Is this a worthy intro to road bike…

[nlmkiii]

Good morinng,

I looked at a Claris/Sora Diverge around the time the Secteur was discontinued and couldn't really understand what I would have been getting for the money.

A while back VAT wasn't too much of an issue on many bikes in absolute terms, but the £2,400 Diverge obviously has £400 going straight to the government in VAT, ouch that's a lot.

Wiggle has the 105 groupset at £479-£499 (including VAT), so on this Diverge the VAT is the same as the retail price for a 105 groupset as a standalone purchase, who knows what Specialized pay for it.

So apart from dealer mark-up it seems likely that VAT is the most expensive part of the bike.

I was looking at this recently https://worcestercyclecentre.com/product/trek-domane-e-bike/ an ex-demo Trek Domane ALR e-bike, at £3.3k it has £550 of VAT. The Trek page is at https://www.trekbikes.com/gb/en_GB/...d-bikes/domane/domane-alr/domane-alr/p/33322/ where the RRP is £3.9k or (£650 VAT)

Given where e-bikes are going price wise, VAT may be a real take up inhibitor, even Ribble's cheapest ebike seems to be around £2.7k (£450 VAT) if you want one with a reasonable delivery date. Their cheapest has a Jan 2023 delivery date.

Bye

Ian

Almost everything has VAT added though, this isn't exclusive to bikes. And bikes have had VAT added since forever ago, so it hasn't moved the bar at all, it's just always been there.

I think there is *some* argument to removing VAT from bikes, but to be honest the bikes we are talking about are luxury purchases and so definitely should be subject to VAT. Maybe the first £1000 of a bike should be VAT free (or £2000 for e-bikes) to allow for cheaper access to more people, but I can't see a good argument for removing VAT from a £10000 luxury purchase.

 

[Peter Salt]

China also has more carbon fibre manufacturing knowledge in it's little toe than the rest of the world put together. They are starting to charge for that knowledge and up their prices to account for it.

You're mistaking knowledge with what is simply experience. Frames put together in China are assembled with CF manufactured in the U.S. and Japan, according to designs developed in U.S. and Europe. China has actually very little expertise in developing CF components themselves. That said, they're not bad at copying existing ones.

 

[Arrowfoot]

You're mistaking knowledge with what is simply experience. Frames put together in China are assembled with CF manufactured in the U.S. and Japan, according to designs developed in U.S. and Europe. China has actually very little expertise in developing CF components themselves. That said, they're not bad at copying existing ones.

Think you are about 15 years behind time. CF technology for bikes came out of Taiwan which is next to China. Giant in particular. France followed it. Its material technology. China now builds the fastest passenger trains in the World. I took another transport vehicle as an example. If they can build sophisticated trains, what is a push bike.

The land of counterfeits and copies have learnt rather fast.

 

[PaulSB]

Good morinng,

I looked at a Claris/Sora Diverge around the time the Secteur was discontinued and couldn't really understand what I would have been getting for the money.

A while back VAT wasn't too much of an issue on many bikes in absolute terms, but the £2,400 Diverge obviously has £400 going straight to the government in VAT, ouch that's a lot.

Wiggle has the 105 groupset at £479-£499 (including VAT), so on this Diverge the VAT is the same as the retail price for a 105 groupset as a standalone purchase, who knows what Specialized pay for it.

So apart from dealer mark-up it seems likely that VAT is the most expensive part of the bike.

I was looking at this recently https://worcestercyclecentre.com/product/trek-domane-e-bike/ an ex-demo Trek Domane ALR e-bike, at £3.3k it has £550 of VAT. The Trek page is at https://www.trekbikes.com/gb/en_GB/...d-bikes/domane/domane-alr/domane-alr/p/33322/ where the RRP is £3.9k or (£650 VAT)

Given where e-bikes are going price wise, VAT may be a real take up inhibitor, even Ribble's cheapest ebike seems to be around £2.7k (£450 VAT) if you want one with a reasonable delivery date. Their cheapest has a Jan 2023 delivery date.

Bye

Ian

One could put forward VAT as an inhibitor for any purchase in any sector. One could argue removing VAT would stimulate a market, electric cars for example, but I don't feel people generally look at a product and consider the VAT element as part of the buying decision.

 

[IanSmithCSE]

Good morning,

One could put forward VAT as an inhibitor for any purchase in any sector. One could argue removing VAT would stimulate a market, electric cars for example, but I don't feel people generally look at a product and consider the VAT element as part of the buying decision.

I agree that in general people do not split the VAT element out and this is sort of part of my point, the £2.4k Diverge was a £2.4k bike, not a £2k bike. For many people the £400 VAT would be more than they wanted to spend on the whole bike and for many more 2k is a real stretch for what is not much more than a basic bike.

The £3.9k Trek ebike is a £4k bike not a £3k one, allowing for a bit of flexibility on the numbers.

But unlike TVs, microwaves etc. bikes have seen some very large price rises over the COVID period and these price rises are in general not as a result of new products, just a result of shortage of supply. Look at a Scott Speedster 50, £850 and you get Shimano Tourney, the same groupset as you get on the £220 Halfords Paradox, to be fair the Paradox has butterfly shifters not STI.

This is a cycling forum and even here many question the value for money of something like a basic Spec. Diverge E5, £1.2k gets you a bike with a very similar specification to a Halfords Carrera Vanquish at £450. I am not going to be mad and say that they are identical bikes, but to the non-enthusiast they are close.

For a lot of people £450 is a lot to spend on a bike, inflation adjusted from the mid 1970s an entry level bike "should" be around £600-£700 but we have gotten used to cheap imports. So trying to justify the "same" bike for £750 more is going to be very tricky for the sellers of brands, the LBS that many claim to love, along with the local butcher, baker, fishmonger etc.

In my post I mentioned the absolute value of the VAT, for example of the £750 difference in price between the Spec. and the Carrerra £125 is VAT (£200 against £75).

Every time an LBS closes down there is a burst of sympathy, yet the reasons for their closure are rarely surprising; LBS bikes are too expensive for the majority of the population, especially when compared with Halfords/Decathlon bikes and even enthusiasts baulk at some of the price differences between the direct sales brands and the LBS/Specialized store. In many ways Ribble are a great example of the costs incurred as a business becomes "a brand" which add little or no value for the purchaser.

I was looking at the Trek I mentioned because I was seriously considering an eBike for a 18mile each way ride through the countryside with no shower available on the out part. There is no way that I can justify £4k on a commute bike, a £3k one is stretching it, especially as unlike a normal bike there are real question marks about the cost of running it. There is very little information on the life span of motors as most reviews seem to say wow I have ridden 3k miles, a few say I have done 10k and started to have problems, battery life can probably be inferred from other devices.

Bye

Ian

https://www.specialized.com/gb/en/diverge-e5/p/199973?color=322113-199973
https://www.halfords.com/bikes/road...ad-bike-2020---red---s-m-l-frames-348526.html
https://www.scott-sports.com/gb/en/product/scott-speedster-50-bike

 

[Roseland triker]

 

[IanSmithCSE]

Good morning,

Often I start a discussion that many don't see the point of, after all how many times can we debate Claris versus Sora/Dura-Ace.

Sadly the forum doesn't seem to have a button that tells a user now many people's ignore list he is on.

Bye

Ian

 

[Chislenko]

Good morning,

Often I start a discussion that many don't see the point of, after all how many times can we debate Claris versus Sora/Dura-Ace.

Sadly the forum doesn't seem to have a button that tells a user now many people's ignore list he is on.

Bye

Ian

Don't take it personally Ian but I very rarely read a post which is more than a few lines long so I haven't read many of yours.

As I say, nothing personal, just can't be bothered (or more than likely my brain can't take it in nowadays)

 

[Grant Fondo]

In the last 10 years Halford's bikes have probably come from about 20 different countries most of which are in Asia.

I think that should read... 'EACH bike comes from 20 different countries', surely?

 

[bonzobanana]

I think that should read... 'EACH bike comes from 20 different countries', surely?

No that isn't what I meant at all. I meant the factories creating the finished bikes were based in different countries but maybe 20 is exaggerating but lets see how many I can remember and how far I get to the 20. Ok got to 15 in the end but there maybe others I've either forgotten or simply don't know about. Some factories are purely setup for children's bikes. The different brands which represent a different quality level typically use different factories. Pretty sure some of the Boardman models are still coming out of Taiwan even today. When we were part of the EU many ebikes were coming from Europe to bypass EU tariffs maybe that has changed now not sure. In case you are wondering how I know, I don't work for Halfords but always interested to see where bikes are made and I've been in the Weymouth Halfords store a few times which has no rear access so deliveries go straight into the main shop it seems. I've been in the store twice when stock was still sitting in the main store with all the countries of origin listed on the boxes. Indonesia was a big manufacturer for Halfords a year or so back with some Carrera, Voodoo and Boardman models coming from Insera Sena there but looks like some factory in Thailand has got some of those bike contracts more recently. I've got a Carrera Subway 8 from around 2009 that is made in Vietnam. A later Subway is made in Cambodia. Pretty sure the bikes I saw made in India were just tiny children's bikes.

1. Taiwan
2. Mainland China
3. Vietnam
4. Czech Republic (ebikes)
5. Bangladesh
6. Pakistan
7. Tunisia
8. Thailand
9. Cambodia
10. India
11. Indonesia
12. Poland
13. Bulgaria
14. Portugal
15. Romania

 

[bonzobanana]

China also has more carbon fibre manufacturing knowledge in it's little toe than the rest of the world put together. They are starting to charge for that knowledge and up their prices to account for it.

I think the best carbon fibre material comes from Japan and the most advanced CF use is not China its in the aerospace industries around the world. Also most of the best CF frame producers are Taiwanese which admittedly is the Republic of China rather than the People's Republic of China but there is quite a lot of difference between Taiwan a progressive democratic country and mainland China a repressive communist state. Lots of the big cycling brands are actually HQ'd in Taiwan even if they have factories in mainland China sometimes exclusively.

Also much of the CF frame construction has moved out of mainland China to cheaper countries like Cambodia, Vietnam etc where the labour is cheaper so raw frames are manufactured there and then finished and painted in countries like Taiwan and mainland China so they can be more competitively priced.

CF frame production despite being a advanced material is a slow manual process taking many hours its not robot welded in seconds like many steel frames.

When you look at Quest composites who make Trek and Canyon CF frames and probably other brands too you can see how basic the facilities are for CF frame production. It's not what you think when you look at a £10k CF road bike.

 

[Alex321]

Think you are about 15 years behind time. CF technology for bikes came out of Taiwan which is next to China. Giant in particular. France followed it. Its material technology. China now builds the fastest passenger trains in the World. I took another transport vehicle as an example. If they can build sophisticated trains, what is a push bike.

The land of counterfeits and copies have learnt rather fast.

Taiwan may be "next to China" geographically, but certainly isn't politically - China still refuse to acknowledge their existence.

 

[Grant Fondo]

No that isn't what I meant at all. I meant the factories creating the finished bikes were based in different countries but maybe 20 is exaggerating but lets see how many I can remember and how far I get to the 20. Ok got to 15 in the end but there maybe others I've either forgotten or simply don't know about. Some factories are purely setup for children's bikes. The different brands which represent a different quality level typically use different factories. Pretty sure some of the Boardman models are still coming out of Taiwan even today. When we were part of the EU many ebikes were coming from Europe to bypass EU tariffs maybe that has changed now not sure. In case you are wondering how I know, I don't work for Halfords but always interested to see where bikes are made and I've been in the Weymouth Halfords store a few times which has no rear access so deliveries go straight into the main shop it seems. I've been in the store twice when stock was still sitting in the main store with all the countries of origin listed on the boxes. Indonesia was a big manufacturer for Halfords a year or so back with some Carrera, Voodoo and Boardman models coming from Insera Sena there but looks like some factory in Thailand has got some of those bike contracts more recently. I've got a Carrera Subway 8 from around 2009 that is made in Vietnam. A later Subway is made in Cambodia. Pretty sure the bikes I saw made in India were just tiny children's bikes.

View attachment 631989

1. Taiwan
2. Mainland China
3. Vietnam
4. Czech Republic (ebikes)
5. Bangladesh
6. Pakistan
7. Tunisia
8. Thailand
9. Cambodia
10. India
11. Indonesia
12. Poland
13. Bulgaria
14. Portugal
15. Romania

Sorry, that was my little Halfords joke.

Is it true most higher end framesets are made in Taiwan and cheaper ones in Vietnam etc?
I have still got one not made in the far east, but it is 27 years old!

 

[bonzobanana]

Sorry, that was my little Halfords joke.

Is it true most higher end framesets are made in Taiwan and cheaper ones in Vietnam etc?
I have still got one not made in the far east, but it is 27 years old!

I didn't realise that as its perfectly normal for assembled bikes to be composed of parts from many different countries.

Taiwan is still seen as the best country for quality but from what I understand many bikes are only finished in that country now because of rising costs in Taiwan so a bare CF frame would be sourced elsewhere and finished and painted in Taiwan to get the important 'Made in Taiwan' sticker that most brands want. Cannondale definitely do this as that was the example given. Cannondale being part of Dorel who do cheap walmart bikes right up to Cannondales with many other brands in between.