There's an interesting discussion going on over at http://www.muddymoles.org.uk/ about whether or not we as mountain bikers are being ripped off by importers, manufacturers and our local LBS. OK I've expanded this a little - they are actually moaning about rotor prices.
Fair enough, rotors can be expensive, but there are cheap alternatives to buying from people such as Avid, Shimano or Hope. I use Discobrakes, and they are fine, as are Superstar really. You don't need to spend a ton of cash to get reasonable performing goods. And there is always good old eBay, although some of the stuff is of questionnable origin. I've been quite lucky though, and once managed to buy a Magura disk brake set for £30 that included a 203mm Venti rotor - they're £35 on their own.
My point, though, is that OK it is an expensive sport, but have you bought a camera recently? My Nex-5 arrived today. No memory card so I popped into town to get one.
£70.
For a memory card the size of my thumb nail.*
Our sport is still expensive as you move up the quality scale of things, but for what you get, and the enjoyment factor involved, I don't think it is too bad. Just try photography if you are feeling hard done by....
*Naturally I managed to snap the card in two trying to get it out of the packaging. Do manufacturers make them this difficult to access deliberately? As if they want you to 'accidentally' break it, forcing you to buy another. This was a plastic blister pack itself covered in thick cardboad. The card was wedged into it, so to get it out required a certain amount of force. Luckily I'm from the Midlands so have what some would call a dorky, honest look about me - so I took advantage of this and got a replacement, after carefully putting the card back together so that it looked perfect. But it galls me that the packaging was so horrid in the first place; even the salesman pushed the replacement through with his thumb. The replacement, note, was in a cellotaped together package, as if they'd been down this route before.
Fair enough, rotors can be expensive, but there are cheap alternatives to buying from people such as Avid, Shimano or Hope. I use Discobrakes, and they are fine, as are Superstar really. You don't need to spend a ton of cash to get reasonable performing goods. And there is always good old eBay, although some of the stuff is of questionnable origin. I've been quite lucky though, and once managed to buy a Magura disk brake set for £30 that included a 203mm Venti rotor - they're £35 on their own.
My point, though, is that OK it is an expensive sport, but have you bought a camera recently? My Nex-5 arrived today. No memory card so I popped into town to get one.
£70.
For a memory card the size of my thumb nail.*
Our sport is still expensive as you move up the quality scale of things, but for what you get, and the enjoyment factor involved, I don't think it is too bad. Just try photography if you are feeling hard done by....
*Naturally I managed to snap the card in two trying to get it out of the packaging. Do manufacturers make them this difficult to access deliberately? As if they want you to 'accidentally' break it, forcing you to buy another. This was a plastic blister pack itself covered in thick cardboad. The card was wedged into it, so to get it out required a certain amount of force. Luckily I'm from the Midlands so have what some would call a dorky, honest look about me - so I took advantage of this and got a replacement, after carefully putting the card back together so that it looked perfect. But it galls me that the packaging was so horrid in the first place; even the salesman pushed the replacement through with his thumb. The replacement, note, was in a cellotaped together package, as if they'd been down this route before.
Comments
Post a Comment