Cycling kit rip-offs?

[totallyfixed]

My 2 favourites, cleats and tyres. I use Look Keo cleats which are essentially 2 pieces of moulded plastic with the wearability of cheese yet typical price is around £15. How can a bike tyre cost more than a car tyre??? Ok I know you can get cheaper ones but where is the justification for one costing over £40?

 

[GrasB]

How can a bike tyre cost more than a car tyre??? Ok I know you can get cheaper ones but where is the justification for one costing over £40?

What tyres are we comparing? how are they made? etc.. The 'cheap' hand finished car tyres I used to by for my track car started at £210 ea & if I was going for the good stuff I could be looking at well over £400 ea. So if you're looking at £40 ea for a hand finished tubular then I can see the price has to be high due to the labor involved.

At the high end you definitely pay an OTT premium but you also have to remember that the really cheap car tyres are fairly low tech & mass produced in huge numbers. I can't imagine the plant required for a bike tyre being much cheaper than a car tyre & I also can't imagine that bike tyres are produce in anywhere near the quantity of the car tyres so the car tyre fixed costs are spread over far more tyres, this may mean that the fixed costs are loading up the price of bike tyres much more than on car tyres.

 

[ianrauk]

Get mtb cleats, they last forever.....

Tyres prices seemed to have shot up recently but no doubt that is due to the rising costs of oil, rubber blah blah blah.. or so we are had to believe.

 

[sabian92]

I'm not a fan of prices for general bike things at all.

2 tyres and inner tubes cost me nearly 50 quid, a set of decent lights is £40+ (although I did get a set of Smart Polaris 7s for £15 off wiggle, which was a bargain!).

This is all because I'm a student, though. Anything that's more than a quid is expensive.

 

[Cletus Van Damme]

I think the price of big brand name bikes are pretty bad. They seem to have either went up in price or have cheaper components fitted to them than in the past. If I decide to get another road bike in the future I have a feeling it might be a Ribble, looks like I would save quite a bit compared to an equivalent Specialized for example. I also find cycling clothing expensive, everything I buy is at the low"ish" end, but still not that cheap. Then again I used to be into fell walking until I developed a serious knee problem. That was exactly the same, it was just knowing what brand offered the best bang for your buck. Lusso seems to offer the best value to me, but then again I have never tried any Decathlon, Aldi gear yet. The prices of decent front lights also seems pretty bad. If I decide to carry on commuting next winter I will definitely be looking at a Magicshine to save myself a small fortune.

 

[HLaB]

There is plenty of them but I fond the Etape Caledonia kit a particular rip off. After doing the £50 jaunt, I wondered in to take a look at their kit (I forget the exact prices) but I think they were wanting £55 for the cheapest item (an Addidas Cycling Jersey). I came out and went to the neighbouring Macmillan Cancer tent and picked up the almost identical Addidas top for £35 and money would be going to charity So the top is green rather than blue and has 'Team MacMillan' printed but I much prefer green anyway

 

[totallyfixed]

What tyres are we comparing? how are they made? etc.. The 'cheap' hand finished car tyres I used to by for my track car started at £210 ea & if I was going for the good stuff I could be looking at well over £400 ea. So if you're looking at £40 ea for a hand finished tubular then I can see the price has to be high due to the labor involved.

At the high end you definitely pay an OTT premium but you also have to remember that the really cheap car tyres are fairly low tech & mass produced in huge numbers. I can't imagine the plant required for a bike tyre being much cheaper than a car tyre & I also can't imagine that bike tyres are produce in anywhere near the quantity of the car tyres so the car tyre fixed costs are spread over far more tyres, this may mean that the fixed costs are loading up the price of bike tyres much more than on car tyres.

Last year I watched a documentary where that guy went around the world speccing bits for his dream bike, anyway he stopped off at a bike tyre factory and watched them being made, there were a LOT of tyres being produced there. Also stop thinking British, millions of them produced in Germany and the Netherlands. My better half has a small car for which the tyres are usually less than £30 each, I'm trying to imagine how much rubber is used there compared with a bike tyre.

 

[Fnaar]

Rapha stuff is ridiculous prices... doesn't mean I would turn it down if someone gave me Rapha jersey though...

 

[GrasB]

Last year I watched a documentary where that guy went around the world speccing bits for his dream bike, anyway he stopped off at a bike tyre factory and watched them being made, there were a LOT of tyres being produced there. Also stop thinking British, millions of them produced in Germany and the Netherlands. My better half has a small car for which the tyres are usually less than £30 each, I'm trying to imagine how much rubber is used there compared with a bike tyre.

But you're comparing apples to oranges. £40 gets you a high end road tyre, that'd be like the £300 a go tyres on my Alfa, both are mass produced but aren't exactly high volume when it comes to production run batches. Your other half's car tyres are like the cheapo £5ea bike tyre I put on my partners city bike; cheap, cheerful & hardly high tech or high performance but meet basic requirements of tyres.

 

[Moodyman]

Gotta say that cycling accessories and their prices really shocked me when I took up cycling properly.

But, once you acquire all the clothes and tools, they do last a while and the cost per mile does come down

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Those Cycle Chat Jerseys are a right load of crap!

 

[Jezston]

Very large retailer mark up on all this stuff too, remember.

Continental 4 Seasons cost, what, about £35 each in shops? About £12 from the distributor to the retailer - and a great deal less if you're a bit retailer like Evans who'll be buying them in bulk. Maybe £8-10 each?