Are modern bikes overpriced?

[greenstiles]

''The average wage in 1990 was £13760, in 2011 it was £26000. ''...............sorry the reality for a lot of people i know is that the wages haven't changed much.

In fact i know of many people including myself that were on better ie more money at certain times in the 80's and 90's..............the minimum wage has been a curse for many unskilled/semi-skilled workers.

My wife works full time in a private hospitol in admin and gets less than your quoted 1990 average wage.........same in my last job......seems like others i know i've been paid between £13,000 and £14,000 for the past 20 years ! and that's in about 5-6 different employers for me personally...........god retail/trade managers only get about £13-14,000 these days round here.

If i had been a council binman in my last job yes i would have got the higher amount above, but i was with a private contract crew who get paid almost half to do 5 days a week instead of the coucil 4 days a week and work harder for it. Not having a go, but a lot of us have had no real pay increases.

In 1987 i was on about £12,500 with £15 a day expences for certain jobs/weeks i did !!!

 

[greenstiles]

mallet your 1st link is in dollars.........so in 1993 that would have been £400 i think.....

 

[mallott]

mallet your 1st link is in dollars.........so in 1993 that would have been £400 i think.....

I found quite a few websites where people had bought them new for 525 and I remember the mag review quite clearly

Anyway, lets stop arguing, there are far worse things happening in the world. I like bikes, old, New and in the middle.

 

[greenstiles]

no arguments from me i thought after, that just getting the exchange rate for 93 wasn't enough really anyway as shipping/mark up etc would be different in the uk i guess.

To be perfectly frank if only a lot of modern lower /mid bikes had better forks on, it would improve the ride no end........good forks were always quite expensive, but the big fork names should be able to offer a good fork at less of a price to be honest..........good frame...good fork......should be 1st......then let the punter upgrade the gears and brakes.

 

[mallott]

Yeah well thats marketing for you. If it had a decent fork how would they encourage people to buy the next model up and so forth?

It's the same with cars, why on earth does it cost £500 extra for a set of alloys? it costs nigh on the same to produce a steel wheel as an aluminium one.

 

[Raging_Bulls]

To be perfectly frank if only a lot of modern lower /mid bikes had better forks on, it would improve the ride no end.

+1

Good handling begins with a good fork, and that applies both on and off the road.
If the front goes into a corner without bouncing you into the scenery, the rest of the bike will usually follow it. (and if the fork does bounce you into the scenery, the rest will usually follow it there as well).

Sadly, though, most people buy an expensive fork and then don't bother to set it up properly. A good fork can only do its work properly if it's set for the rider and the terrain.
If you can't be bothered to learn how to set up that £350 Reba, just stick with a £35 Suntour.

Yes, I know it's a bit of a black art to feel when you need to adjust which knob in what direction. Still, once you get it right you'll be amazed how much of a difference a few tweaks can do.
And if your fork doesn't have adjustment knobs etc, a spacer here and different oil there can still make one hell of a difference. It's just a lot more work than twisting a few knobs. (been there, done that)

 

[Neil]

Yeah well thats marketing for you. If it had a decent fork how would they encourage people to buy the next model up and so forth?

It's the same with cars, why on earth does it cost £500 extra for a set of alloys? it costs nigh on the same to produce a steel wheel as an aluminium one.

'cos people will pay more for alloys.

Looking at new cars, these days, on the road, and sometimes when they're on the back of transporters, alloys seem more prevalent than steel wheels, so with the economy of scale, I'm starting to wonder whether it's probably cheaper to produce the alloys, but just priced that way because of what the market will sustain.

 

[grumpycommuter]

New bikes are like Yorkie bars...

They are big ugly bland lumps, fashioned into a block, with little or no apeal and covered in a nondesript wrapper, but they get the job done.

Give me a tube of Smarties any day.



al.

i much prefer these....

 

[JamesM]

''The average wage in 1990 was £13760, in 2011 it was £26000. ''...............sorry the reality for a lot of people i know is that the wages haven't changed much.

In fact i know of many people including myself that were on better ie more money at certain times in the 80's and 90's..............the minimum wage has been a curse for many unskilled/semi-skilled workers.

My wife works full time in a private hospitol in admin and gets less than your quoted 1990 average wage.........same in my last job......seems like others i know i've been paid between £13,000 and £14,000 for the past 20 years ! and that's in about 5-6 different employers for me personally...........god retail/trade managers only get about £13-14,000 these days round here.

If i had been a council binman in my last job yes i would have got the higher amount above, but i was with a private contract crew who get paid almost half to do 5 days a week instead of the coucil 4 days a week and work harder for it. Not having a go, but a lot of us have had no real pay increases.

In 1987 i was on about £12,500 with £15 a day expences for certain jobs/weeks i did !!!

Inflation does exist though, so £500 20 years ago is the equivalent of £1000 now.

Entry level bikes BITD were £300 so you need to be looking at what you can get for £600 now. Your money is buying more tech now and less quality. A cheap sus fork is about the same money as a nice rigid cro-mo fork, but who wants a rigid steel fork over suspension, no one because steel is crap and suspension is cool. Also for the price of a cheap set of discs you could get nice LX/XT level V brakes, but again who wants rim brakes, they're sh*t.

 

[dyna-ti]

forget bikes .What about parts :?
Cranks for £600 disc brakes for £500
I mean how the fk are they coming up with these prices :? do they look at the market and think ..Yes we think the market would accept a brake that costs £50 to make bumped up heavily in price.
If something was hand forged,filed,machined then i coul;d accept it but what is effectively mass produced by machine :? total piss take

''The average wage in 1990 was £13760, in 2011 it was £26000. ''.

Love this kind of statistic.totally false because it includes some earnings that are in the £100,000-250,00 bracket.this pushes the average higher.
Vast and i mean VAST amount of people get slightly more than minimum wage.That works out @ about 12000 a year and even tradesmen can only earn maybe £22,000 tops
Personally id put the average UK wage at between 10 and 11 thousand per year :?