What is mid-range?

[Scrat]

tourney
altus
acera-x
alivio
stx
stx rc
deore lx
deore xt
xtr

STX it is then.

Exage
Mountain LX
Deore ll
Deore XT

But there is a blured line as LX was below DX, then replaced it

I honestly think we all know what mid range was, it was the bikes most of us could just afford when we were teens or young men/women trying to find our place in the world

 

[FluffyChicken]

Well being a Rocky Mountain type and not a Marin type

Bottom of the Range had LX,
Top End Had XT or XTR when it came out
DX was mid-range.


All other groupsets below LX are designed for touring/general use, like Exage, bikes or riding around town, down pub (xxxGS) and I do not class in the Mountain Bike league ;-) hence excluded from my 'range'

not to be confused with Marin's Mid-Range where they class anything as a MTB :roll: , still my Dad bought an STX-RC (Marin Bear Valley-SE) bike in '95 as a ride around in the hills and trails, cheap at the time and capable of riding in the hills. Certainly entry level into usable off-road biking, so LX may have moved up a notch by then..

also not to be confused with Argos/Toy-R-US mid-range MTB's where SIS is top end.

YMMV

:xmas-wink:

 

[Neil]

Well being a Rocky Mountain type and not a Marin type

Bottom of the Range had LX,
Top End Had XT or XTR when it came out
DX was mid-range.


All other groupsets below LX are designed for touring/general use, like Exage, bikes or riding around town, down pub (xxxGS) and I do not class in the Mountain Bike league ;-) hence excluded from my 'range'

not to be confused with Marin's Mid-Range where they class anything as a MTB :roll: , still my Dad bought an STX-RC (Marin Bear Valley-SE) bike in '95 as a ride around in the hills and trails, cheap at the time and capable of riding in the hills. Certainly entry level into usable off-road biking, so LX may have moved up a notch by then..

also not to be confused with Argos/Toy-R-US mid-range MTB's where SIS is top end.

YMMV

:xmas-wink:

Thing is - you're defining "mid-range" by your own criteria. The industry, media and most other cyclists didn't define it like that.

Mid-range was clearly identifiable by magazines, and most cyclists - and it wasn't on purely groupset - it was largely slap bang in the middle of most production makes line-ups. As others have said, somewhere around the 400-600 pound price mark. Decent quality frames, respectable parts.

To deny that (given the history of magazines running mid-range comparison reviews, and what - largely - most cyclists recognised) comes across as needlessly elitist.

Let's not forget what this one-off BOTM is about - it's about mid-range "normal" bikes, that are shiny and pristine. Not high-end dressed-down, or simply every other month's BOTM, with a bit of tweaking to try and fit the criteria. There is a certain spirit of bikes that I believe is the intent of running this BOTM, and denying what most people realise just comes across as a bit churlish, when every other BOTM is open season.

 

[doctor-bond]

Mid-range is like pornography: hard to define but you know it when you see it.

What is for certain is that talk of costs is useless: whose pocket, which year, what was the RPI and the cost of steel in Japan at the time?

As we have seen, gruppo or frame in isolation won't do either: every Merlin I own wears 200gs and my dream bike is an Emmelle dripping in M900.

So we need the mid range index, or Mindex.

Custom brands, Ti Frames, Carbon frames, anyone who knows how to fillet braze, Rockys, Fats, Paces, Yetis, etc - yes you know which others - are out. Mindex=0

Everything else (with the exception of Emmelles and supermarket brands) is potentially in but needs more rules:

Mindex 1. to be in with a chance of being a mid range bike, the manufacturer must produce a high end one too. Manufacturers who say they produce mid range bikes but no top range are like vegetarians who eat fish. It just won't wash, nor will it get them a positive Mindex score.

And here in Mindex 1, high end has to be Prestige, Nivacrom, the good Truetemper stuff, etc - yes you know which others. If not any of these, then it has to be triple butted or more (that goes for Aluminium too). Needless to say if your bike has any of these traits it's out: too high for this chapel.

Mindex 1.0. Manufacturer is possibly a mid range player, but your ride's got a straight guage frame [no butting]. Go home: no banana.

Mindex 1.1.x Manufacturer is possible and frame is double butted. You're in son, if you are wearing the right shoes:

1.1.0 Double-butted frame, but if any component that, if it fell off, would halt your progress is plastic ... nice tie but you won't get in here wearing doc martins. Hop it.

Mindex 1.1.1: The holy grail of mid range. Double-butted pedestrian frame, all groupset must-haves are metal. You're in - nice pie plate, here's a voucher for some weak lager. Enjoy.

 

[tuercas]

The odds of finding a close to original spec mid range bike are pretty low, because the people that buy mid-range are either in the "low-budget and going for upgrades over time and probably killing it in the process" or "have money but don't want to commit to what is at the end of the day a bike" category.
So, to conclude, legrandefromage must live in a place that is flush, retirementville. or he knows the dark secrets of alchemy, ie converting a carrera to a GT after a generous period of marination in a skip.

 

[lewis1641]

Quite a discussion. Its hard to define by any one criteria. I'd say though that mid range has a bigger spectrum than low and high end.

 

[FluffyChicken]

Well being a Rocky Mountain type and not a Marin type

Bottom of the Range had LX,
Top End Had XT or XTR when it came out
DX was mid-range.


All other groupsets below LX are designed for touring/general use, like Exage, bikes or riding around town, down pub (xxxGS) and I do not class in the Mountain Bike league ;-) hence excluded from my 'range'

not to be confused with Marin's Mid-Range where they class anything as a MTB :roll: , still my Dad bought an STX-RC (Marin Bear Valley-SE) bike in '95 as a ride around in the hills and trails, cheap at the time and capable of riding in the hills. Certainly entry level into usable off-road biking, so LX may have moved up a notch by then..

also not to be confused with Argos/Toy-R-US mid-range MTB's where SIS is top end.

YMMV

:xmas-wink:

Thing is - you're defining "mid-range" by your own criteria. The industry, media and most other cyclists didn't define it like that.

Mid-range was clearly identifiable by magazines, and most cyclists - and it wasn't on purely groupset - it was largely slap bang in the middle of most production makes line-ups. As others have said, somewhere around the 400-600 pound price mark. Decent quality frames, respectable parts.

To deny that (given the history of magazines running mid-range comparison reviews, and what - largely - most cyclists recognised) comes across as needlessly elitist.

Let's not forget what this one-off BOTM is about - it's about mid-range "normal" bikes, that are shiny and pristine. Not high-end dressed-down, or simply every other month's BOTM, with a bit of tweaking to try and fit the criteria. There is a certain spirit of bikes that I believe is the intent of running this BOTM, and denying what most people realise just comes across as a bit churlish, when every other BOTM is open season.

Ah but to me and the people I cycled with back in the turn of the 90's, that was how we looked at it.
£2000+ are high end bikes and there where plenty of them that could be bought,
£400/£500 was considered by magazines as the minimum for getting a good MTB bike, so that was starter bike and so bottom-end.
Leave the £1000 to £1500 range as mid range territory.

As for the denying blah blah blah, that was not the point, the question is 'What is mid-range' and to me that is what I think of as mid-range.
I did mention two other types of mid-range
Nothing to do with 'elitist' I wouldn't mind riding on an Exage (or now Deore) or LX bike, I just don't see the point in trying to convince myself it's a mid-range/high end bike or that 200GS should even be mentioned in a mid-range thread

I did mention two other types of mid-range for comparison to try and make the point that mid-range for other manufacturers or companies might be something completely different.

Myself I'm enjoying reading the chat this contest has encouraged and the different bikes that have been entered. It is all just a bit of fun and people do have different ideas

Oh and I don't think I've ever voted for the winning bike of BoTM yet.

 

[GoldenEraMTB]

Quite a discussion. Its hard to define by any one criteria. I'd say though that mid range has a bigger spectrum than low and high end.

great point; albeit a short one

 

[Neil]

Ah but to me and the people I cycled with back in the turn of the 90's, that was how we looked at it.

Nobody I ever rode with, nor the magazines / media at the time did.

£2000+ are high end bikes and there where plenty of them that could be bought,
£400/£500 was considered by magazines as the minimum for getting a good MTB bike

£300 was considered entry level. Other people have said the same.

£500-600 was mid range. Nearing £1000 and above was top-end (regardless of the upper ceiling possible). I've ruled, it stands, no take-backs.

so that was starter bike and so bottom-end.
Leave the £1000 to £1500 range as mid range territory.

Most people I rode with or knew, started with bikes around the £300 mark, then moved on to mid-range around £500-600. And that's how the mags saw it, too.

My first real MTB was a mid-range bike - a 91/92 DB Apex - cost around the £500 mark (RRP was around £560, give or take). It had a steel frame, double-butted, and Deore DX throughout. There was two bikes above it in the range. It was most clearly mid-range.

At the time, a cyclist buddy of mine started with a GT Karakoram - again, a little above entry level, more mid-range. His next bike was a Marin Eldridge Grade (at a guess that would be 93-94).

or that 200GS should even be mentioned in a mid-range thread

I think the only reason it has - and I haven't seen anybody suggesting 200GS was mid range - is merely to point out that there was several groupsets below mid-range, and whilst some of the bottom end groupsets weren't the last word in sexiness or weight-weenyism, they did perform off-road, they just didn't have quite the same performance as better stuff, nor did they last as long - plus they tended to be heavier.

All rather unimportant for entry level stuff, because most entry level riders upgraded at their first opportuinity.

I did mention two other types of mid-range for comparison to try and make the point that mid-range for other manufacturers or companies might be something completely different.

I don't think we're talking about specifics for individual manufacturers, or individual cyclists. We're talking about across the range of bikes that were sold and got ridden.

As I've said, bike mags never struggled to categorise mid-range for the purpose of grouptests, nor should we. Car mags don't struggle, either - they choose a type of car, and typically compare them with their peers based on price and other similarities.

What you don't get in a magazine - typically - is a group test of bikes with several around the £600 mark, and the odd one that cost £1200.

 

[lewis1641]

Quite a discussion. Its hard to define by any one criteria. I'd say though that mid range has a bigger spectrum than low and high end.

great point; albeit a short one

i'd just woken up.

what i think i was trying to say is.. bottom end is fairly easy to define. you know what to look out for and what to expect on a bottom end bike and you know you'll be looking at up to say £400.

same with top end bikes. you know what is going to be draped on that beautiful frame and you know you will pay thousands for it.

mid range lies between these. there are lower mid range, mid range and higher mid range i guess. my point is that the makority of bikes are mid range and i guess that is why john has defined mid range as lx-max. ho had to use some kind of cut off before approaching the higher end of mid range.

my thinking is that there are not many really high end or really low end bikes out there compared to the number of "mid range" bikes.

i have entered my rts 2 this month as i feel that it is mid range. yes it is more expensive than the 5-600 price point that a few are suggesting as a guide but a lot of the extra was because of the back end. if it were a hardtail it would be around the 5-600 price i would have thought. i am looking at this as mid range suspension.

my other thought for entry was my beloved khs montana pro. i couldnt enter as it has dx hubs and xt cranks. i thought about a quick rebuild but deemed that not very sporting as the bike was originally xt equipped and had, if i recall, a £900 retail. however i would definately regard this as mid range. thats not to say i was a spoilt brat when i was a kid - my best bike was a fire mountain, its just i see high end as being the exotic and out of reach.