Back to square one(Ebike content)

Just out today at Kinetics in Glasgow to 'test ride' the R&M Packster 40.

Disappointing(and not just the spec) but i found my size 12's impact on the front cargo carrier bit, and to be honest its just too long.
Plus a 30m round trip isnt what I had in mind by a test ride, and theres no way on gods earth im shelling out near 5 grand without being able to ride it across a series of situations - hills, narrows, tight turning etc.
He's a multicharger coming in end of November, but i suspect I'll have a similar issue.

One of the biggest problems I have here is something from R&M is just shite component wise. £4-5k and its unbranded crud across the whole damn bike.
basic brakes and levers - What are they 80 quid a bikes worth ?. No name bars/stem/grips/post/saddle/.
And a cheapo suntour fork, with not even coated stanchions, so either smother that in grease once a week or its going the way of corrosion.
£5K = 2K straight mark up. Rip off city.

And they only are prepared to make 2 sizes.
Dear God, its just so generic.
ANY E-MTB of similar cost is a bloody good fork, shock(usually sus) 29er wheels, and while theres also a lot of unbranded bits, you feel somehow this is the payoff for the better specced mtb, so not as blatant.


I shall have to have another big think about this. Might just be a better idea to go emtb and buy an fing trailer.

Re:

hmm . . . i think you're on to a bit of a loser there, i just looked at what that bike is, it's not like there's a lot of choice in that style of bike.

regards the fork, 20"w forks, even less choice as most are designed for kids bikes not cargo style bikes.

i have a customer who uses a Hase bike, dutch i think, to be fair other than general servicing it's been a nice bike although somewhat of a pain to work on due to the style of bike. and if memory serves it runs a Bosch crank driven motor as opposed to a hub motor.

but the truth is these bikes are always gonna be expensive, low numbers and specific parts to the bike push the price up, the only reason a normal bike is the cost it is is because of the shear numbers they make of them. and fyi, 2000 mark up on 5000 at rrp?! i wish it was that good a profit in the bike trade! and even if it was that much there's VAT, mechanics wages to build it, free first service, the fact it has to sit on the shop floor for a while before it gets bought so the shop has to pay for it it up front and hope they've ordered something that somebody wants, and then the customer inevitably asks for a deal. but i do agree that the bike you looked at looks expensive for the spec. but:-

low number made = expensive.

a quick google and i found this, similar sort of thing with a more reasonable price and shimano steps:-

https://electric-bike-factory.co.uk/pro ... 9194868785

Thanks for the info, but I reckon ill be only looking for 'normal' bike shapes. The cargo would be handy, but its just too much of a struggle, and too many negatives. A bit of a pipe dream i suppose.

low number made = expensive.

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Aye, though I was hoping that this far down the line, and with ebikes becoming pretty much the norm that the price would come down, but Im not convinced its purely down to numbers, and Im sure their sales arent a handful a year. In fact EU is 21% of the total global market and R&M are being portrayed as one of the industry leaders.
Which again makes me ask why if they are selling more, the price isnt coming down :?
So Ill stand by my 2K figure. Because its not unobtanium, and Im sure you more that others are aware what exactly a frame costs to make.
OK, mark up, but not a fing chance in hell a frame is going to cost £1000 to make. The motors are 900, the batteries the same. Which doesnt leave much in the way of component to make up the bulk of the sales price.
R&M arent employing nasa engineers to build them, just welders and assemblers. People putting the bits on the bike arent on $100/hour.

Sure I can understand a 100% mark up. In design thats the figure we work on, but still in my line furniture of the same caliber can be bought/made for a range of different pricing, so it is down to and only down to what the company has decided the mark up will be.

So much for the socialist principles they claim to hold so dear.

But already we see a range of pricing, and looking at Decathlon, they are offering very similar spec, same battery, same motor, and I dont think decathlon are working at as loss. Maybe just some are greedy.

I just want whats best for me, but i dont want to have my 4r5e felt over the price.

This is what comes from being Scottish

Seems Im not alone questioning pricing. Multiple voices here.
https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topi ... ing-silly/

Basically there aren't enough cargo bike buyers to bring the price down - low numbers, no economies of scale. I wonder how many R&M make each year? I wouldn't be surprised if it was it was in the hundreds rather than thousands. Recumbents are often expensive for the same reason.

They might be experiencing high demand, but perhaps not enough to decide it's worth expanding to cope with what might be short lived.

Personally, unless you have a real (and regular) need for a cargo bike, consider whether a normal bike with a trailer/rack & panniers might do the job. A retro MTB, trailer and an electric motor should run well under a grand - and perfectly capable of most transportation jobs. Hiring a van, a taxi or asking friends/neighbours with cars for favours might cover occasional use cases outside of that. £3-4K will cover a lot of taxis, decent bottles of wine etc. I adopt a similar approach. I have an electric folding bike (fiido d1) for when I can't be arsed (capable of carrying 3-4 days shopping), an ancient non electric Marin equipped with various brackets for the different trailers I have - and some extremely generous friends & neighbours who I am happy to treat/do favours for!

I agree the current pricing on many bikes is insane. Essentially, they've replaced sports cars for the middle aged with a bit of spare cash.

Or do a longtail conversion...
I keep looking at them. Especially with all this working from home that's happening, don't need to do my shop on the way home from work anymore.

https://www.xtracycle.com/free-radical- ... rsion-kit/

I've got enough bits to put one together on an on one frame, rigid forks (or i've got some spare 26" sus forks in the attic) 2x9 SLX/XT groupset, SLX discs etc etc.

The kit itself isn't cheap, but i've got all the other bits already.

And if i fancy an E-Conversion, it's just the same as doing an E-Conversion to the original on one frame....

dyna-ti":3vjw2vc7 said:

So Ill stand by my 2K figure.

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ok, but just know that at 4 and a half years in to running my own shop i'm still living with my parents and paying myself about £350 a month and completely working my ass off, the bike trade doesn't make a fortune unless you're the likes of wiggle etc. but you know that.

independent shops are not particularly coining it, although i will admit it's been good recently, but for a horrible reason. and that won't likely last or translate in to long term viability or financial security.

if you want to know who is coining it you need to look elsewhere other than bike shops.

here is clue as to those who are bending you over with so much as a squirt of finish-line lube!

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... C2%A37.8tn).

so before you decide how much you "think" the guys in the shop are making just remember that most shops pay their staff a basic wage, a lot of shops constantly worry about going bust, and people begrudge us making a profit so that we can afford to live? i worked out recently that if i wanted to employ someone to help me, to pay them £20,000 a year i'd have to take an extra £100,000 in turnover.

and not to mention having to currently regularly argue with people to wear masks and get called a prick as a result.

remind me why i do this again?

look, this isn't a rant at you personally so please don't take it that way, but it is a little bit of a bugbear when you're the person behind the counter. basically it shouldn't matter to you how much someone else makes on the bike (any bike) they need that mark up to support the shop, pay staff, pay rent, buy food, if you begrudge that shop making money then long term they won't be there, initially you'll say "well they never gave me a deal i'm not surprised they folded", but then if they discounted to you and everyone else they'd likely go bust as well, it's a fine line from a mark up/profit point of view, you need to be cheap enough to compete but make enough to function as a shop.

it would be easier if we could price our stock based on the wage of the individual customer, as in if you're rich the price is higher, a sliding scale maybe. but of course if i asked everyone how much they make before i priced something that would be considered rude wouldn't it? but you can stick to assuming your 2K mark up/profit, because i obviously want you to get your "4r5e felt over the price", because that's just what we do, isn't it?

always nice to know that some people assume that i (and other people in the trade) are potentially considered con men.

what i am asking is, please take on board that a shop needs to make profit, if the bike you want is too much, consider another model, a last years model, a lesser spec, or god forbid, save up a bit longer to get what you actually want.

apologies for ranting a bit.

Fksake mate, Im not having a pop at you :shock:

Just read the 'Not at you' bit

I do understand all that. More a rant of my own. It's a giant outlay for me, who has spent about 400 max for anything in my life Shelling out 4 or 5k when all my bikes are Hope wheels/brakes and XO or XTR itsa a real step down to see cheap parts on such an expensive thing.

Were we to transcribe this to a car, you'd be paying BMW prices for a yugo. Sod all refinement.

dyna-ti":2yg34t5w said:

Were we to transcribe this to a car, you'd be paying BMW prices for a yugo. Sod all refinement.

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Only if they were only making 3-500 yugos a year and they were in massive demand. Because they were "special".

The shop is making less than 10% on a bike like this, no matter what you think the level of kit justifies.
The mark up is in set up costs for frame and assembly, high assembly complexity (relatively), small batches and a complete lack of volume discounts. (serious, massive, gargantuan, volume discounts.)
The manufacturer will probably be paying almost the same as you would do (less VAT) for all the parts. The frame plus tooling and set up will easily be a grand. You just have to look at the on cost of even custom geo frames built round a double diamond structure. Usually another 30-50%. Once you get away from Double diamond AND into tiny volumes, it gets mental.

FWIW, i went through this process a few years ago when one of our local places did a big drive on the Kona Ute and Bike For Africa.
Hence the (still planned) longtail conversion.

Ex-display kona ute here for £900. Could add a motor and battery for about £500.

https://www.singletrackbikes.co.uk/m1b1 ... _GB/195372

Regarding cars: I think a better comparison might be to specialist kit cars. Often low volume and expensive for what they are, but a good option for those who want/need something different.

That Ute would be a damn good option for the OP actually.
Not for me though, postage and the exchange rate would be a killer