is mtb a rich kids and working peoples sport??

[naz]

what does this page have to do with parents by bikes for their children?

because we were talking about the cost of the sport and how rich kids get spoilt silly with high end bikes.

i saved long and hard for my bike and i love it. unlike other kids i know ican ride too. i know a guy who gets what he wants, when he wants and subsequently has a sweet machine though unfortunately does't have the skills to back it up. i was riding the other week with him and afew other guys and he was too pussy to go off a three ft drop(yet he has a fully built up freeride rig).

it not only pisses me off, but also older more experienced riders( even those who work in high end bike shops. wont name names though).

hey im a spolit litttle shit, but i dont ride a top end bike do i qualify for bein a little fuck, or would that be the 13yrs buying awesome bikes and not being able to ride them or wanting to buy a new one coz they dont like the new frame... :roll:

 

[looseunit]

fiddler wrote:
With regards to parallel importing. The laws were changed a few years ago to allow anyone to import a companies product into Australia and not just through the approved distributor. For example, when I worked for Duracell anyone could bring in Duracell from overseas and sell it on the local market. However Duracell overcame this problem by having a company policy whereby any distributor who was caught exporting local product overseas had their distribution rights cancelled and the account manager responsible was also fired.

Maybe this is how the CD and major bike companies (shimano) are restricting the number of parallel imports entering Australia.


Yep this is the type of practise that is sooooo close to breaching the trade practices act. It's a pity the ACCC doesn't act on these sort of practises and test them in the courts. They only seem to like petrol, freight, and music companies.

A few years ago there were about 5 distibuters of shimano parts into Australia and most shop did not buy from shimano because the service was crap. Shimano in japan then stop selling their parts to other distributer like norco, bikesports and bike corp. Even after they did that importers like norco still sold parts because shimano would not warrenty parts off their bikes this could have well been the reason that there were so many importers of shimano in Australia.

As for other brands that have more than one importer in Australia there are quite a few Iron horse, sigma, IRC, maxxis and profile racing to name just some. Quite often when there are two importers eg iron horse one importer does cheap low end and the other high end.

 

[looseunit]

I have noticed a trend in this tread about people saying that no bike shops sell high end mtb bikes. If only most people knew the margains on high end bike gear. Most shops make very little off mtbers who buy high end gear the vast majority make a living off family and kids bikes. The other problem is that unlike rodies most mtber want the latest bikes, for eg there is bike shop in Adelaide that has two uzzi DH frames (00 model), 99 sintesi bazzuka frame in stock. All of these bike have been going cheap for some time, but because who wants old technogyl. This same shop sells very little in the way of DH gear and i wonder why. There are also other shops around that have wc worth frames for sale at cost or below and cant get rid of them for the same reason. This could well be a reason for some inflated prices at at bike shops.

The real problem with mtbing is the way the sport has been sold and promoted, if this impoved the sport would start to become alot cheaper.

 

[Superman]

well im 13 and ride a huffy
im at the stage of mum taking me 2 bike shops and the bike shops say start off with something around 1500 bucks, but mum and some other family members are starting to give me some birthday money towards a bike. but being 13 it is shit coz you can only work privatly so u cant get a wage. a family friend says when he was young he would "mow lawns for the wrinklys" and that got him good money for the amount of effort in mowin lawns.
so all u groms like me GO MOW
peace out