Erm.. my non-e-bike costs well over a thousand euros! But I guess e-bikes have made "normal" people consider spending that much money on a bike. People into biking have always been spending this much money on bikes although oddly it seems to surprise many people, even though they'll happily pay 10x that for a car that requires fossil fuel to do anything.

As someone who never owned a car or drivers license, and who has been cycling for her whole life: no, thousands of euros for a regular bicycle is not normal.

Meanwhile, for enthusiast bikes, 10k€ has stopped being exotic. I do blame it on e-bikes, because enthusiasts will happily pay whatever is required to distance themselves from whatever the average consumer does.

It’s honestly entirely foreign to me, I grew up in an environment where everyone cycled, but that meant most bikes were somewhere between omafiets (old, used bikes) and very cheap mass produced bikes. To me a bicycle is a mode of transportation, not a sports device or a lifestyle product.

What would they even do with such a bike?

Certainly not ride it to the grocery store. Why do golfers by golf clubs? Not for the grocery store. And yachts aren't routinely used for sailing to the office either. The big lure of the enthusiast bike is doing things because you can. In a good year I can do rides for hundreds of kilometers in a day, I certainly wouldn't want to do that on my omafiets (which is just fine for anything <5km). 2020 was the first year in ages that I haven't crossed the Alps at least once. And sure, you don't need a bike costing 10k for that, in fact as it happens the bike I prefer for those occasions is the cheapest of the enthusiast bikes that I own, but that's beside the point. How many people do you own that drive a car that costs 10000 more than the cheapest car that would be perfectly adequate for the driving they do? Chances are most of them don't even consider themselves car enthusiasts!

Like NFTs, the important question is not "what can you do with it" but "how much did you spend on it". It's a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

At last those bikes are clearly in the subset of veblen goods where you need more than just cash to gain the status. A bike not ridden "adequately" (whatever that means) is like owning art without even pretending to know something about the art in question. You could do it as a provocative statement, but that would get old quickly.

> I do blame it on e-bikes, because enthusiasts will happily pay whatever is required to distance themselves from whatever the average consumer does

I don't think that has anything to do with it - e-bikes are inherently more complex, more tightly regulated (e.g. they need to be tuned to operate legally in specific jurisdictions), and subject to EU anti-dumping laws which drive up the price [0].

0 - https://www.bike-eu.com/laws-regulations/nieuws/2019/01/its-...

I didn't say thousands actually (also specifically said it wasn't normal). It's just that I own a fairly mid-high end road bike (that I bought 10 years ago) that cost more than €1000. I used to ride a road bike that cost around €800 as my commuter bike until it got stolen. The quality at this price point is definitely worth it, with diminishing returns above it. I would strongly recommend upgrading to a road or town bike at this price point as it's such a huge improvement and will last you decades.

I’d honestly consider 800€ already enthusiast grade, but I’m interested. What does your 800€ bicycle have that mine doesn’t have?

For reference, I’m currently using https://www.boc24.de/p/bocas-bari-trapez/217333/ (which I bought at 320€ on sale) with some changes (B&M 100 lux front light, seat post with suspension), and I don’t think I’d get any major improvements with other changes.

Due to cycling in city traffic, I need to be able to instantly switch gears at standstill, so a derailleur would be a downgrade compared to the hub gearing I’ve got, and upgraded hub dynamos would bring me just 2-5% more performance, which isn’t really useful.

Yours isn't a low end bike and this might be the price point for you if you aren't enthusiastic about it at all. I don't know a lot about town bikes, though. I prefer road bikes (even for commuting and getting around town with panniers).

Higher end bikes don't have any "features" that yours doesn't have. But you could also spend half as much as you did and still get the same features. Higher price points get you lightness and stiffness. This translates into speed or less effort, depending on your preference. You also get higher quality components that will last a long time or you can swap out and sell if you wish. Low end bikes tend to be disposed of as a unit as they are not worth taking apart.

But what’s that gonna provide for me? There’s diminishing returns beyond this point, the efficiency gains are in the single digit percentages or often only placebo effects, and I’ve never even seen a bicycle that stopped being used out of old age. A new coat of paint every decade or two, replacing the tires and brake pads every two years, and maybe the chain every decade, and it’ll run forever.

I feel like it’s just like people buying expensive sports cars, purely because they can, not because they actually need any of it.

Lighter bikes are more comfortable to ride - they feel nimble. Modern frames absorb bumps while still being stiff to allow maximum leg power to actually go through the drivetrain instead of frame flex. Disc brakes make an enormous difference if you have long downhill sections or regularly ride in the wet. Sure there are diminishing returns, but better components really are better, and not just 20g lighter.

High end derailers shift easier, chains have lower friction (especially in high/low gears), spokes and rims are more aerodynamic and stiffer, ratchets have smaller engagement angles, brakes require less force and don't overheat, tyres have lower rolling resistance and better grip, seat posts have compliance to remove chatter etc., And this is before you get into eg. MTB specific features like chain clutches and suspension tuning, or for triathlon aero bars, for city bikes pannier clips and built in lights, etc

> But what’s that gonna provide for me?

Nothing. Bike manufacturers and smaller builders are not trying to sell these bikes to you or to people like you. How hard is it to enjoy your "normal bike" and move on?

Some people ride their bicycles for thousands to tens of thousands of miles per year. They're going to buy what they want so that when they do ride, they enjoy it.

IMO, most of the real improvements are seen going from $300-ish to $1200-ish. Going higher doesn't give you more features so much as more quality and durability. In my experience, if you ride a lot of miles consistently on a cheap bike, parts will wear out or break pretty fast. Especially if the terrain is at least mildly rough, as found on most commutes and country roads.

Cheap wheels go out of true easily and before long are often too bent to be able to true by spoke adjustments. Cheap tires wear out fast and puncture easily. Cheap brakes wear out and go out of adjustment fast. Ditto cheap shift gear. I've broken pedals too, and I don't pedal all that aggressively. Really cheap stuff tends to be excessively heavy too, which can be a drag on uphills and when you need to carry it.

Yours looks like a perfectly fine commuter bike to me. I'm not familiar with the wheel or shift gear classes, but if it gets you where you need to go without wearing stuff out too fast, by all means no need to spend more.

> What does your 800€ bicycle have that mine doesn’t have?

For that much money, you could afford... a Rohloff hub? No frame though

Funny thing, I knew when I wrote my comment that they would be at least one answer mentioning enthusiast with their fancy all carbon fibber road bike that cost has much as a car :) .

While it i definitely true that expensive bike existed for a long time, enthusiast where rarely parking this type of bike in the middle of a busy city. These are the kind of bike who are always kept safely in a locked garage. Plus, the number of enthusiast who pay for this kind of bike are way lower. So not only is it more rare for a thief to come across this type of bike, they also might have an harder time reselling it, and reselling it is more dangerous because those bike are easily identifiable and the legitimate owner usually care enough about it to have made it registered.

E-bike are just plain more common, and most people use them for commute which mean they tend to be park in places that are more vulnerable to thief and are easier to resell.

In fairness, a car represents more than 10x the manufacturing effort. A 10k fancy road bike is going to be much easier to manufacture than the equivalent small 10k hatchback.

High manufacturing cost does not mean high value. A business is just finding something where the value is higher than the manufacturing cost. A bicycle has higher margins because it is truly a marvel of technology, while a car is basically just "yeah it will work if we throw enough fossil fuel at it".

A bicycle has higher margins because the volumes are much smaller. The engineering that goes into even the cheapest of Dacias is hundreds of times more complex

> A bicycle has higher margins because the volumes are much smaller.

Are you sure? There are more bicycles in the world than cars.

> The engineering that goes into even the cheapest of Dacias is hundreds of times more complex

Again, that does not make something more valuable. The engineering that would go into a lunar orbiting plant pot would be very complex, but has no value.

There are far more bicycles than cars, but 99% of these are very basic cost-efficient designs , probably sold for less than 100eur new

The discussion was about the engineering value of a 10k bike (or a 100k watch I guess) - it’s more of a luxury good than an engineering necessity

Yes and no. E-bikes start at 2-3k EUR and the norm is 5-6k. Obviously you can buy a road bike for 15k EUR as well but most will gravitate toward the 1-3K EUR range.

> Yes and no. E-bikes start at 2-3k EUR and the norm is 5-6k.

Absolutely no. Crappy ebikes start at 700, OK ebikes start at 1000-1200 and anything above 2.5k is enthusiast territory.

And these prices are still a lot higher than they should be, in my opinion. I posted previously on the issue - they are so expensive, compared to cars, while using far less metal and other resources, fewer IP concerns, not having all the homologation and certification burdens, being vastly cheaper to ship, etc.

I have to admit I'm not that into ebikes but these were the price I casually saw in bike shops. But maybe they were just showing off the best models.

My partner recently bought a folding ebike for 600 GBP and it wasn't even their entry level model. It is a great bike. 2-3k EUR is not entry level.

Nah… 2k is already a good ebike with a central motor and big shocks. Your entry level commuter ebike is around 1k

15k euro!!! What, is it made of carbon nanotubes or something?!

Clearly more of a fashion statement, than quality difference.

Well, those are pro models, and you pay the brand as well, but I definitely saw a Bianchi top of the line at ~20k EUR (before discounts etc)

Crazy. That's like a 10M dollar car, IMO.