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Very Hot Topic (More than 25 Replies) Carbon frames (Read 2901 times)
IntheBush
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Re: Carbon frames
Reply #20 - 02/01/18 at 11:41pm
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Great vid.

Another good reason to buy made in USA. Where the design and manufacturing are all in house.

It just seems crazy to me we can ship things back and forth, and deal with all these headaches for less than we can make bikes in our own back yard. 
That's a subject that's never really addressed.

But I have this theory, that in many ways the politicians on purpose or by neglect have stacked the deck against U.S. manufacturing to the extent that they gain political influence in other countries by providing jobs and creating an environment where it's better for investors to locate such enterprises overseas. It's about lower labor costs and lower risk. Even though the end result to the consumer is often an inferior product.
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Impaler 58
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Re: Carbon frames
Reply #21 - 02/02/18 at 2:26pm
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labor is expensive in the US. There's people in the Auto industry that make good money by today's standard. But they can barely afford what they make. I remember mu days working on the line. I could pay cash for a chevy luv after 3-4 months salary
  
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Re: Carbon frames
Reply #22 - 02/02/18 at 6:34pm
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Impaler 58 wrote on 02/02/18 at 2:26pm:
labor is expensive in the US. There's people in the Auto industry that make good money by today's standard. But they can barely afford what they make. I remember mu days working on the line. I could pay cash for a chevy luv after 3-4 months salary


Labor is cheaper everywhere else...  perspective is key.

Our labor is being shipped to lower wage earners so that companies can continue to show profit without actually producing additional goods and services.  This is what is funding the CEO salary explosion.

  
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Re: Carbon frames
Reply #23 - 02/02/18 at 6:43pm
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I really don't think labor is a problem when it comes to the prices of bikes.  Unless you are talking about small batch very custom builders... but that is what you are buying.

My question(s) are more around the hidden inflation that is really easy to see in this particular industry.  The auto industry is another.

As technology in materials and manufacturing advances... prices are supposed to fall. A 1/2 degree change in geometry shouldn't be enough to hold prices high regardless of material composition. 

We are sorting of seeing a shift in the auto industry when you consider the dollar per HP in the performance lines. 


  
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Re: Carbon frames
Reply #24 - 02/06/18 at 12:41am
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If I was running a business I would keep charging high prices until the market dictated that I had to decrease my price...until then 5k-10k carbon bikes for everyone!
  
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Re: Carbon frames
Reply #25 - 02/06/18 at 2:02am
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If you want to understand why Carbon is expensive you need to look at the sunk costs involved in its manufacture, the time it takes to amatorize those costs, and how market expectations dictate your quality threshold for the product. 

Let's start with fixed costs.  While I can't speak to production costs in the cycling industry specifically the concepts are similar in other industries with the primary difference being economies of scale.  The short version is that molds for manufacturing in carbon are hugely expensive and cannot be easily adjusted to different design parameters the way a CNC machine or welding jig can. Once you set up your mold you are 100% committed and the only way you can get your money back is to produce more of that product.  That's why you see so many knock offs out there; but it does not mean that the different end products are the same or even similar other than a shared geometry.  The quality of materials is vastly different between the grades of carbon cloth. Lower grades are more susceptible to creeping under load which puts stress on the resin rather than the fiber. Additionally, poor alignment of fibers to stress lines will cause a failure in the product in short order and with little to no advance notice of fatigue.  Perhaps even more insidiously, cheaper carbon is much more susceptible to UV degradation. (If you take one thing from this remember to keep your carbon bike out of the sun as much as possible) Cheap carbon and resin does not have the UV inhibitors that others do and as a result will fail MUCH more quickly than a product made from a premium cloth like Torray.  Because early failure is viewed as unacceptable in our market, those cheaper filler knock offs fail to get much sales volume in the European or North American marketplace. Additionally, many of the other markets where bikes are viewed as a primary mode of transportation value the low cost, repairability and reliability of steel vs the light weight and high rigidity of carbon further limiting the potential market for carbon bikes. As a result, I believe that carbon will tend to be a niche material with a limited ability to generate the sales volumes necessary to bring unit costs and prices down.  

FYI, Pink Bike did a pretty good interview with the folks at Envy recently. Makes a good companion piece to the production in Asia article referenced earlier.
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Re: Carbon frames
Reply #26 - 02/09/18 at 10:02am
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Banjopickin wrote on 02/01/18 at 5:51pm:
As far as a return on the investment... You have to understand that the major brands are freaking massive in terms of scale and the number of bikes they make a year...

For the big guys like Spec., Trek, Giant, etc. they own their own factories so costs are kept low. They also have a HUGE product line where many frames see very little change and they can afford to spend $ to update premium models to stay relevant. 

Brands like Santa Cruz, etc are owned by massive corporations (Pon Holdings) which help offset costs and keep them relevant. Santa Cruz is less than 1% of Pon's budget I bet... its massive.

Other brands use Open Mold designs that are cheaper to purchase too and they can simply pick the newest Open Mold design or pay a small amount to "tweak" it to their needs.

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This video gives some cool insight into what goes into making a bike brand. I found it to be super informative...




From what I know Specialized uses Ideal Bicycle Corp for their carbon. Ideal owns Fuji bicycles and is the 3rd largest bicycle manufacturer next to #1 Giant and #2 Merida.  BTW Specialized has/do use all three of these manufacturers to make their bikes.  Merida is actually a pioneer in hydroforming aluminum tubing.

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Merida also bought 49% of Specialized in 2001.
  
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Re: Carbon frames
Reply #27 - 02/09/18 at 5:58pm
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The Cycle Path wrote on 02/09/18 at 10:02am:


From what I know Specialized uses Ideal Bicycle Corp for their carbon. Ideal owns Fuji bicycles and is the 3rd largest bicycle manufacturer next to #1 Giant and #2 Merida.  BTW Specialized has/do use all three of these manufacturers to make their bikes.  Merida is actually a pioneer in hydroforming aluminum tubing.

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Merida also bought 49% of Specialized in 2001.


How come brands like Fuji and raleigh can sell such low cost bikes with to components. Are their frames inferior to the bigger brands?
  
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Re: Carbon frames
Reply #28 - 02/13/18 at 3:43am
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Awesome article about carbon and aluminum bike manufacturing.  The pic of all the distinct pieces of carbon that go into a single frame build is pretty crazy!

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Re: Carbon frames
Reply #29 - 02/13/18 at 3:23pm
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Impaler 58 wrote on 02/09/18 at 5:58pm:


How come brands like Fuji and raleigh can sell such low cost bikes with to components. Are their frames inferior to the bigger brands?


I'm guessing little to no R&D, and heavy frames.
  
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