Why Are Mountain Bikes So Expensive?
Did you know that the price of an average mountain bike is $700 to $2,000 and that some can cost twice that? You might have thought you could get away with spending $300 on a mountain bike, but that just isn’t feasible. Why are mountain bikes so costly?
Here are 6 reasons why mountain bikes are so expensive:
- High-end frame materials
- Quality components
- Labor costs
- Continued innovation
- Brand quality
- Supply vs. demand
In today’s fascinating guide, I’ll take you through the above factors that influence mountain bike costs as well as share some tips for saving on a mountain bike if you have your heart set on an affordable one. There’s lots of great information to come, so keep reading!
6 Reasons Why Mountain Bikes Are So Expensive
High-End Frame Materials
Mountain bike frames are made of a myriad of materials, but all are lightweight and durable.
Metal alloys thus are the prime choice for a mountain bike frame.
Carbon fiber is one such alloy. Favored for its low rate of thermal expansion, excellent temperature tolerance, resistance to chemicals, low weight, stiffness, and incredible tensile strength, carbon fiber makes a lot of sense as a mountain bike frame material.
Titanium is another such metal alloy that might be used to construct your mountain bike’s frame. Despite its immense power, the strength-to-weight ratio of titanium is rather high.
In other words, the metal’s density is low, but its strength is great. Further, titanium has a lustrous appearance and a high melting point of over 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Galvanized steel is yet a third frame material used for mountain bikes. Its strong abrasion resistance makes it a natural choice for a bike frame.
Finally, aluminum might be used to build your bike frame. A non-magnetic, ductile metal, aluminum is incredibly malleable and can thus be made into any shape, such as that of a mountain bike frame.
Due to the uniqueness of mountain bikes, many frames are hand-made. If a mountain bike company has a small team, then that limits the number of frames they can produce per year, which makes mountain bikes even harder to come by.
According to an article in Gear Patrol, if a team of 1,500 people built mountain bike frames, in a year, they’d only be able to make 15,000 frames.
When an item is rare, its value tends to go up in kind. With such limited frames produced per year, that explains why mountain bikes are costly.
Quality Components
Mountain bikes aren’t like your casual city bike. They’re designed to traverse steep, often uneven terrain, and that means including features like a drivetrain.
Your mountain bike can’t have just any drivetrain though, but a high-quality drivetrain with chin-rings, cranks, derailleurs, cassettes, and pedals.
Each component must be built to withstand the rigors of everyday mountain bike riding and yet last for ride after ride.
That’s far from all the high-quality components that a mountain bike will boast.
A mountain bike also needs better-than-average suspension forks or you’re going to feel every bump as you ride your bike. That would be painful in a hurry and could increase your risk of injury.
The best suspension forks are customized according to your axle, front-wheel size, and frame type. Even the non-customized ones are still costly to produce since they need to stand up to so much hard usage.
Mountain bikes typically use carbon handlebars, which lessen the rate of wear and tear as well as the friction you feel on your hands when using the bike for long periods.
Carbon handlebars are more expensive to produce than aluminum handlebars, but comfort is a top priority when building mountain bikes, and safety is another.
Tubeless tires are one type of feature found in mountain bikes, and they too aren’t very low-cost.
Although you might have heard that a tubeless tire can never go flat, that’s not quite true. They’re a lot less likely to go flat though, which is something that any mountain biker is looking for.
The wheels of a mountain bike are typically made of carbon just like the handlebars, and that alone can drive up the cost of your bike by $2,000.
Then there are the brakes, which utilize hydraulics. The disc brakes can stop on a dime, which is something that most bike brakes cannot do. Thus, these are specialty brakes.
Individually, none of these components come cheap, and collectively, they push up the price of a mountain bike considerably.
Labor Costs
As you’ll recall, 1,500 people could build 15,000 mountain bike frames per year. That number–1,500–wasn’t random. It’s the size, more or less, of the teams of many mountain bike manufacturers.
The big brands might have an equally big staff, which means that the labor can be better distributed. On a small team of 1,500 people though, the job of building mountain bikes day in and day out is quite labor-intensive for everyone.
That’s especially the case when you remember that carbon-fiber bike frames have to be built by hand, as do bike frames of other materials!
Even once the mountain bike is built, putting it together is a whole other matter.
Installing the parts of a mountain bike is an extremely precise process that requires expertise, concentration, and–if we’re being totally honest–perfection. One little slip-up and the bike doesn’t work.
One component can affect others, which creates a snowball effect of issues.
Labor of course must be factored into the cost of a mountain bike as well, and it’s going to be quite a significant expense.
Continued Innovation
Mountain bikes are constantly upping the ante for what a bike can be. This isn’t always out of the urge to please customers (although that’s important too), but sometimes due to necessity.
Chris Yu, a mountain bike engineer, spoke to Gear Patrol in the link above and said that “The development costs [of a mountain bike] were on par with a motorcycle or even some cars because we couldn’t just buy the parts, we had to invent them.”
This isn’t something that these mountain bike companies do only once, either. Every year, they’ll introduce new mountain bike models with equally new parts, constantly pushing the envelope. That means that continually higher mountain bike prices are sure to follow.
Brand Quality
With every type of product or service, people usually prefer well-known brands because there’s an air of trustworthiness and reliability with these brands. It’s the same case with mountain bikes.
The biggest players in the world of mountain bikes are Specialized, Trek Bikes, Santa Cruz, Giant Bicycles, Yeti Cycles, Ibis Cycles, Pivot Cycles, Evil Bike Co., Cannondale, Salsa Cycles, and Kona.
These brands are like your Lamborghini or Yamaha. They have instant name recognition among mountain bike enthusiasts. Bikes from one of these brands can sell for more than a mountain bike from a smaller brand.
Supply vs. Demand
More and more people are getting into mountain biking, which means that rather than looking for their third or fourth bikes, they’re shopping around for their first bikes.
Even still, the demand for mountain bikes far outpaces the supply.
Let’s say that, to make everything fair, each mountain bike company only has 1,500 employees who can make 15,000 frames per year.
How many mountain bike companies are there? Well, according to Bicycle Retailer, in 2012, there were 143 bike companies in the United States. Those companies weren’t exclusively mountain bike manufacturers, though.
I know that data is 10 years old as of this writing, but more up-to-date stats were not easy to come by.
I’m sure there are more bike producers today, but let’s just say there are only 140 in the US today.
Per year, if every company made 15,000 mountain bikes, they’d only produce 2,100,000 bikes.
Sure, that sounds like a lot; more than two million bikes is a lot. Yet is it enough to keep up with consumer demand?
Not even close. In 2015, the National Bicycle Dealers Association or NBDA wrote that the bike industry that year sold 15 to 20 million bikes.
Thus, the supply of mountain bikes would be 13 to 18 million bikes short!
Tips for Managing Mountain Bike Prices
Now that you know everything that goes into the average mountain bike, you can better understand why the prices of a mountain bike are sometimes twice or thrice the cost of an average bicycle and very often even higher than that.
I can’t fault you for not necessarily wanting to spend all that money on a mountain bike. You do have some options for reducing costs and still getting a quality mountain bike, so let’s talk about those now.
Set a Budget
Only you can decide how much money is too much for a mountain bike. You have information handy such as what’s in your bank account and how much cash you have set aside for a purchase like a mountain bike.
I must stress that you do get what you pay for. While you may sometimes come across a mountain bike for only a couple of hundred bucks, it’s usually not made of very durable materials. Either that or the craftsmanship will be lacking, or perhaps even both.
To get the kind of quality mountain bike that continues to drive biking innovation forward, you do have to be willing to spend quite a lot of money.
I’m not saying you have to shell out $10,000 on a mountain bike (unless you really want to and it’s financially feasible for you), but you should be willing to spend a few thousand dollars rather than a few hundred.
Consider Going Used
If even a few thousand dollars is outside of your means for a mountain bike, then you can always buy a used bike.
Since the bike has been around the block (quite literally, in this case) enough times, it won’t sell for its full price when it was originally released.
That said, you shouldn’t just bite for the first used mountain bike you see. You want to ensure you’re getting a good bike for the value, as no one buying a used vehicle wants to be taken for a ride.
Here are some questions you should ask the seller before you part with your hard-earned money:
- Why are you selling the mountain bike? Do you just not use it and it’s taking up room in your garage? Did you buy a new one? Or is there something wrong with it?
- Does the mountain bike have a serial number? Can I see it?
- Can I take the bike for a spin?
- What kind of tires does the mountain bike have? Are they tubed or tubeless?
- Did you add any aftermarket components to the dirt bike or are they all original? Which components are original and which ones aren’t?
- When was the last time you bled the brakes? How often does this mountain bike need brake bleeding?
- Have the shocks been rebuilt or serviced over the life of the bike? How many times?
These questions center around the quality of the bike and ensuring that it’s in usable condition. You should always ask the serial number question too, as that ascertains that the mountain bike you’re purchasing isn’t stolen.
I can’t guarantee that the seller will be honest with all their answers. They might tell you they’re selling the bike because they bought a new one when in reality, the mountain bike has a lot of problems.
That’s what a test ride will tell you. And yes, you should always take a mountain bike (or any bike) for a test ride like you would when buying a new or used car.
You don’t have to hit the mountains to get a feel for the mountain bike. Even if you stick to the parking lot and just circle around, you can determine if the bike feels off. Be sure to change gears and try every component as you ride.
Wait for Sales or Discounts
Perhaps you’d rather own a new mountain bike, which is more desirable for many. If you want a new bike without the new bike prices, then you can always hold your breath for a sale.
I say hold your breath because, given how in-demand mountain bikes are at current, sales are going to be few and far between.
Mountain bike suppliers are having a hard enough time keeping up with the demand for the bikes as it is, so undercutting their profits by discounting a bike isn’t at the top of the priority list.
That said, sales do happen, and if you can jump on the right opportunity, you can buy a new mountain bike for less!
Buy a Bike During the Off-Season
If you’ve waited and waited and waited for a mountain bike sale only for one to never come, I do have one last suggestion for you.
You can always shop for a mountain bike in the winter during the off-season.
Even the most dedicated mountain bikers are going to stop riding for a few months as the weather turns cold and treacherous.
Although mountain bike manufacturers aren’t giving away bikes at that point, they might be somewhat more eager to sell them for less if they have any stock leftover.
The end of the year is another good time to go shopping for a mountain bike. If the bike brand is releasing new bikes for next year, then you could possibly find a good deal on last year’s bikes.
Conclusion
Mountain bikes are expensive for a myriad of reasons, including high-quality construction, high labor costs, and a demand that far outpaces the supply.
Even if you paid a lot for your mountain bike, now that you know what goes into one, you can appreciate its value that much more!
