Things Are More Expensive Than Before | Yes, But This High-End Realm Never Existed

While mountain biking has its roots in jerry-rigged klunkers, it’s safe to say the folks riding those bikes in the Elk Mountains in Colorado and down Repack Road in Marin County could never have predicted the highly refined and beautifully engineered machines of today. It’s also safe to say they would have never dreamed modern-day bikes could cost the same as a brand new base model 2025 Hyundai Venue.

It’s more than just the arms race that comes out of the bike industry Daft Punk’s theory of innovation — every new thing needs to be harder, better, faster, and stronger, even if it’s only by an imperceptible margin. Outside factors, ranging from global inflation and increasing costs of shipping, to hangovers from the pandemic, and even the corporatisation of some bike brands and venture capital and investment firms getting involved, have all played a role in the ever-climbing price of high-end bikes.

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But mountain bikes across the spectrum have never been more advanced. And while it’s true that they have also never been more expensive, today’s high-end mountain bikes occupy a realm that simply didn’t exist before. These flashy, cutting-edge rigs are marvels of engineering, showcasing what’s possible when design and technology come together at the highest level.

For the price of a small car, you can get a carbon frame with a cubby for your spares and snacks in the downtube, tube-in-tube cable routing, and robots to control your shifting and the damping in your fork and shock. The advances in geometry and suspension kinematics mean that we can have BIG bikes that don’t climb like a refrigerator and little bikes that can eat bumps like a trophy truck at the Dakar Rally.

We now have carbon wheels that can be smashed into rocks repeatedly without exploding like fireworks, and e-Bike systems that provide natural feeling support with the sensors and technology to tailor that output based on what the terrain and your legs are doing, and also automatically shift the gears for you too.

Heck, you don’t even need a cable to actuate your dropper post anymore! Do you think those mountain bike pioneers riding from Crested Butte to Aspen, or even the Mudcows in Cairns, could have fathomed the idea of a telescopic seatpost you control from your handlebars in their day? Much less one that’s not connected to said handlebar by anything other than radio waves and magic. Brain explosion imminent.

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The amount of engineering and technology bolted onto a top-end bike these days is truly a marvel, but that whizz-bang kit ain’t cheap, and the price of the most expensive bikes on the market continues to climb to new heights.

But as technology at the HALO spec continues to forge into new territory, over time that shiny new damper or derailleur becomes a little less cutting edge and percolates down the product range.

The concept of trickle-down technology isn’t new, but it’s never been more relevant. Advanced features like wireless shifting, improved suspension kinematics, and durable materials are steadily making their way into more affordable bikes. For everyday riders, this means better performance at accessible prices.

But that innovation at the top comes with cost, and the staggering price of top-tier bikes has sparked heated debates. From wireless shifting to adaptive suspension, the innovations at this price point push the boundaries of performance and seem to redefine the riding experience every year. In this article, we delve into why these bikes cost as much as they do, how this high-end tier benefits all riders through trickle-down technology, and why the cost debate isn’t as simple as it seems.

An trickle down of Epic proportions

The new Specialized Epic 8 is the most expensive bike we’ve ever tested — priced at $24,000 AUD — though, when you get rid of the S-Works sticker on the downtube, that also knocks ten-large off the RRP.

But for just the difference in price between the S-Works model and the Epic 8 Pro you can buy almost three Specialized Chisels! And that Chisel is not some throw-away MBINO (Mountain Bike in Name Only) — it even has two shocks AND a dropper.

The frame is heavily based on the Epic using the same single-pivot suspension layout with flex stays, a two-piece linkage, and the top tube-mounted shock — meaning there is room for two bottles inside the front triangle. Aluminium manufacturing has come leaps and bounds in the last decade and those M5 alloy tubes are joined using the brand’s fancy D’Aluisio Smartweld — every brand has something similar — said to increase stiffness and strength without added weight. This process also makes for extraordinarily clean welds.

But more than that, the geometry and suspension kinematics are more or less mirror images of one another, which is the secret sauce that makes this bike perform the way it does.

Looking back in the Specialized Bicycle archive, a 2018 Epic Comp was priced at $3,800 AUD (in today’s money that’s about $4,500 AUD), while a 2024 base-model Chisel is $3,900 AUD.

In 2018 that got you an alloy frame with a 69.6º head angle, 74.75º seat angle, a 433mm reach in a size medium. It also had 175mm cranks, an 80mm stem and a fixed post. The Chisel sees a 67º head angle, 75.5º seat angle, 445mm reach in a size medium, 170mm cranks, a 60mm stem, a dropper post and extra travel at both ends.

Of course, for the sake of comparison, the 2018 Epic sees a RockShox Reba/RS Micro Brain Shock where the Chisel takes a step down in the suspension package with a RockShox Recon/X-Fusion Pro-02 combo. Even still, I know which one I’d rather ride.

Zooming out a bit just in Specialized’s range, you have the Status, which gives you 160mm of travel at both ends, mixed wheels and aggressive geometry — including a flip chip. It borrows the RX Trail Tune from the previous generation Stumpy and Stumpy EVO for the Float X shock and has proved a stand-out and extremely capable descender. This is a bike that thrives in the gnarliest, nastiest terrain you can find, and it costs less than $5,000 AUD.

There’s also the new alloy Crux DSW that tops out at $4,000 AUD for a complete bike. The frame is only about 400g heavier than the plastic-fantastic version. It shares the same geometry and tyre clearance, and by all accounts, the way it rides makes the carbon version a pretty difficult sell.

Specialized gets a lot of heat for the price of its top-end bikes, but the metal bikes it’s making are nothing short of brilliant.

But of course, it’s not just Specialized. Merida makes alloy versions of all of its bikes. The only difference between the $12,000 AUD Merida One-Sixty 10k and the $3,799 AUD One-Sixty 500 are the frame material and the parts bolted onto it. Same geo, suspension design and kinematic, mix wheels etc.

Looking to e-MTBs, which inherently carry a heavier price tag, Giant’s Stance E+ borrows much of its design from the Trance X E+. Yes, it has a simpler FlexPoint suspension design and less flashy parts bolted onto it; it’s also $2,000 AUD and less expensive. And this isn’t some city-bound eclectic bike; it has a motor with 75Nm of oomph, a 625Wh battery and four-piston brakes paired to 203mm rotors to keep it all in check. All it really needs is a dropper post and to set up the tyres tubeless, and you have a solid and widely fun entry-level e-MTB.

Looking at things from a slightly different perspective, both Marin and Polygon trade in alloy mountain bikes that have well-thought-out modern geometry and suspension. The Polygon Collosus enduro bike — a platform that was raced World Cup EDRs under the brand’s short-lived factory team — can be had for as little as $3,500 AUD. The most expensive Marin Alpine Trail XR tops out (in Australia) at a smidge over $7k and gets you Ultimate level RockShox suspension, dual flip chips, adjustable headset cups, downtube storage and the option to run dual 29 or mixed wheels.

Electronic Shifting | Clunky shifting and snapped chains, a thing of the past

There is no doubt that electronic shifting is the current flash point. With SRAM T-Type Transmission making huge waves, we’re still waiting to see Shimano respond — but we do have some ideas on what that might look like.

When Eagle AXS first launched, the wireless shifting was as much a selling point as the carbon fibre used in the outer cage on the XX1 and XO1 trims it was limited to. That wireless shifting eventually found its way down to more attainable price points — the GX AXS derailleur is half the price of its XX1 sibling.

SRAM then broke new ground with the hangerless T-Type Transmission, that among other things, allowed you to drop a handful of gears with the drivetrain under the load of a fully torqued e-MTB motor without the fear of snapping your chain like a piece of dry pasta. Like everything else that started at the price range rivalled only by the cost of the fresh berries a toddler eats on a weekly basis, SRAM is now offering T-Type Transmission down to the S-1000 level.

While it will be an OEM-only product, it’s roughly equivalent to a NX, but it’s a hell of a step up from NX. It still sits fully within the T-Type Transmission ecosystem, including the special ramping on the cassette. The derailleur is fully rebuildable, and it can speak to other SRAM Transmission parts.

SRAM’s T-Type Transmission transformed drivetrain performance with its hangerless design, allowing seamless shifts under load. Once limited to high-end bikes, this technology is already filtering down to more attainable price points, proving that innovation isn’t exclusive to the elite.

It also means you can clear out a whole heap of room in your toolbox because you won’t need that pesky derailleur hanger gauge anymore.

Mechanical shifting is nothing to sneeze at either

Of course, electronic shifting, even at the entry level, is never going to be ‘cheap’ — the only bike we know of so far that will come with the S-1000 still costs $8,900 AUD. BUT, spy shots seemingly photographed with a potato of a mechanical T-Type Transmission are doing the rounds on the interweb. We can only speculate, but it seems all of the hangerless-smooth-shifting-under-power is headed to the mechanical realm.

Looking to Shimano, the 2019 launch of XTR also brought HyperGlide+ that shrugged off a shift under load like water off a duck’s back. But have you shifted a Deore drivetrain recently? It too, receives the benefit from Hyperglide+. There is a weight penalty but hooly dooly it’s crispier than pork crackling.

Even taking the step down to CUES, you lose a cog, and you get the ultra-durable LinkGlide wear parts. These are said to be three times more durable than the Hyperglide version and still offer impressive shift performance, especially under load — not a surprise considering it was initially designed for e-MTB. Given the option, I’d choose a modern CUES 11-speed drivetrain over a 1×11 XTR group from 2015 or anything from SRAM of that era.

Even SRAM’s Eagle mechanical 12-speed shifting is still pretty good. It definitely doesn’t match Shimano, but from GX up, with everything properly adjusted, you can give it a hiding and make it back to the trailhead without having thought about your drivetrain.

Think about it: when was the last time you dropped your chain or even snapped one? It was well before the start of the pandemic for me, and my last two bikes were GX mechanical.

Suspension damping brought to you by robots

The robot takeover of mountain bikes is alive and well, with Fox and RockShox pushing further into the realm of electronically controlled damping. To think that prior to 2015, volume spacers were seen more as a way to adjust travel, not increase or decrease progression, and now we have battery-powered solenoids and servos regulating oil flow and damping circuits.

I still remember the novelty of the first time I rode a Live Valve-equipped bike after it launched, and again with Flight Attendant — and the subsequent updates. Suspension that is changing its characteristics in real-time based on the trail below you is a mind-bending sentence to write, but that is the world we live in, and this is all the result of an ungodly amount of engineering to package that technology into a fork and shock.

Of course, these are the pinnacle of what suspension can offer and also cost an arm, leg and ¾ of your left kidney. But even analogue, second-tier dampers like GRIP X and Charger 3 offer more control than we could have ever dreamed of not all that long ago. And that hydraulic bottom out you now get across RockShox Super Deluxe rear shocks — swoon.

Even taking another step down the ladder, the new 130-160mm RockShox Psylo has 35mm stanchions, 16 clicks of rebound damping, three-position compression adjustment, the same SKF seals and bushings found in the Pike and Lyrik and it’s $300-450 cheaper too.

The last time the Psylo was on the market circa ~2005, it had between 80-125mm of travel, “On-The-Fly” lockout, saw the positive air spring on one side and the negative on the other, and “a dial compression clicker on top and a knob-type rebound clicker on the bottom make this air/oil fork ultra adjustable” according to Mountain Bike Action.

Yes, Bikes Are Pricier Than Before | But The High-End Space Is Unprecedented

The examples of this are endless, but the fact of the matter is that among the field of modern mountain bikes, there are very few stinkers out there — even when you move down the product line into the more budget-friendly options.

While we can’t deny the steep costs of top-tier bikes, they represent the pinnacle of innovation and design. More importantly, they pave the way for better bikes at every price point. So, the next time you’re eyeing a budget-friendly bike, consider what went into it—it’s likely standing on the shoulders of engineering giants.

We received an insight into this process with the latest generation of Pivot’s Phoenix DH bike. While everyone was salivating over those lugged prototypes, this was an unusually public-facing look into the process of what it takes to bring a bike to market — including the frame that broke in a frightening matter at Crankworx under Bernard Kerr.

The machinery to produce those frames and the expertise to build, test and evaluate what went wrong all cost money and a lot of it. Of course Pivots are already expensive bikes to begin with.

You can buy a linear yard of unidirectional high modulus prepreg carbon fibre for under $70 AUD, and you can even buy Columbus steel tube sets for under $300 AUD.

But any bike is a heck of a lot more than just the sum of its raw materials, and if anyone could make a Pivot Phoenix or a custom steel mountain bike — they would!