[BeginnerCycling]

Originally Posted by froze

Most of the profit on shoes goes to the retailer anyways, not to Nike! According to Business Week, you pay $180 for shoes, the retailer pays about $50, and Nike pays about $12.

Wow, I'm a bit surprised that the retailer makes that much more than Nike does!

[froze]

Originally Posted by BeginnerCycling

Wow, I'm a bit surprised that the retailer makes that much more than Nike does!

Quite frankly I was just as surprised as you!!

[CTD50]

Okay, back to the bikes....

Yes, bikes cost more than they used to. I compare it to a lot of other everyday objects from 'back in the day'.

In the 70's, you could get a new Schwinn 10-speed for, what? $100, $150? I got an excellent secondhand one for $55 in 1974. Then, gas was $.37/gallon. It was a couple more years before I really started noticing prices.

1976-77: gas was .46-.50, so was a pack of Kools; Playboy was $1.50, a Big Mac was .65, a gallon of milk was .80, IIRC.

Now: something comparable (hey, a Schwinn or GT!), about $1K. 6-10x increase. Gas: $3.62 this morning; about 7-8x increase. Kools, $4.69, 9x increase. Milk, $3.24, 4x up. Big Mac, $2.60, 4x. (Haven't even priced Playboy lately, lol)

People don't think about this; every week, I get people at work harping about Walfart bikes being expensive at $110.....

[froze]

Originally Posted by CTD50

Okay, back to the bikes....

Yes, bikes cost more than they used to. I compare it to a lot of other everyday objects from 'back in the day'.

In the 70's, you could get a new Schwinn 10-speed for, what? $100, $150? I got an excellent secondhand one for $55 in 1974. Then, gas was $.37/gallon. It was a couple more years before I really started noticing prices.

1976-77: gas was .46-.50, so was a pack of Kools; Playboy was $1.50, a Big Mac was .65, a gallon of milk was .80, IIRC.

Now: something comparable (hey, a Schwinn or GT!), about $1K. 6-10x increase. Gas: $3.62 this morning; about 7-8x increase. Kools, $4.69, 9x increase. Milk, $3.24, 4x up. Big Mac, $2.60, 4x. (Haven't even priced Playboy lately, lol)

People don't think about this; every week, I get people at work harping about Walfart bikes being expensive at $110.....

I have friends who think I'm nuts because I have "expensive" bikes when a Walmart bike would do the same thing!!! Yep, I have friends who have said that, but they drive expensive brand new cars and that's ok? Their rational is they don't want the car to break down yet that doesn't computer in their brains when it comes to cycling...go figure. But those same friends find my commuter car, a 72 Chrysler Newport 4 door, a ancient relic that will always cost more to maintain. Their so wrong about the maintenance thing it isn't even funny. I get 20mpg on the hwy with that boat, and haven't had any repairs to do on it since I bought last year. I did spend money to have it repainted, and a new dual Flowmaster exhaust put on, plus a KN open filter system, but nothing has broke and it runs fantastic. And if something were to break I can fix it myself instead of a modern car that I can't.

There are somethings thought that have outpaced inflation like homes and cars; but there are other things that have underpaced inflation like electronics. But mostly we pay more for stuff then our parents did even with inflation factored in. My parents had a single income, dad was a bluecollar worker and could afford in the late 50's to buy a brand new house and two brand new cars all in the same year in addition to raising 3 kids...try doing that today! And this sort of lifestyle continued into the 70's, after which that lifestyle slowly went away to where it required 2 incomes to do that, now today that may not be enough!!! so things have changed and not for the better.

[CTD50]

Originally Posted by froze

I have friends who think I'm nuts because I have "expensive" bikes when a Walmart bike would do the same thing!!! Yep, I have friends who have said that, but they drive expensive brand new cars and that's ok? Their rational is they don't want the car to break down yet that doesn't computer in their brains when it comes to cycling...go figure.

Oddly enough, went through something very similar to that TODAY at work (Walfart).

Guy was shopping for a 'Greenway' bike (hybrid, basically), but was so taken by the passion of an older guy at the LBS in town (know him, he IS passionate about MTB!), that he was looking at our MTB BSO's. My co-worker and I talked his ear off about what he SHOULDN'T do on 'our' bikes, and he started off talking about being employed in a welding shop, and KNOWING that there was no diff in the welding between our crap and the LBS bikes. SUMMATION: a bike is a bike is a bike, the only diff is $$ and a few parts. Damn fool. Oh, well, he'll learn when that Walfart Mongoof 29er folds up under his 250-lb self.