Paying For Crap

Originally posted by jeffro
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The reason is design, testing, overhead, shipping, packaging and then bike shop costs. There is alot more that goes into a part than the cost of the material alone. It also has everything to do with volume. Not that many of us buy high-end bike equipment. Fewer products=higher prices. Either learn to deal or go get into something cheap.

:rolleyes: **

true.when i talked to the guy's at envy a few years ago,sort of when they were first starting out,they had to spend around $10 000 to get the design tested,patented, inputed into the mastercam computer. he said making the product cost virtually nothing,but all the research and steps inputed above made it one helluva expensive bashgaurd prototype!

yeah i don't really worry about the mark-up on biking stuff - its nothing compared to, say, nike shoes.

i volunteered at a bike shop last winter, and they made very, very little money in a day. without the mark-up they wouldn't survive. some days there were only one or two customers. you can't assume that just because the shop is there and that they have lots of mechanics to service your bike and carry expensive components that they're doing well.

take the bike cellar for example.

Originally posted by Leroy McRodney

3. I think that ive justified the arch thing, but what about QR20 Tabs? I belive its $60 for a set of 2, My dad can Machine a pair for under $5 in materials, and it takes him an hour…by hand…
so whats it costing marzocchi to do it with a CNC?

Ok, so the tabs are 60$ and it takes your Dad an hour to make them. Great, so you personally can get a pair for 5$ while your Dad is on the clock spending someone else's nickle. If you factor in design time for not copying someone else's patent, the fact that you'd be hard pressed to find a machine shop that only charges $60 an hour who you would trust to make a part that your life depends on. You're proably looking at atleast 3 hours shop time, at the bargain rate of 60$/hr (based on the original cost of the tabs). Wow, the $60 tabs now cost 180$. It's one thing when you're making your own one off's and time isn't a factor, but when the average person has to get a shop to produce something for them it gets really pricey. As for materials, a decent chunk of T-6 starts to get pricey, also keep in mind that if something is cnc'd there is usually twice as much material that gets wasted when the product is cut out. That isn't even taking into account, shipping, customs, and when it gets to the shop, someone still has to make a buck off of it.

Not the most coherent answer, but I find some of the mentalitites in this thread a little ignorant of how industry works and get the feeling that those who post the "it costs 14$ to make a VPS" haven't been around cycling or the industry long enough to see the evolution that the sport and products have gone through. The bikes and parts that we see today didn't just magically appear, it's been a long, slow and expensive process.

There was a similar argument over tires.

You can pick up 4 tires for a car for $99 US through Discount Tire Co. Even if you went to Jenson USA (a large volume mailorder and online store like DTC) you'd be hard pressed to find decent DH/FR tires for under $40 US each.

You could say that the car tires have more rubber in them, so they should be more expensive. However, the amount of rubber is a moot point compared to all the other stuff. They have to design, test, make molds, etc… with making molds the biggest obstacle.

The car tires can be manufactured in much bigger runs than bike tires, splitting the cost between hundreds or thousands times as many people.

If you say "You are comparing a lowest-end car tire to a higher end bike tire" you can also do this using a $15 US clearout semislick. Less rubber in that, the car tire still has more rubber for the money.

The only real exception to this would be tires that are spec'ed on all Costco, CCM, etc bikes, because they (and the bikes that they are on) are produced in much bigger quantities than the bikes [HTML_REMOVED] tires we ride.

If we didn't have to be on the cutting edge, and breaking everything, then maybe we could get lower prices: manufacturers could design it once, sell it lots, and not warrenty a quarter of what they send out (ficticious talk out of ass number, but you get the picture). Until then, Canadian Tire is always there for you when you want a cheap bike.

Originally posted by Leroy McRodney
**Note: I said it costs them, of course they have to mark it up to make a profit, and then pay shipping, but i dont think markup and shipping is like $140….

If you want I Can Machine you a monster T arch CNC for $30….if you want it polished at another $10….I dont have robots that do it for me. :P **

Well, Im taking one right away, and tell you dad that when it breaks in my face Im gonna sue him, so he better have some good lawyers and insurances…

Originally posted by ATN
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You can pick up 4 tires for a car for $99 US through Discount Tire Co. Even if you went to Jenson USA (a large volume mailorder and online store like DTC) you'd be hard pressed to find decent DH/FR tires for under $40 US each. **

Those aren't exactly "good" car tires, either.

Originally posted by ATN
You can pick up 4 tires for a car for $99 US through Discount Tire Co. Even if you went to Jenson USA (a large volume mailorder and online store like DTC) you'd be hard pressed to find decent DH/FR tires for under $40 US each.

One area where there's unusual gap is in shocks. A set of 4 good performance shocks for a car costs the same as one performance MTB rear shock. And the car shocks will last longer.

Originally posted by switch
One area where there's unusual gap is in shocks. A set of 4 good performance shocks for a car costs the same as one performance MTB rear shock. And the car shocks will last longer.

Plus the car companies make 4x as many as them per buyer.

If you want cheap tools, jerseys, bags, packs, knives, tires, TUBES, maintenence stuff, books, etc. Go to mountain equipment co-op. I have spent hundreds of dollars there, and i have yet to find a bad product. Now, they don't sell frames or alot of compenents, but if you are interested in tools, etc. Go there. They have lots of stuff at an unbeatable price, and amazing quality. It costs $5 for a lifetime membership. And basic mountain bike tubes are $2.25 each! Sure, they are not a beefy as an IRC DH tube, but you can get 5 of these tubes for the price of 2 axiom tubes at a bike shop.

Check out their site www.mec.ca

quote from somewhere: " There is always someone who can make something 1/2 as well for 3/4 the cost"

Originally posted by switch
One area where there's unusual gap is in shocks. A set of 4 good performance shocks for a car costs the same as one performance MTB rear shock. And the car shocks will last longer.

So now we are comparing the cost of heavy steel shocks with high performance light weight bike shocks? Better would be to compare the price of bike shocks with formula 1 race car shocks.

I guess you could say the shocks on Canadian Tire bikes are closer to generic car shocks?