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Why everything labeled as gravel is overpriced?
Is it only me, or is it mainstream practice that everything labeled as "gravel" this and "gravel" that is extremely overpriced? Mtb products like tyres, chains, gears, shoes,lights, shifters (shimano grx 600 and 400 are lower quality editions of 105 and tiagra) , chainwheels, ( shimano rx600 chainwheel is at best, alivio quality...) And and and... What do you think?
If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.
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- MattKelland 22 min 54 sec ago
Thanks! For some reason it's not showing up here: https://road.cc/show/tags/nmotd/145572
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24 comments
To be fair, 95% of companies charge as much as people will pay for their products. It is unrealistic to expect bike component manufacturers to act differently. Prices will come down as more suppliers enter the market or we just choose not to pay so much.
From the sister site:
https://off.road.cc/content/buying/the-best-mountain-bikes-you-can-buy-f...
"You can get a proper trail-ready mountain bike for £600 these days, and there's plenty of choice out there."
Includes a few £400 bikes, and one £250 bike.
https://off.road.cc/content/buying/the-best-gravel-and-adventure-bikes-y...
"If you're after a new gravel or adventure bike but don't want to spend more than £1,000 then you're in luck"
Only one of them, the Dark Peak Calibre, comes in under the £600 limit of the mountain bike article, and while it was discounted to £450 at the time, it looks like it's no longer available.
Gravel bikes are just modern day drop bar touring bikes. Both gravel and touring bikes have good tyre clearance which means they're able to go on NCN routes, some of which are gravel.
They both have lots of mounting points and also have fairly relaxed geometries. Of course, 'touring' is deeply uncool so you have to call it 'gravel' and 'bikepacking' instead.
Nailed it.
Absolutely. However, the other, additional, factor is probably the large number of ageing middle managers who got into cycling post-Wiggins and who now want a comfortable bike without it looking uncool as they can no longer cope with their Dogma. The new label allows them to go slow and carry luggage whilst still kidding themselves that they're not pathetic wannabes or boring freds...
Because the window for cashing in on fads isn't open for very long
Yeah I'm sure some companies are (trying) to make fast buck but honestly, gravel bikes are not the same as cx bikes (different geo for one)...and neither are they the same as road bikes (much bigger tyres and so on)
Nobody is being forced to buy one so I don't see where the problem is? Loads of choice out there!
really? there such as thing as 'gravel lights'?
I really want this light.
Exposure Optix All Terain STVZO, so German spec road lighting (Damn those sensible europeans) STVZO compliant, which means not dazzleing oncoming drivers/riders, but gives 3300 lumens when you need it when bombing down the riverbed syle bridleway that goes down a mountainside.
Bit road, bit mountain bike - all Gravel?
£385 - you could get a bike for that !
Awesome!! Had been looking at Busch + Muller Ixon Space, but wasn't that confident that "splash and rainwater proof" (IP54) would be sufficent. I've had 4 or 5 years of use out of an exposure strada, which is now scratched and dented, but still working.
Unfortunately I don't think it is quite available yet.
I recall a conversation with my window cleaner from about 30 years ago, I knew he was a keen cyclist and thought he might be interested in my new mountain bike, but he didn't buy into the whole mtb "thing", stating that his cyclocross bike with some wider tyres, which in those days probably meant 23mm rather than 19mm, could do anything a mtb could. Truth be told he wasn't far wrong, at least on the singletrack trails around the local area and he now seems to be further vindicated by the current gravel "thing".
Still, robust bicycles with a comfy geometry, ready for accessories, disc braked and with lower gearing for easy cruising on road and mixed terrain - what's not to like?
GRX is carrying a premium because it's new. It was the same for R8000 & R7000, it always take a while for prices to drop. I agree in part though - for example why do gravel/adventure chainsets cost more? They've got less teeth for starters! Ditto 1x chainsets.
It has been this way for a while - disc wheelsets are often more expensive than rim brake wheels. And yes, roadie stuff is more expensive than MTB - just look at how cheap 650B wheelsets are, or even 29ers
I don't agree that the GRX groups are lower quality than their road equivalents though...
Its not the prices for grx, it is the quality. I have in my hands a grx600 crankset and it is not hollowtech for the crankarms, the quality looks more than alivio rather than 105 level that they claim. Well, it is cheaper than the 105 crank but nowhere near in quality. The bottom line is that you got bikes with 105 at a given price and now, at the same or a bit higher price you get the grx600. It seems that they made some hole there since they have no grx 600 rear derailleur!! What a bust!!
welcome to big business and snake oil sales. It's always made me laugh when the manufacturers try to pull stunts like the 'Gravel' thing.
Well, just wait a bit for the first Zwift e-gravel triathlon!
I've done a non-Zwift (i.e. real) off-road triathlon. Reverse order too! Turns out it was much more enjoyable than the "real deal" imo.
Agreed but I also think there is no such thing as a gravel bike. It's just a road bike with wider tyres. Is there a gravel.cc site?
I would add that a gravel bike is a cyclocross with wider tyres and an andurance geometry. But that is exactly what is my point, there is no gravel bike ( there is no death star...). It is a whole circus of marketing components overpriced with same or lower quality than road or mtb equivalents.
A cyclocross bike with an endurance geometry is quite fundamentally not a cross bike.
So far we think that these gravel bikes may have been a road bike which has been modified to take wider tyres or that it might have been a cross bike which has been modified so it isnt a cross bike any longer. Since these gravel bikes dont seem to be either a road bike or a cross bike I wonder if they are something new and that the manufacturers are recovering the design, R&D and marketing costs associated with bringing something new to market. Just a thought.
The term "cross bike" itself encompassed a wide range of styles not that long ago. Everything from absolute pure bred CX (no bottle bosses, often something like a 36/42 chainring combination giving very little gearing range, 30c tyres max) right through to what we might now call a gravel bike.
It's only really in the last 3 years that discs have really become a thing on CX - not that long ago were all the predictable threads on forums going "well, if discs are supposed to be so good, why do CX racers still use cantis, I'm happy with my cantis..." Now you can barely buy a rim-braked CX bike. Again, it was trickle-down, waiting for the availability of parts and spares to actually make discs a reasonable option.
And discs (and wider range cassettes) have then opened up the true "gravel" niche which is essentially getting all the good bit of a late-1990's MTB and all the good bits of a CX bike and fitting them together.
then it's not a cyclocross bike or a 'road' bike is it?