus labour)
You're right, a similarly high end motorbike is a bargain..........