Road cycling — is it only for the wealthy?

[Hot_Air]

It’s a clickbait title, but only half tongue in cheek. Feck me, what’s happened to bike prices?!

I was considering a new road bike — mine is very old — but was shocked by today’s prices. What’s happened to cycling? Is it only for the well-heeled, like golf, nowadays?

[Yorick]

I can only just afford a hoop and stick

[Horse]

I can only just afford a hoop and stick

Get a flat and you'll never get home!

[Yorick]

I can only just afford a hoop and stick

Get a flat and you'll never get home!

We've got a flat under our home.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

You can use a cheap bicycle on the road, and you'll get more exercise because it will be heavy and crap

[Count Steer]

Everyone is finding out that 'Made in China' doesn't mean cheap.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

Everyone is finding out that 'Made in China' doesn't mean cheap.

Most bicycles are made in Taiwan, I don't know why

[Cousin Jack]

Buy a second hand one. Often cheap as chips. Not top of today's range, but often good enough, except for posing. That WILL cost a fortune.

[Taff]

I don't think there's been huge advancements in road bikes, mainly brake disks and going to 12 speed?

Although they are improvements, Neither of those are a night and day improvement over rim brakes and 10 speed in the same way as MTB suspension had improved over the last 10 years

[formula400]

Buy a second hand one. Often cheap as chips. Not top of today's range, but often good enough, except for posing. That WILL cost a fortune.

yeah was going to say the same.

[Crosshair]

Not really. There's still bikes at every price point.



I raced Crits on my Triban 500 back in the day and I think this new one is even better value! (Because it has enough tyre clearance for gravel tyres so. you could do literally anything on it)

[DefTrap]

You can use a cheap bicycle on the road, and you'll get more exercise because it will be heavy and crap

I've an old road bike frame (some massive thing my brother found for me) paired with some relatively cheap parts and single speed for simplicity. It works fine, I'm not in a competition, I can keep up with everyone else on their leccy hobbies.

[Pirahna]

My road bike is a 2004 carbon Scott with similar vintage 10 speed gears. I have no idea how many miles it's covered but it's a lot. It's always been a nice bike to ride.

I've also got a steel road frame I've kept from the early 90's, it's on my to do list to build it again.

[Mussels]

I found commuting on treaders was a lot more expensive than I expected, on top of the bike itself I had to spend quite a bit on tools and spare parts and any cheap parts soon got replaced with more expensive ones.
6,000 miles from a set of tyres was good going and the bikes generally turned into Trigger's broom.

So they can be cheap as long as you do your own servicing and don't cover many miles

[Hot_Air]

In the UK, the average price of bikes being sold has risen 26% since 2019:

[mboy]

What’s happened to cycling? Is it only for the well-heeled, like golf, nowadays?

Both are very much working mans' hobbies if you don't buy into the marketing hype...

My local road cycling club, many of them are on bikes that were under £1k purchase price and some years ago at that. You don't need to spend all of the money to have fun!

In fact, I only recently sold arguably the 2nd best road bike I've ever owned (as I finally fancied upgrading to disc brakes)... It was a 2015 Genesis Volare 40, 853 steel frame, Campag Athena groupset, was in great condition. I paid £480 for it when it was about 3yrs old...

Now's the time to be picking up the 2nd hand bargains anyway as the market is flat on its face! If you've convinced yourself that only the very latest and greatest will do, then yeah, prepare to bend over and for the salesman to go in dry... If you're prepared to look 2nd hand, there's some real bargains to be had right now.

[mboy]

In the UK, the average price of bikes being sold has risen 26% since 2019:

They went up about that much from the start of 2016 (ie. pre-Brexit) to 2019 too...

I owned my own bike shop from 2013 to 2019... In 2014 and 2015, I was selling £1500 carbon road bikes hand over fist. I could have had a production line of them and sold the lot... And for that money, you got a full 105 groupset, a decent frame/fork (obviously not high mod carbon, but not PlanetX level crap either), branded finishing kit and half decent wheels... Step up to £1750 and you had full Ultegra, by £2k you were knocking on the door of Di2 and/or a pretty decent wheelset in the mix too... And that was from mainstream brands too, and they had a workable profit margin as well!

The Brexit vote was definitely a catalyst in the UK for the market price increases. European brands were suddenly 20% more expensive overnight, as well as the £ tanking making everything an additional 10% more expensive overnight... Yes, a few months later the market recovered a small amount, but then other global factors started to set in too...

By 2019, that typical £1500 carbon/105 road bike was nearing £2k, a bike with a full Ultegra groupset was minimum £2300 and to get Di2 you were starting up near £3k already... And then the REAL price increases hit with the COVID pandemic, the drive in consumerism that it caused, the shipping container crisis, the Ever Given ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal etc etc... We are where we are!

My GF asked me the other week about upgrading her summer bike, as she's had it 4yrs and fancies something new... It was an £1800 bike (105 carbon spec) in 2019 when I got it for her (albeit I paid trade price), it has since had an Ultegra groupset upgrade (thankfully bought just before the pandemic sent prices sky high on components), and a carbon wheel upgrade, along with change in bars/saddle and a couple of other usual bits... The sad fact of the matter, that to get anything usefully better than she has now means spending about £7k RRP on a bike!!! OK, so with my contacts, I could probably get that down to £5k, but at £5k it would have to be paid for there and then, not on 0% finance, and she definitely hasn't got £5k hanging about nor could she justify it if she did! And nor is she going to go to a shop and spend £7k on a bike on 0% finance!!! She can get a £2k cycle2work voucher through her work which is useful potentially, but it wouldn't even get her a frame upgrade over the one she has now (and it's locked to Halfords, so Tredz is the only meaningful way she could use it)... So it's kinda pointless! And she doesn't need another bike, would just like to upgrade/replace the one she has had for 4yrs already.

[Hot_Air]

Now's the time to be picking up the 2nd hand bargains anyway as the market is flat on its face!

Considering new bike prices, I’ll buy second-hand.

I figure the frame is most important, as components can always be upgraded when they eventually wear out.

[Hot_Air]

Thankfully, a less expensive bike is only a few seconds off a money-no-object bike over 3.4 Km:

https://road.cc/content/feature/how-muc ... eap-304321

[Cousin Jack]

Thankfully, a less expensive bike is only a few seconds off a money-no-object bike over 3.4 Km:

https://road.cc/content/feature/how-muc ... eap-304321

Like most sports equipment, the real top of the range stuff is essential if you yourself are world class. If you are a run of the mill bloke it will deliver huge posing points, and not much else. I am not an expert on bikes, but for some sports kit the 'best' kit is actually more difficult to use well.