Just ordered my XT 785 Brakes...

B77":ddqct7zm said:

Cost of labour per hour in my LBS ( any job that takes less than an hour is charged at the hourly rate)......75 euros
Cost of service for forks including new oil/seals.....287 euros
Cost of Fox 650lb spring (4 week wait for delivery)....99 euros

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Blimey - I thought Denmark was expensive!¨

It's no secret that I own an LBS in an expensive country....
Hourly rate is about £45, less for regulars. In cities it's more - but not much more.
Full Pace services costs about £70. £40 more if you need wiper seals.

Bear in mind too that Danish VAT is 25% and that because we pay 50% tax, you need an employee hourly rate of £18 for an employee to be able to pay the bills.

But as I've stated elsewhere, Rose & Discount make their own bikes and buy at OEM prices - and having worked at a distributor, I happen to know what they are. Every other post in Danish MTB forums at the moment seems to be "I'm a beginner - should I buy X Radon, Y Rose or Z Canyon?" so it sometimes seems like viral marketing.

In proportion to price paid by retailer - it ain't the LBS that's being greedy. Rose and Discount are just pricing everyone else out of the market by stacking high, selling direct and selling off what they don't need for bike production - I don't keep anything in stock that's available from them, apart from normal wear and tear stuff. There's just no point as nobody buys it. Chances of people using warranty for other than the most expensive items bought from them is slim too, due to postage costs. So tell me again? Who's being greedy? And who's having their cake AND eating it?

I think the bike industry itself is to blame though. Look at the price of forks. When the Fox 36 first came out in this country a top end fork was circa £500 from Marzocchi and co. Suddenly Fox bring out something that was £800 and loads of people buy them. It then seemed that other brands followed suit. We are now in a position where a high end single.crown fork is nearly £1,000!

I know that there are other factors that have increased prices as well, but everything appears to be getting more expensive. There was a point a few years ago when an entry level Rockhopper had some reasonable stuff on it, but the spec seems to be going backwards at the mo. With everyone feeling the pinch its no wonder they are looking to the likes of Rose, YT, Canyon, CRC, Bike Discount and co to make their money go further.

Another way the industry has killed its own outlets is the continued diversification of products. The ranges are huge now, it's impossible to keep parts of even a range in stock. Sram are one of the worst offenders. Before you only really had X7, X9 and X0 now they added XX, X1 etc. Don't get me started on the Avid range of brakes. Technology doesn't stay current for long either, so my experience of my local shops is that they don't carry the spares I need, whereas CRC do.

I worked in a shop for a while and it wasn't very good if I'm honest. We never tailored stockbti suit the local riding scene which was very DH oriented. No chain guides, single rings, Highrollers, DH tubes etc. The ordering process was restrictive too. Customers could get what they wanted cheaper and quicker from CRC. Can you blame them?

My LBS doesn't carry any Shimano brakes in stock. They can get them but it would take longer than for me to source the brakes from Rose because they only do orders one day a week! So it would have taken longer and cost me more money? No way. These direct selling companies have given the consumer options. If the bike shops don't adjust or find away to improve their service of offer something different then they are going to struggle.

I guess it's a result of capitalism.

Started fitting the brakes tonight...just need the mineral oil and bleed kit from Epic Bleed Solutions and they'll be good to go.

Hoping that the superstar hose fittings will work ok; Shimano have merged the banjo bolt and one of the caliper bolts. The standard hose uses rubber o rings so I'm hoping that the brass washers won't prevent the brakes working properly.

The blades a tiny, I've have to move the levers loads further towards the grips than I've been used to running.