10k mountain bike is like 95% the same bike as what a professional mountain biker would use in a competition. 10k motorbike is consumer grade junk that would probably break within minutes if you abuse it like you do a pro bike.
Comment on What makes a bicycle so expensive?
doublejay1999@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The corrrect answer is massive profiteering off of suckers.
There’s some engineering expense, that makes real bikes that last years and perform reliably, which makes it more expensive than a Walmart bike, but after that it’s rip off city.
Easiest measure to illustrate this, is the price of motorcycles. You can drop £10k on road bike or mountain bike, and still not really get top of the range. Look up what kind of motorcycle you can get for that money and then make a value judgement .
Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee 1 year ago
QuinceDaPence@kbin.social 1 year ago
So, as an example. The Honda CBR650R is $9,899.
You can absolutely abuse that for thousands of miles.
Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I somehow doubt that’s anywhere near the bikes they use on motoGP or such. A quick google seems to put those anywhere from 1 to 4 million USD.
nukeworker10@lemmy.world 1 year ago
True, but there are grades of racing. I don’t know what the current class structure is, but a 7k CBR is spitting distance of super street or whatever that AMA class is called now. I think the point being made is still valid. I can’t go out and buy a motogp bike, and the manufacturer isn’t pretending to sell me one.
Hyperreality@kbin.social 1 year ago
Warranty will often mention that it's void if you race it. But I don't think the comparison's fair.
Even in circumstances where it isn't literally illegal to ride even a 'budget' motorbike anywhere near full potential, it's still incredibly dangerous for an amateur. You literally can't abuse it like a pro, without likely killing yourself.
Pro-level bicycle? Often no problem. You're less likely to get into trouble at 20mph/30kmh than 120mph/200kmh on a cheap motorbike. Forget about motogp bikes which IRC do 0-300kmh(190mph?) in under 10 seconds.
LucyLastic@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Superbike championships use road bikes with a change of fairings and upgrades to things like exhaust, brakes, and suspension.
Hell, Isle Of Man TT lightweight class has used stuff like the ER6f as a base which is a budget commuter bike, lol
A halo model super sport is basically a street legal race bike.
doublejay1999@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Nonsense
Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com 1 year ago
In around 2012 the costs of Tour the France bikes ranged somewhere around 4k to 8k (with a rumoured 12K€ bike). Source: French TV :-)
Training bikes was about half (source my lil bro^^), but as the frame were mostly carbon and glue, they were actually quite used at the end of the season.
TheWoozy@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I see no evidence that these bike manufacturers are super profitable, so I doubt there is much “massive profiteering”. Good bicycles are a high tech but low volume industry.
I spent 1.2k on a lower-end-good-bike 11 years ago. It’s the best fun per dollar purchase I’ve made in my 60ish year life. I wish I’d spent a few hundred more for an Ultegra group set.
agressivelyPassive@feddit.de 1 year ago
It’s 90% ripoff.
Let’s be honest, in the “regular” bike area there hasn’t been a meaningful innovation in the last 15-20 years. Bike chains are literally the same for what? 30 years? Yet, this extremely simple stamped metal in oil costs 20€. For what?
I mean, even a normal, reasonable bike costs easily 800€. That’s as much as a baseline MacBook Air. The pinnacle of engineering costs as much as a product that’s literally 19th century technology and easily mass-produceable .
Hyperreality@kbin.social 1 year ago
Not just marketing. Carbon fibre and weight reduction can get very expensive.
Of course, you pretty quickly hit diminishing returns, and most people don't actually need that for a short weekend trip.
But it can make sense to spend a few thousand on a bike, if you're using it to commute or you use it for work (deliveries, etc.).
LucyLastic@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Yeah, nah, Ducatis are like the carbon road bikes of the motorcycle world - all about dick waving. A little while back one of the larger YouTube channels took the latest Ducati to a track and put it up against a cheap 7 year old Suzuki, and the Suzuki was still faster … and if you buy a Japanese sport bike it’s not going to have the mechanical problems of a Ducati either.
Source: I have owned, ridden, repaired and raced a lot of motorbikes, including some fast-ish ones.
Hyperreality@kbin.social 1 year ago
I think I watched that video. Ducati Panigale vs a GSX-R?
Not just about dick waving. The Ducati was prettier and Italian.
From what I know of cars, that means it was more reliable than something Japanese, because they replaced breakdowns and technical issues with temparement and character. Because humans are irrational, that's not unlikely to cause the user to anthropomorphise their overpriced but technically flawed vehicle. ("She sometimes gets stuck in 3rd, you need to be gentle.")
LucyLastic@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
That’s the one.
It’s all just horseshit, if you want a motorbike with character, get a classic one. Hell, even my '82 Montesa manages to be reliable, yet has character out the wazoo.