The fall of Kona Bikes :(

[yinzerniner]

Originally Posted by litcrazy

I agree that there are deals out there and one can break into the sport on a budget. I do it by riding last decade's technology. But I think there's a lot of momentum against it.

I hear reports of a real like of enthusiasm from shops when friends go looking for those bikes when they feel they've outgrown their hybrid or want to ride more once their kids are older and less dependent on them.

Likewise, my college aged son reports quite a bit of snobbery towards lower tier bikes and/or disbelief about the functionality of those bikes provided the right (human) motor among his riding peers.

I know I'll be told cassettes and chains are so much better now, but I can't get my brain around the cost a new twelve speed chain and cassette. And prices have started to come down.

I just broke into 10 speed with my friction shifters, so I know it can be down, but the I fear the increased cost of the cool bikes in the magazine gear reviews and in the shops is awfully off-putting and isn't helping grow the sport.

You’re describing psychological barriers and peer pressure. That kind of has nothing to do with bike performance and component choices per purchasing dollar.

But agree that attitude and “vibes” are more prevalent than 5-10 years ago. They were always present, just not as easily expressed, identified or shared. Ain’t social media the best!

As for cost of 12+ speed consumables a lot of that has to do with manufacturing tolerances, but again a lot of the 12s stuff came into being around same time of inflation. As the bike parts market is coming back into equilibrium you’re finding pretty wide availability for $35 chains and $60 cassettes, which seem about in line with what prices were for good 11 and 10s parts

[prototoast]

Originally Posted by bicycletricycle

I think this is a little more complicated than you present. Most People don’t really understand the technical specifications of things. They don’t choose 105 because of the materials and ratings of the bearings or alloys used or whatever. Most of the time they do t really think they are choosing 105, they are choosing a cannondale r2000 or whatever, they probably have some idea of how close this is from the top or bottom and have tried to choose something that will work and seems to align with their sense of who they are in society.

So it may be true that an aluminum cannondale with 105 is the same price from 2006 to now. But if you add a bunch of price points on top of it it gets pushed farther down making it appear lower end.

Like how the relaunch of super record makes record less high end and to many people kind of worse.

I agree with you on substance. I'm just an economist who is being a bit of a stickler for terminology, and I think it's important to distinguish different things.

To the question of how the prices of equivalent bicycles changed over time--this is what actually goes in to the measurement of "inflation"--bicycle prices have generally kept up with or lagged behind general price changes.

And then there's a set of people who are particularly interested in the status of their bicycle--those who want the "best" and judge their purchases relative to the "best" that's out there. The bicycle industry has done a wonderful job catering to these buyers, and using (exploiting) that tendency to offering more and more high end options. But they really are getting more for their money. Even if it's still "105", 2x12 electronic shifting with disc brakes is very much not an equivalent to 2x10 mechanical shifting with rim brakes. For the people who both want the "best" and want it to cost the same as it did 15 years go, they just need to get over themselves. They should buy what they want, and recognize that if they want more they have to pay more. Whatever they're feeling, it's not "inflation."

But then there's another question of racers. Expensive bikes really do give riders an advantage (though depending on the thread here, the consensus seems to shift from "it's the rider not the bike, I do just fine on group rides with my 1985 Cinelli" to "how is a new rider supposed to start racing if they need a $5000 bike"). This genuinely creates a challenge since the sport is torn between wanting to make the sport accessible to people without spending a lot of money, and the fact that the professional level of the sport is largely supported by bike companies trying to sell expensive bikes to the masses. Again, while there are real competitive factors driving people to spend more, that's a different dynamic than the price levels that factor into "inflation."

[bicycletricycle]

As a bit of an aside. I always wondered how consumer price indexes can actually work in non commodity objects.

Corn is corn , easy
Comparing price of “average home computer” from team years ago till now? Well, if the new one is the same price adjusted for inflation but 10 times faster than is it actually cheaper than the old one based on performance per dollar? On the other hand all the new software won’t run right on the old one so is it actually just the same utility as the old one thus the same value thus the same price?

Kinda same with bikes, you can’t choose 9 speed anymore so is 12 speed really an improvement? Both bikes have gears and you can get repair parts so….
MTB is an even better example, everyone knew you could ride off-road with a basic rigid bicycle 30 years ago, now everyone knows an MTB has to have disc brakes and full suspension. Does a consumer price index measure against?

What exactly is the price index trying to keep constant? Specifications? Utility ?(subjective do I suppose not)

Our simple story about the 105 cannondale staying the same price is missing bits of the story I think?

Another way to say this is, try telling poor people now they are rich compared to people in the past and see if that changes their opinion about their poverty, we are constantly comparing ourselves to the people around us. If other people have it we need it. As the average bicycle goes up than people’s expectations increase alongside giving the same effect as price inflation.

Originally Posted by prototoast

I agree with you on substance. I'm just an economist who is being a bit of a stickler for terminology, and I think it's important to distinguish different things.

To the question of how the prices of equivalent bicycles changed over time--this is what actually goes in to the measurement of "inflation"--bicycle prices have generally kept up with or lagged behind general price changes.

And then there's a set of people who are particularly interested in the status of their bicycle--those who want the "best" and judge their purchases relative to the "best" that's out there. The bicycle industry has done a wonderful job catering to these buyers, and using (exploiting) that tendency to offering more and more high end options. But they really are getting more for their money. Even if it's still "105", 2x12 electronic shifting with disc brakes is very much not an equivalent to 2x10 mechanical shifting with rim brakes. For the people who both want the "best" and want it to cost the same as it did 15 years go, they just need to get over themselves. They should buy what they want, and recognize that if they want more they have to pay more. Whatever they're feeling, it's not "inflation."

But then there's another question of racers. Expensive bikes really do give riders an advantage (though depending on the thread here, the consensus seems to shift from "it's the rider not the bike, I do just fine on group rides with my 1985 Cinelli" to "how is a new rider supposed to start racing if they need a $5000 bike"). This genuinely creates a challenge since the sport is torn between wanting to make the sport accessible to people without spending a lot of money, and the fact that the professional level of the sport is largely supported by bike companies trying to sell expensive bikes to the masses. Again, while there are real competitive factors driving people to spend more, that's a different dynamic than the price levels that factor into "inflation."

[prototoast]

Originally Posted by bicycletricycle

As a bit of an aside. I always wondered how consumer price indexes can actually work in non commodity objects.

Corn is corn , easy
Comparing price of “average home computer” from team years ago till now? Well, if the new one is the same price adjusted for inflation but 10 times faster than is it actually cheaper than the old one based on performance per dollar? On the other hand all the new software won’t run right on the old one so is it actually just the same utility as the old one thus the same value thus the same price?

Kinda same with bikes, you can’t choose 9 speed anymore so is 12 speed really an improvement? Both bikes have gears and you can get repair parts so….

What exactly is the price index trying to keep constant? Specifications? Utility ( subjective do I suppose not)

Our simple story about the 105 cannondale staying the same price is missing bits of the story I think?

In the example of the US, the BLS generally uses a "hedonic price adjustment" where they estimate prices as function of product characteristics, and then can impute what prices would have been for comparable products. Details are here, where they walk through an example with telephones: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/quality-adju...techniques.htm

It's obviously imperfect, but for bikes you could imagine a model of the form P = a * (number of gears) + b * (frame material) + c * (disc brakes) + d * (carbon wheels) + e.

In practice, the BLS doesn't actually adjust for bicycle quality in their estimates (probably because it's too small a market for them to care): https://www.bls.gov/cpi/quality-adjustment/

It's also true that while you can't get the exact same bikes today as 15 years ago, that's generally less true with bikes than other industries (try finding a new CRT TV, or a "brick" cellphone from 1992). Today you really can get a new, aluminum frame, rim brake bike with 8 speed shifting. https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/b...ode=blue_black

But I think what you're thinking about is the concept of "expenditure shares"--how much of someone's income is spent on a particular good or class of goods. In some cases, as things get cheaper, we consume the same and spend less. In other cases, as things get cheaper, we consume more (either in quantity or quality) and spend the same. In the case of bicycles, while the prices (controlling for quality) have gone down, the amount of money people are spending on bicycles (at least for the enthusiast segment of the market) has gone up, likely reflecting increased disposable income.

[krooj]

Originally Posted by bicycletricycle

I think this is a little more complicated than you present. Most People don’t really understand the technical specifications of things. They don’t choose 105 because of the materials and ratings of the bearings or alloys used or whatever. Most of the time they do t really think they are choosing 105, they are choosing a cannondale r2000 or whatever, they probably have some idea of how close this is from the top or bottom and have tried to choose something that will work and seems to align with their sense of who they are in society.

So it may be true that an aluminum cannondale with 105 is the same price from 2006 to now. But if you add a bunch of price points on top of it it gets pushed farther down making it appear lower end.

Like how the relaunch of super record makes record less high end and to many people kind of worse.

Bingo. This is what I was trying to convey. In 2006 you would go into a shop and see that R2000 and think to yourself, okay, how does this stack up against what everything else looks like around me? The answer to that question has fundamentally pushed enthusiast road bikes into a higher price bracket that we see now. The enthusiast roadie that walked into a shop 19 years ago to buy a CAAD9 is now looking at a $4k+ carbon bike with 105 Di2 and disc brakes.

[bicycletricycle]

The phone example does not give me confidence in these indexes at all. Making “adjustments” well, not a very objective measure the smartphone is a great example of the almost impossibility of the task. Is a smartphone an expensive version of a cordless phone or a cheap typewriter, home pc, movie theater, office, printer, calculator, etc. etc. in one? Answer is it depends on a million things I guess.

I would be curious to see a more basic index based on less changeable goods. Gallon of gas, bricks, copper wire, etc. obviously not in every households shopping basket but maybe has the benefit of less adjustments needed.

I’m not thinking of expenditure shares.

What I was trying to say is that the definition of goods kinda changes based on expectations and sometimes technical details over time. “Health care” today includes a lot of things it didn’t before, this is the same for a lot of other examples like bicycles. A mountain bike today is just a totally different thing than it was before. If a price index is made to show how much the cost of a basket of goods for an average citizen has gone up ir down it isn’t helpful to say that a mountain bike that nobody thinks is a mountain bike anymore hasn’t gone up.

Originally Posted by prototoast

In the example of the US, the BLS generally uses a "hedonic price adjustment" where they estimate prices as function of product characteristics, and then can impute what prices would have been for comparable products. Details are here, where they walk through an example with telephones: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/quality-adju...techniques.htm

It's obviously imperfect, but for bikes you could imagine a model of the form P = a * (number of gears) + b * (frame material) + c * (disc brakes) + d * (carbon wheels) + e.

In practice, the BLS doesn't actually adjust for bicycle quality in their estimates (probably because it's too small a market for them to care): https://www.bls.gov/cpi/quality-adjustment/

It's also true that while you can't get the exact same bikes today as 15 years ago, that's generally less true with bikes than other industries (try finding a new CRT TV, or a "brick" cellphone from 1992). Today you really can get a new, aluminum frame, rim brake bike with 8 speed shifting. https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/b...ode=blue_black

But I think what you're thinking about is the concept of "expenditure shares"--how much of someone's income is spent on a particular good or class of goods. In some cases, as things get cheaper, we consume the same and spend less. In other cases, as things get cheaper, we consume more (either in quantity or quality) and spend the same. In the case of bicycles, while the prices (controlling for quality) have gone down, the amount of money people are spending on bicycles (at least for the enthusiast segment of the market) has gone up, likely reflecting increased disposable income.

[dddd]

Good example about the current MTB offerings.

If one perhaps pines for what was available for $5-700 a couple of decades ago, the used market (which is a real market) has tons of such 1990's and newer used bikes for roughly dime on the dollar, while a bike shop might have an inflation-adjusted sort-of-similar bike for under a grand but heavier and seemingly lower material quality.

The current mtb's with their out-sized handlebar width, wheelbases and 29" wheels might not even fit in the buyer's Camry (you're supposed to buy a hitch and hitch-mount rack that reminds me of what we used to haul my dirt bike around on back in 1971). Or just buy a pickup, van or SUV.

[mickey.d]

Originally Posted by dddd

Good example about the current MTB offerings.

If one perhaps pines for what was available for $5-700 a couple of decades ago, the used market (which is a real market) has tons of such 1990's and newer used bikes for roughly dime on the dollar, while a bike shop might have an inflation-adjusted sort-of-similar bike for under a grand but heavier and seemingly lower material quality.

The current mtb's with their out-sized handlebar width, wheelbases and 29" wheels might not even fit in the buyer's Camry (you're supposed to buy a hitch and hitch-mount rack that reminds me of what we used to haul my dirt bike around on back in 1971). Or just buy a pickup, van or SUV.

The bike industry is hoping you get excited for a 48 pound dirt bike with 3/4 horsepower, full circle?

[.RJ]

Originally Posted by mstateglfr

I don't understand why you conclude this creates blinds spots in the industry though. I think the industry is very aware of the consequences of advancing tech and addresses those consequences in varying ways.
- SRAM for the road has clearly said 'we don't care' about offering less expensive options.
- Shimano for the road has clearly said 'we partly don't care, but we also partly do care, oh and here is some sort of universal plug-n-play tech that we think will work for the less expensive end of the market'. .

Sram still has Rival and Apex, Shimano has 105 mechanical, plus robot shifted versions of both.

[yinzerniner]

Originally Posted by .RJ

Sram still has Rival and Apex, Shimano has 105 mechanical, plus robot shifted versions of both.

Also 11s 105 was roughly $800 USD when introduced in 2015, which is about $1050 now. Ultegra 11s was about $1250 when introd in 2014, about $1650 now. Ultegra grx 12s mechanical is $1167. So pricing for shimano stuff has roughly stayed the same of not gone down for mechanical since they are more invested in electric.

People gonna believe what they want to believe.

[mstateglfr]

Originally Posted by .RJ

Sram still has Rival and Apex, Shimano has 105 mechanical, plus robot shifted versions of both.

SRAM Apex is, ironically, their lowest level. It's a 12sp electronic or 11sp mechanical.
When that is their entry level, I think my comment holds true- SRAM has clearly said they don't care about offering less expensive options.

[charliedid]

Originally Posted by mstateglfr

SRAM Apex is, ironically, their lowest level. It's a 12sp electronic or 11sp mechanical.
When that is their entry level, I think my comment holds true- SRAM has clearly said they don't care about offering less expensive options.

12 speed mechanical also a thing.

[yinzerniner]

Originally Posted by mstateglfr

SRAM Apex is, ironically, their lowest level. It's a 12sp electronic or 11sp mechanical.
When that is their entry level, I think my comment holds true- SRAM has clearly said they don't care about offering less expensive options.

What is “less expensive” mean to you? Is it a $700 current price groupset? $1000? $500?

As mentioned sram has a 1x 12s groupset that’s available for ~950. That’s less than 105 (which is apparently your baseline ) was when adjusting for inflation. And there are 2x12s shimano offerings for ~1200, and 2x12 sram electronic for ~1300. And are you only considering “road” groupsets even though the biggest growth sector is gravel/allroad?

There are clearly still bikes with analogous groupsets at certain price points when compare to past offerings, but they’re no longer solely in the “road” or “road racing” category, they’ve migrated to the gravel to allroad sector. I know it’s a tired analogy, but it’s kind of like saying there are no more affordable sports coupes available for purchase while ignoring the fact that consumer preferences have changed.

And just to further prove the point, how many professional road races are there in the US this year? And how many professional gravel races?

[5oakterrace]

Originally Posted by yinzerniner

What is “less expensive” mean to you? Is it a $700 current price groupset? $1000? $500?

As mentioned sram has a 1x 12s groupset that’s available for ~950. That’s less than 105 (which is apparently your baseline ) was when adjusting for inflation. And there are 2x12s shimano offerings for ~1200, and 2x12 sram electronic for ~1300. And are you only considering “road” groupsets even though the biggest growth sector is gravel/allroad?

There are clearly still bikes with analogous groupsets at certain price points when compare to past offerings, but they’re no longer solely in the “road” or “road racing” category, they’ve migrated to the gravel to allroad sector. I know it’s a tired analogy, but it’s kind of like saying there are no more affordable sports coupes available for purchase while ignoring the fact that consumer preferences have changed.

And just to further prove the point, how many professional road races are there in the US this year? And how many professional gravel races?

Your word on consumer preferences hits the mark in my opinion. You can buy a road bike at almost any price point according to the big company websites. Want the latest and greatest? That is a different story. I suspect the margins on the latest are good so they get pushed by marketers and the people buying that high end stuff can afford it. Inflation is not an issue for them. But less expensive bikes are there for the buying

I suggest demand for road bikes is tapped out. 3 of the local shops do not even list road bikes on their homepages - e bikes, gravel and mtn. The culture is all about easy and comfort. Ebikes are it. The local retirees group is more than 50 percent ebikes. Hills are just too much for the 60+ year old crowd. New rider? Ebike is it. You get some exercise and it is easy. Road bikes will be increasingly for the ultra athlete. That person may want the latest tech. And how many folks are in this category?

And once you have a road bike it will last. Only the ultra enthusiast will upgrade year after year or have more than one bike. And that market is only so big. The USA, unlike other countries, simply is not a cycling culture. And government subsidization is for.....ebikes.

[gravelreformist]

Since this thread has somewhat turned into 'what can I get for X cost today vs. in the past?' I'd point people at the Giant TCR Advanced Pro rim brake. Full 105. TCR carbon frame. Designed for 32mm tires (limited to 28mm by 105 brakes). $1800. https://www.giant-bicycles.com/us/tc...o-compact-2022

Yes, prices at the top end are insane, but for much of the past couple of decades the above bike would have been 95% as good as anything at any price.