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This is what's wrong with The Industry™

jonKranked

Detective Dookie
Nov 10, 2005
85,559
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Someone on another forum made a point that both e-bikes and increasing bike prices are potentially being driven by a bike shop industry that is looking to becoming a finance broking industry to save itself. Much like the motorbike shops are staying afloat by shifting quads/three wheelers and finance packages to mid-life crisis types, bike shops facing increasing competition from online retailers are shifting to e-bikes/boutique brands and finance packages.

Even the Giants/Kona/Trek/Specializeds of the world are putting out top models now that are $15,000 AUD.
There's a market for top end, and those companies are going to capitalize on it; because if they don't someone else will. Bear in mind, these companies are going to do way more sales volume on bikes under $1000.

I'm not saying your wrong, but yes all these new niches are bike companies looking to "expand growth" to "new customers".
 

toodles

ridiculously corgi proportioned
Aug 24, 2004
5,479
4,719
Australia
I'm not saying your wrong, but yes all these new niches are bike companies looking to "expand growth" to "new customers".
Ah my point wasn't just about growth or selling more expensive bikes, but more to do with a shift in business model as it becomes more and more common to use finance on these purchases rather than buy outright. Once a shop realizes they're making a new revenue stream through finance commissions, you can see why they get excited about e-bikes. They'll be selling more $8K e-bikes than $8K race MTBs.
 

jonKranked

Detective Dookie
Nov 10, 2005
85,559
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Ah my point wasn't just about growth or selling more expensive bikes, but more to do with a shift in business model as it becomes more and more common to use finance on these purchases rather than buy outright. Once a shop realizes they're making a new revenue stream through finance commissions, you can see why they get excited about e-bikes. They'll be selling more $8K e-bikes than $8K race MTBs.
the underlying driver behind this is the same - making more money in even more questionable ways.
 

jonKranked

Detective Dookie
Nov 10, 2005
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BOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHHOO
as much as i hate proprietary stuff, as a pure XC race bike this makes sense. one of the reasons is because of short track racers have to use the same bike for XCC as for XCO, and it's not uncommon where a bike for one event (hardtail vs full suss) would be advantageous for one event but not the other. this seems to be sort of a middle ground.
 

Electric_City

Torture wrench
Apr 14, 2007
1,993
716
Looks even worse in person, and the rear lights integrated into the seat stays aren't even pictured. On top of that, they are the second Italian company calling their e-bike an SUV.
"e-SUV Adventure is equipped with integrated front, side and rear lights"
 

lobsterCT

Monkey
Jun 23, 2015
278
414
I've been patiently waiting to use this for quite some time...

Great post Jackalope. As a Clydesdale rider, in my experience headsets are much more the problem on long travel single crowns than the 1.5" steerer.

On my aluminum megatrail build I tried both the high end cane creek and a chris king headset, and the front end felt like a noodle with both. I ended up using the 1.5" Pig DH headset for the lower, and kept the chris king for the upper. The pig has bearing balls bigger than .177" bb's and made the front end of the bike super stiff. Its like cheap viagra for you fork!

Note to industry - can we please have headsets with roller bearings arranged in a cone shape instead of ball bearings? Then we could have the stiffness of the Pig DH without the huge weight penalty. Please?
 

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
Staff member
May 23, 2002
21,031
5,919
borcester rhymes
Great post Jackalope. As a Clydesdale rider, in my experience headsets are much more the problem on long travel single crowns than the 1.5" steerer.

On my aluminum megatrail build I tried both the high end cane creek and a chris king headset, and the front end felt like a noodle with both. I ended up using the 1.5" Pig DH headset for the lower, and kept the chris king for the upper. The pig has bearing balls bigger than .177" bb's and made the front end of the bike super stiff. Its like cheap viagra for you fork!

Note to industry - can we please have headsets with roller bearings arranged in a cone shape instead of ball bearings? Then we could have the stiffness of the Pig DH without the huge weight penalty. Please?


FSA did that. No idea why they don't do that.