Re: The good old days when bike manufacturers publicised wei
There is perhaps some truth in what you say, but you pick a bad example to illustrate it. New Marins are eye wateringly expensive when compared spec for spec with its rivals, and not one of their current range can be described as exceptional, never mind class leading. These days they're pretty mundae, trading off the name.
The problem with price in the last 3 or 4 years is one of exchange rate. About 2010 bike prices jumped enormously, mainly due to the pound weakening against foreign currencies, and with most bikes being made abroad the prices have risen sharply to reflect this. Its not really a case of the manufacturers trying to deliver less while asking for more, its Worlds economics.
Bordman get the weight right, but their steep geometry, stretched cockpit is living in the apst and in terms of performance they're good, but by and large lagging behind their rivals. A lot of bling for the buck, but chrome don't get you home. A smattering of XT or X9 is very sexy, but meaningless when a rivals Deore equipped bike rides better for similar money then it's meaninglys badge snobbery.
I'm lucky (or unlucky, depending on how rabid a Retrobike fan you are) to work in the industry and I get to try dozens of different modern bikes each year, each one in the £600+ bracket, no SportSoccer £99 specials. Like the old days, some are dire, some are ground shakingly brilliant. But its clear from some of these comments that a lot of folk are basing their judgements on the spec sheets and not on how some of these modern machines actually ride and perform.