My diy ebike cost me more than what I bought my previous car for. Although with insurance, gas, and maintenance, it swaps around.
this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
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I'm assuming you bought a lemon? Only luxury ebikes even come close to the average yearly cost of car ownership.
No, the bike after all repairs and upgrades cost more than just the car itself. Car insurance for the year also cost more than the car, and the repair bills for the car at least double that but over a decent number of years.
I'd estimate the bike to date is about par with the first year of driving that car. After this winter will be the second year with the bike, and I have some additional winterizations this time.
I just meant you bought a really cheap car. I know jack about cars but I'm assuming any car you buy for less than $3k is going to be a lemon.
Gotta think about what it takes to develop a product, combined with the size of your workforce, and the size of your consumer base.
A massive company like CCM can make a decent, cheaper bike because they have mass production facilities on their side. However, those bikes, serving massive consumer bases, are probably more of a "one size fits all" type solution.
Want something more bespoke? Thats usually when you look to smaller companies. They usually have a much smaller team, and that means the product takes a lot longer to develop; prototyping, testing, reiteration, etc. That all costs money, and that has to be recuperated. These companies are usually made up of people who know some consumers are into the product enough that they want a custom tailored version of it, and know they are willing to pay for it, and wait for it.
As for brand image, thats probably part of it for some people, but I personally know a couple people who have very nice custom bikes with little to no branding. They're into it enough that what matters is the quality and performance.
"Why are cars so expensive? There are some brands that cost more than the price of a house."
Yes of course you can spend 10k on a bike but why would you?
The bike that's in my price range is the Walmart Huffy intended to be sold to ten year olds. The cheapest adult bike I found for sale new in my area was $1,500.
So I just don't have a bike. I might buy a used one someday.
Learn how to do bicycle maintenance and find a good second hand bike that needs a little love.
I have a Giant hard tail that was €1200 new, but I got it used for about €100. Serviced the brakes, put on a new chain, cleaned/oiled/greased everything mechanical and it's like a new bike.
Where do you live? The Giant Contend 3 starts at 1000 USD. Their hybrid bikes are even cheaper.
North Carolina, east coast USA.
Though to be fair I last looked a few years ago. Situations may have changed by now. But when I was in the market for a cheap bike none of them seemed reasonably priced to me.
If you know where to look you can get a great adult bike for under $500
Covid spiked bike prices a lot.
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Short answer is greed.
lack of mass production probably and cuthroat capitalism. the expensive bikes cater to a niche of bike riders who the business knows can afford to buy them. a lot of these bikes have specialized parts made in specialized countries by craftspeople which up the price of production and in addition they offer some kind of free maintenance you are also buying. the real question is why are cars and other bike so cheap, and thats because of mass production factories and cheap manufacturing methods and economies of scale
Not very expensive. If you buy a bicycle for function (i.e: to ride from A->B), it very cheap.
I think what you are looking at is bicycle for sport. These stuff people want lighter frame, low friction, ... and ready to pay more for competitive.
So do many other thing in life. Think watch, a digital watch only show time (dirt cheap) vs apple watch (expensive), vs rolex (veryyyy expensive).
There are always a price and quality for people who ready to pay.
economies of scale: high end components aren't manufactured in enormous quantities. their price has to pay for everything along the supply chain plus profit.