Your Thoughts on the Cost of a New Mountain Bike?

High end prices keep climbing, but the mid range has never been stronger.

Shed a few bells and whistles and you can get a lot of bike for the money. Take the New Bronson for example. You can save $3100 off the price of the top end build by getting the S build. You get mechanical GX Eagle which is totally serviceable. You get a Performance shock that can be upgraded to performance elite with a $30 part. You get a performance fork that you could drop a damper upgrade in. And you get aluminum wheels with a lifetime warranty.

Sure, you lose the kashima and the wireless but your riding experience won’t be meaningfully different to the $9000 build.

The reason is because usually inflation cruises along and people get follow with it. But inflation jumped post-covid, people did what they could to match their income to it (raises), and struggling businesses wanted to deny raises. So while we can usually just follow along with inflation, it's now hard for many to accept these prices more or less match the rest of the economy.

And if one uses an S Works or LTD stumpy to to point out the state of the industry... That's kinda nonsense. The bigger issue to me is the cost (3k) of a base alloy Stumpy with an Xfusion shock and a super heavy frame. To me, that's more offensive than any S works or LTD build. The new alloy Stumpy is basically an advertisement for YT/Canyon/Polygon or at least buying the Status170 or Chisel instead.

And of course, it probably matters in some way that bikes are better than ever. So it's not as though prices have been raised for NO reason. Companies are putting in the RnD, and we're footing the bill. And we're better off for it.

Again, its not S works bikes that are offensive. It's speccing SRAM SX and Xfusion and like Tektro Gemini brakes and all that on 3k bikes or whatever. And NX on 5k rigs from SCOR/Santa Cruz. At that point I guess it's a frame build up basically lol

hey Shawn, would you ever consider doing some more in-depth analytics on this data, like seeing if there's a correlation between bike cost vs household income, or # of bikes vs cost of bikes, or # of bikes vs household income? 

also, a thought for future surveys - on the cost of primary bike it would be interesting to see if that $$# is based on a used/pre-owned bike, a new bike purchased at MSRP (or a sale off MSRP), or if it was purchased at a shop/industry discount. 

One of the biggest changes here in the UK is that for the majority wages haven't kept pace with inflation (I think this is the same for a lot of people in a lot of countries). I'm around 25/30% worse off in real terms than I was 25 years ago, so it's unsurprising that things seem more expensive.

There appear to be some big shifts at both ends of the income scale across time. That’s interesting. It adds another dimension to wrangle when trying to interpret the data. Do changes in the answers over time suggest changing attitudes+choices or do they suggest the survey reaching different people whose trajectory over time we can’t get much insight into.

Edit: Or it’s really the same crew from 2010–congratulations to all of us on our promotions and sound investments!🎉

Inflation is a big factor for sure, but bike prices did seem to out pace the actual inflation rate by a lot. I mean, my 2021 Rip 9 Rdo cost 5300 or so retail when I bought it, with factory suspension, GX mechanical, and pretty decent other parts all around, but in 2022 it was over 6000 for the same build. Demand drove that cost increase for sure, but it is a bit crazy. Now we are seeing some artifical cost increases due to the rise of electronic Groupsets. While they are nice, they are driving up the retail price of all bikes in my opinion. It's getting increasingly difficult to buy a bike within a reasonable budget, that isn't compromising on something significantly. 

One thought I've had for a while about bike cost has to due with the enormous selection of small to large frame builders, plus each model usually having 4 frame sizes.  I think about the cost of a dirt bike, and a mountain bike is usually only half that, while using far fewer and less complex parts.  The thing is, there are only 5 or 10 major dirt bike manufactures and they only make 1 frame size.  Small to Medium size Mtb frame builders can't rely on the same level of economy's of scale in manufacturing that a dirt bike can.  I remember seeing a FortNine video recently that validated some of my thoughts.  

The median income of Vital’s readers has almost doubled in that same time! Even adjusting for inflation that’s a lot. 

I really don't want to do this to us... I really don't.

But it's because forums are for old people now.

Young people making shit income would probably be weirded out by this 'old format'. Because its not tiktok/reddit.

Again, I hate to do this lol

if we look at the provided data , it looks like the cost of an average bike represents the same proportion of your average household (about 4%) income but it looks like the lucky Vital Mtbers got the chance to get their income to keep up with inflation. if we look at the national average, the income did not rise as much so the proportion went from 5.2% to 4.7% in 2016 to 6.5% in 2024. If we look at high-end bike (let's say $6k in 2010 to $12k in 2024), it went from 9 to 15%. On the brightside, the average bike from 2024 provides probably a better experience than in 2010.
Expensive e-bikes also contribute to the perception of a more expensive sport

Massive increases in shipping costs also played into this. A shipping container of frames or bikes used to cost a few thousand dollars to transport from TW to the US prior to COVID. During COVID, it was 10X or more. Given the number of frames or bikes or wheels per container, that can result in hundreds of dollars in cost added to the bottom line. To then keep margins in line, $150 extra cost per bike in shipping charges adds $600-800 at the dealer's showroom. 

I am not sure it is fair to say that the costs of electronics and new products are artificial. They have expensive new technology which adds cost to every single one they make over the previous versions without the new expensive tech.

There were several of us in 2010 (you included) who were dirt bags trying to 'be all we can be' and get paid to ride or race our bikes making literal hundreds of dollars per year. I took the survey back in 2010 and certainly brought down the average. 

Each year's survey consists of different groups of people, so comparing year to year isn't relevant. The only consistent factor is that they visit Vital and we know all that means is the survey takers are a bunch of D-bags who think they're better riders than they actually are. :-)

we'd need access to the raw data (responses) to make the kind of correlations i mentioned.  i certainly get why that info isn't published.

Age: not to argue, but the truth of that could be pretty easily gotten at by, like, looking at the ages of the survey respondents, rather than sneaked up on by inference from social media network and format preferences

omg that can't be the accurate number...

wow. well i guess my joke was a lot more truth than jest. 42. making me feel young as a 34 whippersnapper...

i guess what I would want to know as comparison then is basically a MUCH more widespread survey on MTBing... what average age would be. I suppose it's possible it would just be the same. effectively 'middle aged'. but there's a lot more young MTBers now, with better youth bikes. whereas pre-2010 you were probably trying to ride a BMX or dirt jumper at most before you fully grew

EDIT: also we can def call some elements honesty as suspect here... uhhh 5 or 6 kids who ride at 0.1% and then 7 or more kids who ride being at 0.3%, seems like people thought it was a ridiculously funny answer and took the piss out of that option. Unless a bunch of y'all wanna fess up to these athlete breeding programs you're runnin

I'm going to throw in my two cents on this too.  Along with the existing participants ageing, I think as any hobby or subculture becomes more mainstream it attracts a wealthier crowd.

For the numbers, it's an average annual growth of 4.3% while inflation for the same period averaged 2.6%.

Rofl, first post implying that a $6000 GX bike is somehow a good value

Shows how delusional us mountain bikers really are. I make a lot of money, but not everyone has DINK buttcoin bro bucks.

You can get an excellent full sus for $3k, no need to spend double that on marketing.

These days I prefer top level brakes and a good hand built wheelset over a flossy drivetrain. I love tech and innovation. But even if I had the money and bought a complete bike with transmission, I’d sell the transmission for a mechanical and use the cash on spare tires, brake pads, bleed kit, etc. 

Our enjoyment of the sport and products in 2010 and 2024 should be assumed to be relatively equal. We only know things are better now because we can look back in history and recalculate the value of the experience using todays metrics. Top of the line product back then, psychologically, felt just as good as top of the line product today. I would not conclude that the increase in price has resulted in a better experience for any user.

As a 30 yr old who is lucky enough to be in a good financial position but reasonably frugal in every day  life I look at the current costs of bikes as a bit of a puzzle; Whilst I can afford to buy any bike I want I have zero desire to do so because the expensive complete bikes are entirely boring, who wants to spend 20k AUD on a bike that has nothing left to do to it? Is it even your bike if you haven’t gone and purchased a set of aftermarket bars that serve the exact same purpose (probably with the same bend and sweep) as the stock ones that came on it ? I think not.  I’d only go on and change every part on it over the next 12 months anyways, And then when I felt like id perfected it id have some silly idea and go on and start changing it again. Next thing to happen is I realise it has to much kashima or to much axs and I become disgusted in myself and sell it to buy something that is much cheaper, potentially second hand, lower spec and most likely heavier, and then I proceed to do the exact same thing, spending a laughable amount of time researching products and wondering if I do or do not want a silver stem and spacers this time around, will it be air or coil ? Etc etc.

Moral of the story - the expensive bikes are not the interesting ones, give me well thought out aluminium with potential for tinkering at a reasonable price (which they often are) and im happy.
I think the upper end of the market is terrible value for money, but the mid range stuff is often great, and the second hand market is full of brilliant buys.

Ebikes in blue, estimate on current bike sale based on resale sites (optimistic as the bikes probably are not selling). This isn't exhaustive, and doesn't include thousands per year on equipment and replacing parts, mostly wheels.

As mentioned above, in 2010 I was a student earning way less than 25k. Now married, 2 good jobs, household income close to 10x what I was on before. 

I'll probably have to spend around 6k for the next Ebike to see any meaningful upgrade, but if I ever have more garage space, the only other bike I would consider is a dirt cheap firesale priced freeride/DH bike for park riding. I'm still pretty cheap. 

Inflation Calculator results: $3756 in 2010 has the same buying power as $5,457 in 2024. This means in inflation adjusted terms we are buying bikes that are actually less expensive today than we were 14 years ago. 

and 3800-4200 mrsp will get you a ton of bike in todays market.  Infinitely better than a top of the line bike in 2010 and out performing a top of the line bike from 2017/2018.  And that's not even considering discounts or used market being pretty available right now.  Could very feasibly get a 5.5k mrsp bike for 3800 either new or like new if you commit to looking around.

Yes and no, I will say as an OUTSIDER looking in... As I was on BMX at the time and not on MTB. The only bikes that looked remotely fun were DH and DJer bikes, and even those were still iffy at times in design and how they rode (cue noisy bikes montage from old Vital RAWs).

The affordable trail bikes, to like a BMXer and maybe even an MXer, looked horrible. Rigid post up your ass you had to manually change after a climb, 3x drivetrains that hated the universe including you, iffy tire and tube technology, borderline road bike geometry.

Again if you had already normalized it, sure, riding was fun. But I think BMXers and MXers looking over at common trail bikes at the time were like 'that actually looks awful'. And again even the DJ and DH bikes were a bit iffy then but you at least took out the general pain of 'nature flats' and rigid posts and dual shifters etc etc

It's not like I have a number on it or anything (need another Vital survey!) but it seems clear there are WAY more BMX and MX guys riding MTBs now. And it's because the experience is a bit more carefree and streamlined like the bikes we ride. MTB tech def got stuck in that road bike world and kinda took its time getting to the values and goals that MX and BMX guys have with bikes. Which is funny cuz when you see the old klunkers that were cruisers the geo looked pretty slack! So it just had to go through its XC phase before it developed into its enduro/all mountain phase where you need a bike that can actually go up AND down well. Without blowing up.

Does inflation effectively account for housing cost or is it still that like gallon of gas gallon of milk type thing?

Because the one thing that is certainly true is that after dealing with housing costs, people have less money to dump on hobbies these days (on average).

It's kinda like that classic Simpsons or Married with Children trope. Where it was normalized for the dad to have a pretty normal job and have a 2 story house in a nice neighborhood. That's kinda how my dad was. He bought a LOT of toys even while supporting the whole family, RV/trailer, dirt bikes, BMX bikes, etc. Something my brothers and I barely have a hope and prayer of now. We settled on just BMX bikes lol. And I'm laughably trying to get into MTBing. Been having a ton of fun on 1-2k bikes tho. Can't imagine I'd be having as much fun on the 1-2k bikes of 2010 lol

My 2c.

I started riding bikes around 20 years ago. Still remember buying my first Marzocchi Z1 fork which was around $1k usd at the time.

Today, the similar level fork or actually better is priced pretty much same.

I remember buying my Banshee Scream frame which was around $2k usd. Or some other frames where the price was around $2-3k at the time.

Turns out its pretty much same today but im making more money and getting better products. Of course a lot of things went up too but are bikes really getting more and more expensive for what they provide?

I remember paying $600 usd for Hayes Purple brake the time it was released 20 years ago. For one! Today i get top of a line brakes for $200 less.

The Sworks models and similar will aleays be outliers but they simply have a different purpose. Yes, bikes are not cheapest but also not the most expensive hobby.

I don't think I'm a better rider than I actually am; I know I'm a better rider than I actually am. Wait...🤔