Weight Weenies

Or is it Helmut?

At the price it makes you wonder! I'd expect to get a little man servant named Helmut with such a nicely priced helmet...

I sent an e-mail to British Cycling asking what the price for their aero helmet was. The helmet is to be used in the Olympics, and therefore has to be available for the public to purchase. Now I am wondering what their frames are selling for

Hi XX,

Many thanks for your enquiry regarding the Aero Helmet.

The cost of the helmet is £3,000.

As this items is made on an individual and bespoke basis, you will appreciate that due to manufacturing for the Olympic and Paralympic Games there are considerable delivery lead times.

We are able to confirm a delivery date on receipt of an order and 10% deposit.

So you have to given them a £300 deposit before they even tell you the delivery time? I suppose they could make the deposit non-refundable and tell you the delivery time is 50 years, and then pocket the deposit. Well, maybe there are trade laws protecting against that, but still, you need to give a deposit before they will tell you a delivery time?

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It's a pretty clever tactic- make the item so prohibitively expensive so that it can conform to the rules, but to the point that almost no one will buy it so they don't have to deal with the hassle of making them commercially.

Then again, Olympic souvenirs have crazy prices so I bet there'll be people with too much money out there who will buy this and the frameset.

Try and get a Richards Sach's cross bike is the example I'm using.

I'm a big fan of British cycling and what it's achieving, but seriously this makes me kind of angry. They're not even being subtle with bending and playing with the rules - which were put in place to prevent this elitist bollocks.

I don't want one of these helmets but this is a slippery slope - I don't want to see the day when no normal person can afford to ride anything they see the pros ride on telly. I feel it's not good for the market either.

No normal person can afford what the pros ride. £10000 for a TDF sec bike etc. There is nothing wrong with what UKSport is doing and it isn't stopping anyone competing.

Affordability is relative. 99% of the folks out there think spending anything more than $500 for a bike is insanity. People are spending $500 on a saddle alone.

It's just meeting the letter of a poorly specified UCI rule.
If they want a real rule on availability then say that any piece of equipment used in a UCI race has to be available to buy, on race day, at a maximum price.
As it is they have a rule that does nothing, while still making noise about how the teams with money are spending it on things

Wow, what timing!

Only this morning a riding buddy went on a thee-mile-long diatribe about how much he hates the English elitism, the English Gov't and English attitudes about the rest of the world. This sort of rule bending was one of his examples, but he didn't have numbers to back up his claim. What fuel for his fire, eh?
Riding with him next week, post Road Race, mid-Olympics, should be fun!
(He is British, by the way, and from Bristol)

It's for the reasons your mate gives, it's why me and many others are underwhelmed by the Royal Family and all that nonsense that goes with it because it underpins the British class system that still pervades our society, especially that a certain class of people all speak the same from Land's End to John O'Groats and without a regional accent.

As for the specific example regarding the helmets I can only think that they are in breach of the law or should be.

But this is what makes and defines us as British, no? People all over the world associate us with this.

What. Being stuck up and elitist? What a cross to bear. Glad I'm from the working class.

I think the 'lead times' will come down considerably after the Olympics. Team GB don't want any other teams getting their hands on these BEFORE the Olympics. I remember a few months ago when they tested their new skinsuits they burned them afterwards so that there couldn't be any leaks.

I'm willing to place a small internet-wager that someone on this site will inevitably buy one of the bikes and then post it in the gallery with the praise of "greatest in the world" or "fastest bike in the world" "most exclusive" and so on, then go on to praise the ride as being "extraordinary" with an ample use of superlatives or tongue-in-cheek metaphors.

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I get the feeling this helmet would be like EE cranks, awesome, but they won't be available until they are nearing obsolescence.

As for English elitism, everyone on here seems to be using our language (with varying levels of success) so you can see where our delusions of grandeur stem from