2024 product release rumors

[TobinHatesYou]

Great, more Asian brands will soon force the prices down or the big brands will be in deep recess. The inflated prices for the premium framesets are pure bogus. The prices from low grade to high grade isn't near what the asking price is.

Except the US is about to start another global trade war and that's going to have a much bigger effect on the price of your next bike than the drop in the bucket that is Asian brands attempting to penetrate western markets.

[spdntrxi]

also the asian brands have not exactly been lowering the price.. actually their premium frames have been getting more expensive and some of their wheels have been too.

[raisinberry777]

also the asian brands have not exactly been lowering the price.. actually their premium frames have been getting more expensive and some of their wheels have been too.

I'd say it's more of a new market. Budget Chinese stuff has stayed at a similar price point for the last ten years, but there's now a market of 'premium Chinese' to fill the gap between budget Chinese framesets and western brand framesets.

[BigBoyND]

Great, more Asian brands will soon force the prices down or the big brands will be in deep recess. The inflated prices for the premium framesets are pure bogus. The prices from low grade to high grade isn't near what the asking price is.

Western frameset margins are certainly bogus (bike margins are not) and Chinese brands are taking advantage of it. These $2000 Chinese frames also have insane margins, since their costs are so much lower. Asian brands don't need to worry about a lot of things that western brands spend much more money on (R&D, QC, ESG, CS, etc). When they do, it's certainly to a lesser degree. Some of the big players also get government subsidies.

Also good to have in the back of your mind that money sent abroad will not find its way back to you. It's a nice way to fund other governments and kill economies of your neighbors. If you don't care about your neighbors, you might care that if they don't have money, they won't buy whatever you're selling either.

Given the sentiments I hear daily, it still shocks me how much money people send away to fund things they don't agree with. Americans complain about manufacturing jobs in general, Germans complain about their auto industry, etc. Then they go out and fund that downward trend with their purchases.

[TobinHatesYou]

Great, more Asian brands will soon force the prices down or the big brands will be in deep recess. The inflated prices for the premium framesets are pure bogus. The prices from low grade to high grade isn't near what the asking price is.

Western frameset margins are certainly bogus (bike margins are not) and Chinese brands are taking advantage of it. These $2000 Chinese frames also have insane margins, since their costs are so much lower. Asian brands don't need to worry about a lot of things that western brands spend much more money on (R&D, QC, ESG, CS, etc). When they do, it's certainly to a lesser degree. Some of the big players also get government subsidies.

Also good to have in the back of your mind that money sent abroad will not find its way back to you. It's a nice way to fund other governments and kill economies of your neighbors. If you don't care about your neighbors, you might care that if they don't have money, they won't buy whatever you're selling either.

Given the sentiments I hear daily, it still shocks me how much money people send away to fund things they don't agree with. Americans complain about manufacturing jobs in general, Germans complain about their auto industry, etc. Then they go out and fund that downward trend with their purchases.

Any large scale manufacturing that comes back to the US will be mostly automated in nature. Corporations don’t even want to pay for the cost of Chinese labor anymore, so what makes anyone think they’re going to be willing to pay for American labor? Nah, that’s what Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, etc. are for.

Western countries should be trading education, research, services, data, not hardgoods.

[Nickldn]

The whole argument of: you are supporting your domestic economy when you buy from a Western brand is wrong.

Almost all volume Western brands manufacture their wares in the far East, so you are funding goals of their governments when you purchase almost any bike, or part. The slice of the economic pie going to the domestic economy is at best small.

As Tobin mentioned the next US government is very likely to put high tariffs on goods coming from China. This will increase the prices of bikes and parts manufactured there. But buying a Western brand will also become more expensive as most of the products are made in China too, so it goes full circle. The EU has broad exemptions for bicycle parts from tariffs to promote sustainability, but could also introduce new tariffs if it feels bike parts destined for the US are being 'dumped' in the EU due to high US tariffs.

So yeah be patriotic and pay much more.

[TobinHatesYou]

The whole argument of: you are supporting your domestic economy when you buy from a Western brand is wrong.

Almost all volume Western brands manufacture their wares in the far East, so you are funding goals of their governments when you purchase almost any bike, or part. The slice of the economic pie going to the domestic economy is at best small.

As Tobin mentioned the next US government is very likely to put high tariffs on goods coming from China. This will increase the prices of bikes and parts manufactured there. But buying a Western brand will also become more expensive as most of the products are made in China too, so it goes full circle. The EU has broad exemptions for bicycle parts from tariffs to promote sustainability, but could also introduce new tariffs if it feels bike parts destined for the US are being 'dumped' in the EU due to high US tariffs.

So yeah be patriotic and pay much more.

Less pricing pressure from imports will raise prices of all goods regardless of COO / the “Made in” label.

[BigBoyND]

The whole argument of: you are supporting your domestic economy when you buy from a Western brand is wrong.

Almost all volume Western brands manufacture their wares in the far East, so you are funding goals of their governments when you purchase almost any bike, or part.

This isn't true at all. Buy a western branded frame and a few hundred $ stay in Asia. The rest stays and is distributed by HQ. Buy a $2000 Chinese frames and it all goes to Asia except the small part DHL takes.

That's the financial reality and on top you have the other factors I mentioned. Even the factories that sign ESG policies with western brands can be quite bad by our standards. The ones that don't worry about those details at all are awful.

[BigBoyND]

Any large scale manufacturing that comes back to the US will be mostly automated in nature. Corporations don’t even want to pay for the cost of Chinese labor anymore, so what makes anyone think they’re going to be willing to pay for American labor? Nah, that’s what Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, etc. are for.

Western countries should be trading education, research, services, data, not hardgoods.

I completely agree with you on this. Many brands are already moving to Cambodia, Vietnam, etc. It's accelerated by China tariffs. We won't be buying American groupsets unless we keep moving backwards and American wages reach parity with Asia.

To start, I'd still prefer Vietnam, et al. But regardless where the manufacturing is in Asia, my economic point was about buying from a Western brand vs Asian direct.

[Nickldn]

The whole argument of: you are supporting your domestic economy when you buy from a Western brand is wrong.

Almost all volume Western brands manufacture their wares in the far East, so you are funding goals of their governments when you purchase almost any bike, or part. The slice of the economic pie going to the domestic economy is at best small.

As Tobin mentioned the next US government is very likely to put high tariffs on goods coming from China. This will increase the prices of bikes and parts manufactured there. But buying a Western brand will also become more expensive as most of the products are made in China too, so it goes full circle. The EU has broad exemptions for bicycle parts from tariffs to promote sustainability, but could also introduce new tariffs if it feels bike parts destined for the US are being 'dumped' in the EU due to high US tariffs.

So yeah be patriotic and pay much more.

Less pricing pressure from imports will raise prices of all goods regardless of COO / the “Made in” label.

Agreed, US tariffs will reduce competition and incentives for price cuts/efficiency/innovation. We're all likely to be worse off as a result.

[maquisard]

I don't think tareifs will happen. As much as I don't like him, Trump isn't this stupid. It is a bargaining ploy that will never be implemented, at least not to the numbers he proposed.

[howaboutme]

I don't think tareifs will happen. As much as I don't like him, Trump isn't this stupid. It is a bargaining ploy that will never be implemented, at least not to the numbers he proposed.

I agree. I'm personally not worried about it. So I pay a few bucks more for odds and ends and maybe a hundred or so more for the more expensive items. Cycling is not buying groceries. You get to make a choice.

[Nickldn]

The whole argument of: you are supporting your domestic economy when you buy from a Western brand is wrong.

Almost all volume Western brands manufacture their wares in the far East, so you are funding goals of their governments when you purchase almost any bike, or part.

This isn't true at all. Buy a western branded frame and a few hundred $ stay in Asia. The rest stays and is distributed by HQ. Buy a $2000 Chinese frames and it all goes to Asia except the small part DHL takes.

That's the financial reality and on top you have the other factors I mentioned. Even the factories that sign ESG policies with western brands can be quite bad by our standards. The ones that don't worry about those details at all are awful.

In my mind most of the big manufacturers' frames are made by sophisticated and experienced contractors in the far East. These guys do their own R&D for frame construction and offer a menu of layups and mixes of carbon grades to the big brands. So if for example brand T wants to produce a top tier frameset - let's call it O**V 15 they will take all the top menu options from their contract, if on the other hand an O**V 14 frame is needed they'll untick some of the high grade carbon options in the layup schedule, or move it to a less sophisticated contactor in Cambodia.

This setup leaves me with the impression the big brands do marketing activity and some design work on colours/branding/frame and component aesthetics, but actually that is a relatively small part of the whole operation.

Don't forget Specialized, the most innovative cycling brand known for it's trend setting in the industry, is mostly owned by Merida. It's not really known how much thinking Merida does and how much is done by Specialized 'in house' in the US.

So yeah not a simple picture, at least in in my view.

[BigBoyND]

No. While the contract manufacturers usually develop layups to a set of requirements provided by the big brands, all R&D/design before that is done at home.

It's simple enough to count the number of employees in their home countries, add up their salaries, add profit, add local costs (rent, utilities, etc) and so on. That's the minimum amount of money that is earned/spent in the home country as part of their operations.

Even simpler: for something like an SL8, much less than $1k will go to the factory. Buy a $2000 Winspace and all of that is gone.

And again, this is still just the economic portion on the list of issues. Specialized makes sure their contractor doesn't use imported workers who had their passports taken, and 10 of them sleep in a 5sqm room working like wage slaves until they pay of their hiring fees. It may sound like hyperbole but even some of the bigger factories still do that stuff (among other equally bad things) unless their customers force them to. So even if "it's all made in China anyway" there's still a huge spectrum of what behavior your money perpetuates.

[toxin]

Well spesh in particualr are a bit different as they have the money to have a contingent of their own engineers permanently stationed at one of their factories. They will do both development and process control