The price has always been a deterrent for me. I'm a BMX guy at heart and still ride but fuck me my joints hurt so I've always considered the transition. I always hated the full suspension action as it takes the torque away from the bunny hop but because I'm used to a rigid BMX frame I'm sure I'm just doing it wrong.

I recently made a run up to Whistler with a buddy and we wondered into the rental shop to inquire on a daily rental with gear. Not bad at around $300ish plus lift ticket for the day. I couldn't believe how many people were there riding. Looked as busy as a snowy day. Seeing people come flying down the mountain looked fun as shit so now I'm intrigued.

<----subbed for more info and inspiration

It has to be technique. Grew up with front suspension park style mountain bikes. Used them for everything. Now I have a 6" rig, and it's a bloody beast to throw around. I want my nimble ride back :(

WHy so expensive? Because they can, that's why.

Have a look on pink bike if you guys are interested in getting into the sport. You can find a great bike for like $1k. The best part about pinkbike is that if someone is selling something overpriced, just look at the comments there will be a flood of people saying how its not priced right. Saves people from getting ripped off.

Mountain biking is the single biggest adrenaline rush, more so than any other sport, and trust me i've done em all.

I ride a 10" travel bike (8" up front), but that's only for days when you want to throw down HUGE stuff, or days when you actually want to ride super hard.

On mellow days I have a transition bottlerocket which is only 5.5" of travel, and this is a great bike for flowy tracks like A-Line, Dirt Merchant, or Crank it up.

Honestly 75% of my days are spent on the bottlerocket, and having my full DH bike would have probably made my day less fun.

EDIT: Oh and don't skimp out on protective gear, get a full face helmet, get gloves, get shin pads, and elbow pads.

If you plan on doing crazy shit, do yourself and favour and pick up a Neck Brace as well. The $300 is nothing compared to breaking your neck.

ive got two buddies who are really into mountain biking, ever since we were in high school, i could never wrap my head around the pricing for the gear but a lot of things are like that like clothes/accessories

Well, if it's too expensive people wouldn't buy it. Supply and demand.

You're right, I can see how talking about profit margins like that would set anybody off.

I'm an intense dude.

Bikes are expensive because a)small market/demand = small volume and b)people are willing to pay that much.

I would also wager that the technology crammed into a mountain bike suspension fork or shock is more expensive and/or advanced than what you'd find in a car or motorbike. It needs to be scaled down and overengineered to work in a much smaller package, work efficiently because there is no motorized engine powering the vehicle, and also needs to be lightweight because of the same reason.

As for shop profit margins, shops would be happy to make 30% on a high end bike. Usually MSRP is around 30% mark-up on shop cost, and rarely do bikes sell off the floor at full MSRP. BUT there are also only so many people who are willing to throw that kind of money down. Shops rely on low end/cheap bikes where margins can be 50%, parts and accessories where typical retail mark up is double, and service/labour, to keep the lights on and pay the leases and salaries.

more reason for bicycles to be insured if they want to be on the road. I honestly see more bikes in the 3k+ range in dt, they outnumber the cheap motorcyles on the road, yet only motorcyclist have to pay insurance, even if its a $500 POS.

Im a hater :devil:

A board shop will make about $300 on a $600 board, a hockey shop will make about $200 on a $400 stick, but a golf shop will be lucky to make $800 on a $3000 golf set. The golf hardgoods mark up is really low, most of the margin comes from clothing and accessories.

As for bikes 80% of the high end bikes in the world are manufactured out of 6 factories in Taiwan. From a manufacturing stand point, Taiwan makes great bikes.

It also doesn't help with lower pricing considering biking is now the "trend". If I was the boss of a bike company I would take advantage of this.

Like others have already mentioned, you can probably build yourself a road bike that weights as little as the 10k bikes for less than 2k now with parts at Alibaba sites, but you will probably have to deal with the risk of faulty parts and/or poor materials.

Although I think those bikes are way overpriced (superbike/dirt bike territory), from business perspective, it makes sense.

Bicycle companies can charge people whatever the heck they want and frankly, nothing is overpriced when people are willing to pay for it.

Delete

You can see how bicycle has a lot less parts..

http://fcdn.mtbr.com/attachments/dow...0-img_0342.jpg

Oh my sweet fuck

That's a really weird ass rear suspension^^.

I ride a really simple gary fisher tarpon. It probably can't handle a black diamond course but it managed mount burke quite fine. I'm still new to down hill mountain biking but I already realized that it's a hobby that is far out of my price range. I'd need to upgrade a lot of my bikes components if i wished to make anything higher then a 4 foot drop.

Getting a decent road bike isn't that much of an issue though. I made an awesome, lightweight, peppy road bike for 60$ before. You just have to know how to build a bike, which is far easier then building/fixing a car. It's basic mechanic work through and through. Sure you could buy a ridiculously overpriced carbon fibre everything but then that's just more money out the window to go a little bit faster. My current road bike weighs maybe 5 pounds more then a carbon fibre frame bike and I probably wouldn't notice the difference in speed if i was riding either of them. It's getting to the point where it's so over engineered that it's simply a bragging right to have it. Just like the veyron. How many veyron owners are going to push that car to it's limits on each ride? Why not just build your own dragster and push that sucker to it's limits. And you also have to keep in mind your own capability on a bike. The bike will only go as fast as you can go. If you lack the strength then a supercycle can be just as good for you as a 3k$ devinci.

My friend is buying a 2000+ carbon fiber bike for the iron man, I could never justify that but at the same time, she could never justify spending that much money on a car.

You charge what you can charge, and you get what you pay for, tis life

The bike is a Specialized Demo 8 V2. It's a really common favourite for the big hitters riding the shore, or any bike park:

http://nsmb.com/assets/images/A-even...ber_demo/4.jpg

FSR rear geometry is super linear, I had one of these before, I wasn't a particular fan, but then again, I think I bought one a little too small for me, and even after adjusting the geometry it never really worked out. So I sold it and moved on.

On another note the new 2015 Demo is coming out soon:

http://ep1.pinkbike.org/p4pb11289915/p4pb11289915.jpg

:jizz:

They're expensive due to material quality/weight and for the abuse they need to take. If you're not going to be pushing it, then you don't need as expensive of a bike. But if you're going hard, I wouldn't want to be relying on some sub-par equipment to not explode.

I got my bike for $200, it only has a front brake and is a single speed but I put a higher top speed gear on it for hauling serious ass.

Using fake statistics really helps strengthen your point.

Timpo's troll level is over 9000

I was wondering about that, so I did a quick research and looks like bicycle is serious business in Taiwan

Giant
" Taiwanese bicycle manufacturer which is recognized as the world's largest bicycle manufacturer"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Bicycles
Trek
"the majority of company's bicycles manufactured in Taiwan"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trek_bikes
GT
"frames made in Taiwan"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GT_Bicycles
Specialized
"In 2001, Merida Bikes of Taiwan bought 49% of Specialized for a reported US$30 million"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialized_Bicycle_Components
Cannondale
"manufacturing and assembly facilities in China and Taichung, Taiwan"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannondale
Gary Fisher
"Fisher sold his company in 1991 to Taiwan's Anlen company"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Fisher
Schwinn
"In Taiwan, Schwinn was able to conclude a new production agreement with Giant Bicycles, transferring Schwinn's frame design and manufacturing expertise to Giant in the process"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwinn_Bicycle_Company
Bianchi
"the production of bicycles built in Taiwan and in Italy for the worldwide market"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bianchi_Bicycles

Made in China, Made in Taiwan,, Made in USA, Made in mexico... wherever doesn't matter, but depends on the brand and its own quality control plus the material used. Cheap labour does not always translate into poor quality anymore. I kinda stop looking at where it is made for certain stuff. I'd be concerned about food/ Produce made in china though

It makes absolutely no difference in the world, especially when almost all the various pieces like the stems, brakes, seat, rear shock, front fork, wheelset, all of that shit comes from asia.

Fine build the frame of your transition right here in BC, but that Fox 40 203mm fork on the front of the bike which you rely on to absorb those 40 foot hucks will always be built in taiwan.