[Closed] Average bike costs just £233.

The fact that you think a bike should cost more than £233 is sad. I bought my lad a £320 merlin two years ago. He's still commuting 15 miles a day on it.

I don't doubt you can get a perfectly adequate bike for £233. It's just a bike, not a motorbike.

I'd suspect its more the case that overwhelming majority of bikes sold are kids bikes. Grown ups buying expensive bikes won't do much to offset that.

Kids bikes are bonkers prices if you don't want one made out of old scaffold pipes

I'm frankly stunned that the average is that high.

The fact that you think a bike should cost more than £233 is sad. I bought my lad a £320 merlin two years ago. He's still commuting 15 miles a day on it.

320 is greater than 233 last I checked.

I don't think a bike should cost a fortune, £350ish is a good starting point for sure. I would totally agree that you can get some half decent for that amount. What is bad is that if the average is £233 and think how much we all spend on bikes then this actually pushes the figures up. If you took out all bikes over say £1000 the average price of bike would be far worse.

I find it depressing that people just see bikes as throw away items and not something of a long term investment.

The fact that you think a bike should cost more than £233 is sad. I bought my lad a £320 merlin two years ago. He's still commuting 15 miles a day on it.
I don't doubt you can get a perfectly adequate bike for £233. It's just a bike, not a motorbike.

I think the OP's point is that if £233 is the average, there must be a shed load being sold for less than that.

For the vast majority that buy a bike the stuff we think is a pile of junk does the job for them. They are ridden to the shops or their kids ride them round the block, then they rust in a shed for years and get taken to the tip. For that kind of use I wouldn't spend any more.

I learnt the quality factor myself, coming from a background where parents thought even £50 seemed steep for a bike and then some 15 odd years back I bought what I thought was an expensive bike. It was pretty much a BSO and I knew no different. Was ridden to the shops and down the tow path, and that was it. Years later I dug it out, had an explore, knowing nothing about mountain biking, and found some singletrack. The bike promptly fell apart and I learnt why people spend more on them.

I think the OP's point is that if £233 is the average, there must be a shed load being sold for less than that.

My mother once went out and bought 2 bikes from Tesco for £60 each. Full suspension. I think they got used once.

You can get something half decent for £200 though. It's easy to sniff at stuff when you're all grown up and have these expensive toys, but I started mountain biking on a cheap Emmelle when I was 13. I was still riding that bike when I was about 23, and it took a fair bit of abuse. Snapped an axle once, but that was about it, and my fault really because I was riding with the cones loose.

For a few notes over the national average you can get one of these... [url] http://www.halfords.com/cycling/bikes/hybrid-bikes-and-classic-bikes/carrera-subway-1-mens-hybrid-bike-2015 [/url]

It will never set the world on fire but if all you are doing is commuting and going to the shops then why pay more.? I do believe that anything sub £200 does indeed buy you a basic bike that if used and abused on a daily basis will not stand the test of time. The vast majority of bikes sold are cheap and are used a dozen times a year if that. Most will sit gathering dust in garages for most of their lives and the folks buying them know this.

and think how much we all spend on bikes then this actually pushes the figures up

but there aren't very many people like us with either the enthusiasm or the disposable income. Theres too few of us to budge the average very much at all.

You can get a perfectly decent commuting bike for £200. Something tough enough with decent gearing and brakes that will last and is serviceable.
It's just that we're all bike snobs and 7sp is below us, when, in fact, it works perfectly well
Working in the trade has had an odd effect on me. I don't buy top of the range stuff because I can get it cheap, I buy more basic bikes than I ever did because I know how well it works!

You can get a perfectly decent commuting bike for £200. Something tough enough with decent gearing and brakes that will last and is serviceable.
It's just that we're all bike snobs and 7sp is below us, when, in fact, it works perfectly well
Working in the trade has had an odd effect on me. I don't buy top of the range stuff because I can get it cheap, I buy more basic bikes than I ever did because I know how well it works!

Oops. That was me. Mrs P was logged in! 🙂

Working in the trade has had an odd effect on me. I don't buy top of the range stuff because I can get it cheap, I buy more basic bikes than I ever did because I know how well it works!

Same here. The seven and eight speed Shimano roadie and MTB stuff really is good if set up correctly and maintained.

people are riding around on piles of crap that won't last 5 minutes.

My Vitus Vee29er was around £233, I've replaced the brake pads once, other than that I havn't touched a thing. I brought it at least 2 years ago and love the bike.

I suspect the vast majority of bikes are bought for anything other than mountain biking.
£200 bikes are perfectly adequate for popping to the shops, riding to school/work, leaving at the railway station or doing the paper round.

The mag used to do a feature on things to do for £100.
One time they bought a bike - I bought it off them for £80, for a mate.

In all honesty, it was fine - plastic brakes were a bit scary round Lee Quarry and it didn't exactly skip along, but it did the job.

I like cheap bikes - it's even harder to make a good one.
Mate has a Carrera for commuting - discs, hub gears, decent alloy frame, fine on and off road.
I think he paid about £300 when they were selling off the 26er version.
Brilliant thing.

I'd still be worried for leaving anything worth more than the lock at my local station, judging by the dismantled 'frames' that hang off their locks there, let alone £200 worth.
Peoples interpretation of a bike is 'Halfords and £120' generally.

That seems a lot to me for a mean figure given you can buy a bike for £60.

[i]Peoples interpretation of a bike is 'Halfords and £120' generally.[/i]

Or Decathlon. A recommendation off here got a friend at work a superb bike for less than £200. He can't believe I paid as much for a seatpost as he paid for his complete bike 🙂

you can get a pretty good bike for £233, they sell carrera Road and mountain bikes for that much in Halfords

Even if you designed and built a rigid hybrid, v-brakes, 1x8 gears, mudguards, tough shopper tyres, nobody would buy it. Everyone would still buy the full "suspension", plastic disc braked, BSO from Asda, "cuz it's better, innit!"

There are some tidy £233 bikes out there, they're just hard to find.

Halfords are the UK's biggest bike seller and the most popular bike is a £99 Trax full suss. And then there's all the supermarket bikes etc, plus kids bikes etc... I'd have guessed it'd be lower too.

I suppose it's positive that you really don't need to spend much more than the average to get a really solid bike, these days.

Don't get this at all. The average is £233? And? Just means a shed load of kids bikes being sold at below that figure, and a few more expensive MAMIL ones above. I bought a used Tassajara for £900, and two bikes for my children for £100. Total spend £1,000. My average spend is thus £300. So I'm above average spend wise per bike!

Dont forget chaps, we're all bike geeks by the very nature of being on this site posting about bikes.
The same could be said of cameras, watches, cars, telescopes etc etc etc the list is endless.

If you're into somthing, you're willing to spend more money, way more than the 'average punter'.
It's very easy to lose site of what the 'average punter' considers suitable when some would easily drop £120 on a pair of tyres.

I think we may have a somewhat skewed version of what a bike should cost on here.

The majority of bikes sold in the UK I'd imagine are kid's bikes, and very few people would be willing to spend over £200 on one of them.

Or Decathlon. A recommendation off here got a friend at work a superb bike for less than £200

Thinking about it, I picked up one of their MTBs for about that price when I needed a second bike to hack about on when my OH was working in London. £200 seemed to be about the price point where you started getting half decent components rather than groupsets made of cheese.

I removed the not-fit-for-purpose lamp, indexed the gears properly and stuck some semi-slicks on it, other than that it's untouched and it's served me just fine as an around-town hybrid-a-like.

Kids bikes are bonkers prices if you don't want one made out of old scaffold pipes

......and kids are also bonkers. And my three kids , like all of their mates, don't give a monkey's hump about their bikes and will wilfully crash them into stuff, chuck them down hills, throw them down onto concrete / tarmac and knowingly abandon them in places where it is entirely likely that their stoopid ol' Da' may well reverse over them in the car.

I want my kids bikes to be made of old scaffold pipes and cost less than £100.

Not many primary school kids care about Strava segments or carbon fibre.
As long as I keep checking the bikes for safety purposes every night before I put them away, a few extra grams (or kilograms) on the bike just isn't a problem.

[i][s]Kids[/s][/i] Islabrats' [i]bikes are bonkers prices if you don't want one made out of old scaffold pipes[/i]

FTFY 😀

I duuno about that, there's a kid that sometimes comes on the Trolls social paced rides and embarrasses some of the grownups. He looks about 10!

As for £233, my first proper MTB was £275 and had a full deore groupset and RS forks. It'd be overkill for commuting which is what 99% of bikes are probably used for.

Heck, even my fatty was £640 from O-O in the pre Christmas sale before I started pimping it.

£239
http://www.decathlon.co.uk/rockrider-500-mountain-bike-orange-id_8319534.html

As others have said - 'average' (re national average bicycle purchase) doesn't really apply on STW.

As a non-competing bike nut (all types of pedal-powered transport) my personal average has changed over time from about 500 to 170ish as have traditionally bought both new and used. In more able-bodied and affluent times I've spent over a grand (on two occasions) but the resultant happiness was more bling and less tinkering. Now I enjoy more tinkering :-). If the national average based on a quick once-in-a-lifetime punt on a cheap bike that is left to rust then I have no place on that statistic either.

Yep- the bmx I bought for the kids were about this price.

Mtb 'enthusiasts' will accept paying 10x that amount, but won't be 10x faster generally

Carrera subway 1, bang on the average price £229 from Halfords if you say you [i]need[/i] more than this for a day to day bike then you're clearly deluded.....
Chainset: SUNTOUR XCE - 48/38/28T - 175mm
Front Brake: TEKTRO NOVELA BLACK MECHANICAL DISC BRAKE - 160mm Rotor
Front Hub: Alloy QR Hubs - 32 Hole
Front Mech: SHIMANO Tourney FD-M191
Gear Shifters: Shimano Altus ST- EF
Mudguard Mounts: Yes
Pannier Mounts: Yes
Pedals: Wellgo Alloy Platform - 9/16"
Rear Brake: TEKTRO NOVELA BLACK MECHANICAL DISC BRAKE - 160mm Rotor
Rear Hub: Alloy QR Hubs - 32 Hole
Rear Mech: SHIMANO ALTUS RD-M280
Rims: Carrera Alloy Double Wall Disc Brake Specific Rim - 32 Hole
Saddle: Carrera Performance Saddle
Type: Hybrid Bikes
Tyre Size: 27.5x1.95
Tyres: VEE RUBBER CITY SLICK

Well yes, but that has no suspension so will be unfashionable as owt (it is 650B though!), so will be left in the shop in favour of the pig iron full sus with more play in it's pivots that actual suspension travel...

This is a bit like someone on a camera forum saying 'OMG, the average spent on a camera is £100!'

hilldodger - Member
Carrera subway 1, bang on the average price £229 from Halfords if you say you need more than this for a day to day bike then you're clearly deluded.....
Chainset: SUNTOUR XCE - 48/38/28T - 175mm
Front Brake: TEKTRO NOVELA BLACK MECHANICAL DISC BRAKE - 160mm Rotor
Front Hub: Alloy QR Hubs - 32 Hole
Front Mech: SHIMANO Tourney FD-M191
Gear Shifters: Shimano Altus ST- EF
Mudguard Mounts: Yes
Pannier Mounts: Yes
Pedals: Wellgo Alloy Platform - 9/16"
Rear Brake: TEKTRO NOVELA BLACK MECHANICAL DISC BRAKE - 160mm Rotor
Rear Hub: Alloy QR Hubs - 32 Hole
Rear Mech: SHIMANO ALTUS RD-M280
Rims: Carrera Alloy Double Wall Disc Brake Specific Rim - 32 Hole
Saddle: Carrera Performance Saddle
Type: Hybrid Bikes
Tyre Size: 27.5x1.95
Tyres: VEE RUBBER CITY SLICK

POSTED 1 HOUR AGO # REPORT-POST

I bought the female version of one of these for my teenage daughter a few months back. I got it boxed and set it up - I was pleasantly surprised how good it is, nothing flash and slightly heavy, but a great bike for the money.

If I needed a new bike solely for commuting I'd happily buy one, and I've spent well over £2k on MTBs and road bikes on many occasions.

Subways are almost always good. Shame they've made it pretty though this year, the old grey one was genius- stick it in a bike rack beside something shiny and it's invisible to magpies. Like the old revolution courier.

So, OP - seeing as there is actually so much agreement on this thread (ie. most posters repeating what's already been said but in a slightly different way!), have we managed to change your mind about [s]cheap[/s] (beg pardon) averagely priced bikes? Or have you just run away from the subject now?

STW land could offer to do a story for the beeb - average cost of an STWers bike. Also car, house, - it's a demographic thing innit! An all purpose number is pretty useless until there's some context!

It has always been thus.
The enthusiasts are affronted, and the cheap bike user doesn't give a stuff*.

(*Until it needs serviced. "I could buy a new bike for that!")

Carrera subway 1, bang on the average price £229 from Halfords if you say you need more than this for a day to day bike then you're clearly deluded...

That's what I had, only mine was a few years back with 7sp and vee brakes for £195.
I commuted on it for a couple of years and all I spent was mudguards and rack and a higher geared chain set (£15 pig iron job, perfectly adequate) as it was too low geared for me.
Also did a 300 mile tour on it.
In fairness it wasn't much good for touring as it was under braked and my higher gearing was too high for Cornish hills, but it convinced me a rigid MTB was the right tourer for me.
I sold it for £125 or thereabouts.
Utter bargain.

Everyone should have a £200-£300 bike for knocking about on.
How many people are "cyclists" and think that they must go on a specific ride, on the right bike, wearing the right kit, stopping at the cool cafe..... Yet they get the car out to go 3 miles to the shops.
We need to be more European about cycling and have a town bike that we get on without thinking about it for errands, school runs, commuting and the like.
I'm a firm believer in the utility bike. It don't have to be posh, it just needs to be tough, and USED! 🙂

Which reminds me, must rebuild my cones and get the Diamondhack back on the road...