this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
184 points (97.9% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35822 readers
1624 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

There are some brands of bicycles that can cost more than the down payment on a car. Why? Surely making a bike lightweight and reliable isn't so difficult that it warrants that price? Is it just the brand name or maybe it has to do with customization options?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Gaybees@artemis.camp 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I can only on road bikes as that’s what I ride. But it seems like the biggest factor that drives up prices is a combination of weight and aerodynamics.

For just regular people, If you know where to look you can get a high end bike that was unfinished at the factory and didn’t get painted/stickered/branded and pay a fraction of the price. A lot of time the branding is what really drives up prices.

But in the very high end it’s really all about weight and aero. Professional racers will pay a hefty premium to knock a few grams off of their bikes total weight, or to get parts that are more aerodynamic and thus give you better power transfer between your bike and the road.

And then the lighter you want to get, you start getting diminished returns, and exponentially higher prices. Like if you compare a 3 pound saddle to a 1 pound saddle it might be a little bit more expensive. But then if you have a 150 gram saddle and want to get a 100 gram saddle that might be 20x the price.

Lighter parts also have to sustain the same amount of forces (and sometimes much much more) as their heavy duty steel counterparts so finding things that can undergo this amount of stress and not break plays into it as well.

And this doesn’t even go into materials. The big new thing is titanium bikes which are ridiculously expensive but will last several lifetimes if taken care of. And then carbon fiber is difficult to make and even more difficult to make well. Much lighter and than other materials but really only flexes in one direction and can be really fragile if under the wrong type of stress.

[–] aramus@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you know where to look you can get a high end bike that was unfinished at the factory and didn’t get painted/stickered/branded and pay a fraction of the price.

Can you tell me where that is?

[–] Gaybees@artemis.camp 5 points 1 year ago

This is for the US, not sure about elsewhere, but…

The easy and reliable way for most people is probably just bikesdirect.com
I’ll fully admit that their website looks like you’re immediately gonna get scammed, but it’s legit and I’ve ordered from them. Don’t just trust me though, search around and find people who have posted and can verify that they’ve ordered and it’s legit.
They’re importers who sell branded and off/non branded bikes direct from the manufacturers at a heavy discount. Shipping is free, but it takes a pretty long time since they’re shipping it from China

The hard and less reliable way is to ask around. I got to be good friends with the owner of my local bike shop, and he’s the type of person who organizes races and does a lot of custom work, so he knows a couple people who run small bike factories/workshops in the US. They sometimes have bikes that have some marks on the down tube or a slightly messy weld etc. but otherwise perfectly great bikes that they can’t sell. So it’s definitely a long shot and more likely in cities with a big biking scene, but this is where you get the best deal. I got a frame for $300 and they would have sold it for over $1500 but didn’t because the holes for a water bottle cage were milled slightly off center.

[–] SARGEx117@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I've seen a carbon fiber fork withstand the weight of a car (equivalent, not an actual full size car)

I've also seen a carbon fiber rear triangle fold from bumping into a rock at an almost-standstill.

Gotta say, I like the idea of a titanium bike.