Is this a worthy intro to road bike…

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Kingfisher101

Über Member
I'd offer a £100 and say its a 10 year old bike that needs loads of replacement components. No way will they get £350 for it.
 
Apologies I took the model year at stated value obviously would have checked myself before considering it. It would have been a huge red flag to me any bike sold with such a dishonest description. I've seen them a year or two out but that is just taking the p***.
 

Peter Salt

Bittersweet
With this much rust the bike was either kept outside or at the very least not cared for properly - pair that with its age (9/10Y) and I would say it's a really bad idea. You will likely have to replace all the inner and outer cabling, get a new cassette and chain, brake pads, etc...

Also, at least the front wheel has been replaced as it's a Giant hoop (PR-2) this might indicate it had an accident.
 
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Are Specialized seriously charging over £1400 for an alu bike with rim brakes?! Their overcharging appears to have reached new heights! Ok it has SRAM making it superior :whistle: but still
Agree, you can also fork out £2400 for an alu Diverge these days, thats big bucks.
 

Roseland triker

Cheese ..... It's all about the cheese
Agree, you can also fork out £2400 for an alu Diverge these days, thats big bucks.
It's all about supply and demand
If we all start looking after what we have and don't buy any bikes for a couple of years the prices will fall... ALOT 👍


Fact lol ^_^
 

Chislenko

Veteran
Yes, my 2013 Allez Sport has the later type shifters with the cable under the tape so this must be older than 2013 or had the shifters changed at some point.
 

spiderman2

Über Member
Good morinng,
Agree, you can also fork out £2400 for an alu Diverge these days, thats big bucks.
I looked at a Claris/Sora Diverge around the time the Secteur was discontinued and couldn't really understand what I would have been getting for the money.

A while back VAT wasn't too much of an issue on many bikes in absolute terms, but the £2,400 Diverge obviously has £400 going straight to the government in VAT, ouch that's a lot.

Wiggle has the 105 groupset at £479-£499 (including VAT), so on this Diverge the VAT is the same as the retail price for a 105 groupset as a standalone purchase, who knows what Specialized pay for it.

So apart from dealer mark-up it seems likely that VAT is the most expensive part of the bike.

I was looking at this recently https://worcestercyclecentre.com/product/trek-domane-e-bike/ an ex-demo Trek Domane ALR e-bike, at £3.3k it has £550 of VAT. The Trek page is at https://www.trekbikes.com/gb/en_GB/...d-bikes/domane/domane-alr/domane-alr/p/33322/ where the RRP is £3.9k or (£650 VAT)

Given where e-bikes are going price wise, VAT may be a real take up inhibitor, even Ribble's cheapest ebike seems to be around £2.7k (£450 VAT) if you want one with a reasonable delivery date. Their cheapest has a Jan 2023 delivery date.

Bye

Ian
 
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It's all about supply and demand
If we all start looking after what we have and don't buy any bikes for a couple of years the prices will fall... ALOT 👍


Fact lol ^_^

Theres a lot of truth in that but also China isn't as cheap as it was, labour costs there are rising and the currency is less favourable. It's been trending higher even over just a few months. So Chinese manufactured products will simply be more expensive but then perhaps more of the bike production will move outside of China. Maybe we will start seeing more actual components being made in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand etc. I think the more production we can move out of China the better for the world. Specialized don't make anything themselves its a brand. You can see Specialized bikes being made by fuji-ta in their videos and I think their high end road bikes are made by Merida. Like most European and US brands its all coming from Asia. It's like Halfords bikes they are pretty spot on at moving to different factories to get a better price. In the last 10 years Halford's bikes have probably come from about 20 different countries most of which are in Asia.

USD-CNHPerformance.png
 

nlmkiii

Senior Member
Theres a lot of truth in that but also China isn't as cheap as it was,
China also has more carbon fibre manufacturing knowledge in it's little toe than the rest of the world put together. They are starting to charge for that knowledge and up their prices to account for it.
 
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