This kind of bike is what the market has been missing and I really support this move by the big S. It is an entry sport bike - which is to say you can go quick on it and try racing if you want IN ALL DROP BAR DISCIPLINES.
Road bike with geo that is pretty upright, but good enough to get someone on the road. Sure it isn’t a dedicated Gravel bike, but with 35s (and maybe squeezed more in) you can give gravel a good shot. It will be totally fine as a tester CX bike and if you are the target audience for the bike it will be plenty.
You can do all of that for the cost of basically one affordable bike + plus some tire changes. I don’t see what it isn’t to love for someone just getting started and not wanting to commit to one discipline. This is the gateway drug, if you will.
There is, dont buy overpriced bikes.
I mean… price is dictated by consumer demand. last few years we had an artificial and not sustainable demand for bikes. All companies jump into increasing prices blaming supply issues.
The supplies issues are mostly gone now, but prices are still high. Now they are all blaming inflation (caused by all companies raising their prices and refusing to lower them).
Its all a sham. They want more money. People are willing to pay it. They will push prices till they break.
The price increases were partly supply/demand and also the cost of shipping dramatically increased. I was listening to an interview with the Revel Bikes CEO and he said the cost of a shipping container from China went from like $2-3000 to like $20000 over Covid. That has started to come way back down toward its original price. So we’ll see if these companies try to keep their prices where they are now that their costs are coming down.
There’s absolutely things you can do about it. Don’t pay that much for a piece of crap.
Do you really think 2 year old aluminum bikes are inferior? If so I got a bridge to sell you.
Buy used 105 mechanical aluminum bike that people are almost paying to get rid of. Enough people ignore bullshit marketing, prices will come down.
It’s almost impossible to find a regular bike company without sales on a one or more portions of their line right now. Many of the “sales” we see now are becoming the defacto “new MSRP” in some cases. It is the sign of a correction on the other side of the supply demand situation that got things so messed up in the beginning.
I get the “Big Bike = Bad” mentality to a degree, but they are in a business and will be forced to follow reality. If people think that these companies are like other Phat Cat businesses with people in mansions all over the world drinking fine wine and smoking Cuba cigars… the reality is a fair bit different.
These sales and other price corrections are the signs of companies are following what you mention above (aka customers NOT buying stuff), with these reductions as the incentive that sellers hope will be enough to bring in actual purchases. Modern economy at work.
But there is certainly a cascading effect to price increases….just work your way through the price chain. Raw material supplier raises their price to a component supplier. The component supplier takes the aggregate price increase from all of their raw material suppliers, rolls it into their price plus their margin. That component goes to a bike factory. Bike factory repeats the scenario as the components supplier, but magnified across all their component supplier so they raise their price plus their margin.
Bike Supplier repeats the scenario when selling to the IBD who repeats the scenario again. Each step of the way, a small price increase from a raw material supplier is magnified as each step of the supply chain raises their prices plus…….wait for it……their margin.
It should also be noted that this is the report for Giant as a factory, not Giant as a supplier. They are separate business models (and I believe, wholly separate companies).
There is a reason factory owners and managers are driving Mercedes S500’s……that is where the real money (and power) resides.
Yeah I know. Inflation is way more complicated. in a nutshell…
People are asking to be paid more, companies are passing down the raises to consumers by making them pay more.
Also, now people who are making more money and are willing to spend the money, so companies want a piece of the money too, so they will also increase the prices of their product in top of the extra they were asking to increase salaries. So now people are back at asking for more money. And we repeat until there is nothing left but destruction.
Let me give you a real world example of how a price increase can grow exponentially down the supply chain.
We are all aware of the tariffs installed by the former administration against some Chinese goods. These tariffs are generally 25%. One of those categories affected in medical thermometers (great timing for that right when a pandemic hit).
as a result of the pandemic, the implementation of the tariffs has been postponed (now until this September).
But let’s say my landed cost for a thermometer is $1.00. My new landed cost is $1.25. For simple math, let’s say we work with a 50% margin. So my price to my customers just went from $2.00 to $2.50. Now, let’s assume the retailer also works on a 50% margin. The retail price just went up from $4.00 to $5.00.
So what was a $.25 increase to my landed cost ends up costing the consumer 4x as much as it costs me.
Note - these above scenario / margins are fictitious for easy math. The actual numbers lead to an even higher price increase for consumers because retailers can be greedy AF on some products. You’d be horrified by how much margin they make on some of our products.
I’m pretty sure what I linked and quoted is consolidated earnings for the parent company So that would include both manufacturing and sales of bicycles. Those are both separate companies, but it would appear to me they consolidate up. They break it all down by company in the report as you read through it. It’s very interesting imo.
I know most people can’t be bothered to read financials, but I find them very interesting to really grasp what the economic realities are for various industries. I particularly like reading the financial reports for various local governments in my area.
you won’t be getting a weight weenie bike anyway so a few extra grams isn’t going to matter much.
-They aren’t going to waste money producing two different frames and have more models to try and stock
I’d say it’s quite a lot more than a few grams…add that on a bike that is already heavy and you suck all the fun out of the ride.
But yeah I mean whatever…I’d say though that if consumers were more informed at the moment of purchase things might have gone down differently.
Especially those buying their first bike might just trust what the guy at the store says and buy into the whole narrative that disc brakes are better…only add a few grams etc etc without having actual knowledge on the difference between the two systems.
Does one really need discs on an entry level commuter bike? I know my answer but we’re all different.
Also, I’ve also noticed they use a mechanical disc brake system on one version… I’d be curious to try that.
If the argument is that it’s cheaper for the manufacturer then I fully agree.
Is this a good thing for the consumer?
Fine, 4 years ago. The point is, Specialized isn’t filling any market gap here. They are overcharging for something that is inferior to aluminum bikes of as old as 2006. Literally any CAAD ever made is better on paper and in practice than this thing. If fanboys keep bootlicking and coming up with excuses, the prices will never come down. It’s so cringe to watch people act like anything that comes out of Specialized is best ever since sliced bread. You can enjoy it, you can buy it. It’s your money. But it’s appalling and misleading to pretend it’s something it’s not.
I know my answer but we’re all different.
I’d be curious to try that.