[madav13]

Can Rockshox tell me how they can justify £899.99 (RPP) for a Lyrik fork? They are either making a lot of money or there are middle-men everywhere taking their slice of the cake...and us poor suckers are paying for the privilege. The same applies to Fox and other manufacturers. I think it's scandalous. I thought we were in the middle of a recession...? Fortunately, my Lyriks (2008) are serviced regularly and damage free...may it long continue.

 

[Fix the Spade]

Taxman (oooh baby I'm the taxman).

The US retail price of a Lyrik RC2 plus VAT is £794 currently, so there's £100 extra coming from somewhere but £140-ish of VAT on the damn things.

A lot of that £100 might be found in the fact that Sterling's lost a quarter of it's value against Dollars since beginning 2008, so add another chunk to the price.

So thank (the late) Mr Brown, Mr Osbourne and Mr King.

In fact thank Mr King twice because he's about to massively de-value our currency again and send inflation up, so stuff's about to get even more expensive.

Everything bike related's gone up hideously the last couple of years.
At the end of 2008 (M770) XT cranks were £99rrp, now they're £210!
Although it's done Hope and Orange a lot of favours, since their prices have hardly budged in that time. So not all bad...

 

[madav13]

Yes...I forgot about the 20% "value" added tax! On politics...yes I agree what a f******* mess our political masters and banks have done to 'encourage' credit in all its forms! I voted Monster Raving...last time. Don't get me started...

 

[High Side]

I feel sorry for you Euro guys....VAT is fascism

 

[triotary]

screw politicians and money mongering corporation (that includes APPLE aka steve jobs)

everything is going up except our payroll...

 

[dropadrop]

Looking at the price CRC and others blow out OEM forks at the end of the season I'm assuming the manufacturing costs of the forks is really low, and bike manufacturers are paying something like 80% below MSRP (or even less).

So I think it's a good question... It also makes one wonder why we should rather purchase from the big company rather then something like Bos (where MSRP is now very close, just they don't sell to OEM's).

 

[Fix the Spade]

I feel sorry for you Euro guys....VAT is fascism

I feel sorry for you Americans, few things frighten me more than the idea of being in the back of an ambulance and getting asked 'what's your insurance?'

I could get hurt anywhere in the EU, get picked up by an ambulance, taken to hospital and flown home without ever seeing the bill. I consider that worth paying VAT for.

 

[patrick2cents]

They still take care of you here if you are uninsured and injured. The hospital foots the bill in that case.

 

[Pike14]

They still take care of you here if you are uninsured and injured. The hospital foots the bill in that case.

They won't let you die but I've never had the hospital foot the bill for me. I've had two experiences where I had to get stitched up after crashes (at $100 a stitch!) and both times I got a nice little (actually HUGE) bill in my mailbox a couple weeks later. Everyone knows our healthcare system is sh*t. We have the best doctors in the world, but we're paying through the nose for them.

 

[dropadrop]

Going quite offtopic, but anyway...

I was on vacation in NZ a few years ago, and had a pretty hard crash on my bike. I had travel insurance, but turns out it was pretty useless. I spent a few hours in hospital, going through x-rays etc, had myself patched up and bought a lot of painkillers, and it all ended up costing me something like 80 NZ$. Ends up that even tourists are covered by their national health insurance.

 

[sik_at]

I heard that the OEM prices for Fox forks are only one third of the price for the aftermarket ones. Does anybody know anything about that? If this is true they should be ashamed for ripping off their best customers.

 

[lew242]

All I want is for someone to own a profitable company that can pay their staff properly and engage in R&D.

$1000 for a fork is too much, especially if you can get a fork that is nearly as good for a third of the price.

 

[dropadrop]

I heard that the OEM prices for Fox forks are only one third of the price for the aftermarket ones. Does anybody know anything about that? If this is true they should be ashamed for ripping off their best customers.

Once bike shops have sold their extra inventory to CRC, and they end up on sale to us mortals they can be as cheap as one third of list price... I'm guessing they pay one fifth, or max a quarter of msrp. It's a huge scam really.

 

[Der Juicen]

the AVERAGE dealer cost for most items is about 55-60% of msrp.

 

[MindlessDeviant]

I thought it was retarded as well while I was building my bike. I ended up finding a brand new 2010 lyrik on a website having a close out on them for $300 shipped. I hope it never breaks because I know I will never find a deal like that again in my lifetime

 

[Tkul]

23% vat over this corner (portugal).
Prices have increased a lot over the years... Thinking that a mag 21 costed something like 350€ and today to have the "same spec" fork is doble or nothing.............they think their making airplane parts........ Oh well.....