If A Bike Is Too Expensive, We Have An Alternative | GCN Tech Show Ep. 374

Would you still go in for a fake product if it is cheaper than the original? 👀

Happybirthday to Oli 🎉

On the topic of price – stop purchasing items that are so expensive, sales are the reason brands will continue to charge so much. You simply do not need it.

Get an past year model. Affordable to me is the ability to purchase another bike the next day, if my bike is destroyed in a crash. As prices goes up, with a smaller population purchasing, older models would be let go at a much lower price.

People need to look beyond the big name brands. There’s tons of great product out there that are legit, just not with the money to bankroll a pro squad or two or three.

Ollie: Super X is "Ruper Ten, if yer a Roman". Happy birthday mate!

The old sealant
DID not work at the temperature in Thailand
🇹🇭
Period

Secondhand is too hard, you're saying don't buy from one disreputable source with no guarantee and fund crime, buy from another disreputable source with no guarantee and even worse, possibly stolen and still funding crime. I would never be 100% sure buying secondhand or even have the required skill to get it right.

The prices are high because people are paying it.

When a company puts out a $15K bike how many of them are they planning on selling? Are they bespoke? Ferrari will make only dozens of certain cars. Is the production on a top end bike similar to that? Do many of the people who end up with the top end of the bike end up not paying for it, such as pro racers?
There is a bigger market for something that's $15k than 1.5million but it's still a very specialized market. #askgcn happy 40th ollie glad to see you're back.

Fezzari was the old name for the U.S brand ARI.

Esacape? Fixed gear. 🙂

F1 had a price and budget cap (yes it’s still high), but how about the grand tours have a price cap that no one bike can cost(retail) at more than £10k that should push down the cost of high end bikes, which should have an impact on the lower end also. Companies can still make high end Ferraris, for those with the money, but not for racing. It should really help the teams too.

There is a problem with the watch analogy. You can buy a $20 watch that keeps time and fits your arm as well as a $100,000 Rolex. The bike industry does not work that way. A new $100-$150 Wal-Mart bike can be bought but it will weigh 50+lbs, will have cheap, inefficient components that don't last and break easily and the brakes on the bike won't stop you reliably and can't be made to do so. If the watch analogy held, you could buy a new $300 bike that would be competitive against a Pinarello F but you just can't do that in todays market. The cheapest you can get a new reasonably good bike for is probably in the $2000-3000 range and yes, functionally it's pretty close to a Pinarello F but it's not <$500 vs the $15,000+ for the F. You all know good and well what the people are complaining about. It isn't that people want bike manufacturers to be unable to be profitable, it's that people know that the brands are charging an excessive margin on the bikes they make and they seem to be escalating the margin each year. Yes, a used bike can help with this, as you say, but the prices on the used market are being driven up to ridiculous levels due to the overpriced nature of new bikes because fundamentally, prices of used things are partly driven by the prices of equivalent new things. Further, buying used means you have to deal with the wear and tear, possible invisible frame damage etc and many people aren't equipped to do that and aren't willing to take those risks. This whole situation will not change until we as consumers stop buying these overpriced inflated items and unfortunately as long as there are highly paid doctors and dentists, that isn't going to happen. Also, buying a name brand does not mean the products are well made, tested etc. See Shimano Ultegra and Dura-Ace crank failures (I've broken several), Trek BB-90 bottom brackets, frame failures and other general garbage built by the trustworthy "name brands". One final thought, maybe you guys should go visit a local bike shop and ask them to show you the markup they are charging on their bikes. I happened to see this at my local shop and it was around 100% and they acted like they were doing me a favor at that price on a lower end Orbea. For what it's worth, I appreciate the return to higher quality content, but you guys should be trying to help us normal people get the message across to bike brands that pricing has gone too far.

It's super 10. Like their Super Six, y'know.

Just buy a cheaper alternative thats not a fake, theres plenty out there.

Happy Birthday, Ollie.

It's not the price of luxury "top end" bikes, it's the attitude of bike media discussing a £4250 gravel bike and saying "that's the bike for everybody"….

Just maybe if the good old GCN boys had to actually buy their beautiful bikes out of their own pocket, they might be a bit miffed at paying 10000 grand plus for nice bikes and components.

Happy birthday Ollie! Hope you have a good one and thank you for making a longtime cycling nerd / ex messenger / fulltime dad have an outlet for marginal gains and increased curiousity for TT bikes etc. Have a good one!

Could you show us some evidence please to substantiate Specialized claims that children’s legs are deliberately broken in order to keep them working in the Chinese factories, and also factories that are making 1000’s of carbon frames a week aren’t paying any taxes please? These are pretty strong accusations that I feel require proof. From a former purchaser of Chinese products, the wages are far lower (£128 per month). It’s not that they’re utilising slave labour, it’s just that our economies are not aligned. Maybe you could ask
Specialized which facility in China they are using to facilitate their products, and then do an in depth investigation as to how much their workers are paid in order to justify the extortionate prices of their goods.

If you could get all the support from the Chinese brands like you could from your LBS then I’d choose say a set of wheels but any issues they have to be shipped back so for me that’s where you local shop comes into its own plus you are still supporting local businesses. Maybe if there was more collaboration with local stores and some of these Chinese brands it might help squeeze the price of the other brands. Who knows!!

Do the math what an average person makes a year and check how many months salary a top tier bike will take…
Then how much it will cost with a loan at the bank with intrest of course
And average persons has kids.
Ride a bike is not for common people anymore, kids that dream of be comming a pro rider needs parents with big pockets.

If A bIkE iS tOo ExPeNsIvE jUsT bUy A cAr
If A bIkE iS tOo ExPeNsIvE jUsT bUy A hOuSe

Was actually going to make the point at around 17:00, bikes have been diverging a lot recently and that is mainly felt at the top end. Got myself a low-endish Canyon Grizl 6 last year, aluminium instead of carbon, and it is a GREAT bike.
At least in bikes there still is a decent and broad mid-end and low-end market, unlike in videocards for those of you following the news on that front..

Back in 1999 i spent about £3500 building up a C40 frameset with 9 speed Record and 1st gen Ksyriums. (The car i drove at the time was a decent £2000 Astra). £3500 back in 1999 is equivalent to about £8000 now days so high end road bikes have always been very expensive.