2024 product release rumors

[Karvalo]

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Toray subsidiary Carbon Magic's new track bike for the Japanese team. Listed at 20M JYen but I assume pricing is incorrect and it's 2M ... €120k would seem a little steep even for a homologation special.

Yeah that's normal, they'll reduce the price to something normal after the Olympics.

I do vaguely remember now the Hope one was crazy expensive, then they slashed it a couple of months after the Olympics.

Yeah I guess it's their way to give exclusive use of it to the country it was developed with/for while still keeping the uci happy. Factor is doing something similar I think. Think they said their $100k or whatever bike will be $5k after the Olympics.

Makes you wonder why the UCI/IOC is bothering to make a fuss over the availability rule then, because that's directly contrary to the spirit and wording of the rulebook. It would be concrete proof that you're unreasonably exceeding market value to create defacto unavailability.

I don't think RDY is correctly remembering the Hope pricing though. The frame alone was £15.5k+VAT when it was 'launched' in 2019 and I doubt it ever got cheaper. The newest version frame only from Hope is £25k+VAT, and the UKSI 3D printed one is £55k.

[eins4eins]

FES is listing their stuff in a webshop for somewhat reasonable prices, but if you inquire for it, they literally tell you to *f##k* off which violates the rules as well.

Hey mate, what's the fes webstore address? Curious to sus out whether they are listing any snowboard stuff. Is this it? https://fes-sport.de/bausteine/

Yes, thats the shop. When send a purchase request, they answered: We politely ask you to refrain from your request. Please don't send any further inquiries.

So much for availablility to the public.

Btw FES is financed from public money. So as a good tax payer i really should get one for free or at least with a discount actually selling something would help their budget problem as well.

[CarlosFerreiro]

I don't think they are really. The tech guidance doccument for the equipment regs says things should be available at prices similar to similar things in the market and then specificily says there is no maxium price and no minimum productions numbers. You'd have to have some benchmarking in the guidance if you were looking to ever enforce anything I'd have thought.....

[Karvalo]

FES is listing their stuff in a webshop for somewhat reasonable prices, but if you inquire for it, they literally tell you to *f##k* off which violates the rules as well.

Hey mate, what's the fes webstore address? Curious to sus out whether they are listing any snowboard stuff. Is this it? https://fes-sport.de/bausteine/

Yes, thats the shop. When send a purchase request, they answered: We politely ask you to refrain from your request. Please don't send any further inquiries.

So much for availablility to the public.

Well, problem is that doesn't prove they never sold any. In normal times plenty of high end bikes are completely out of stock at any given time, particularly in niche disciplines. They might have had a small production run and sold them all already, or they might not. Who really knows?

[208]

FES is listing their stuff in a webshop for somewhat reasonable prices, but if you inquire for it, they literally tell you to *f##k* off which violates the rules as well.

Hey mate, what's the fes webstore address? Curious to sus out whether they are listing any snowboard stuff. Is this it? https://fes-sport.de/bausteine/

Yes, thats the shop. When send a purchase request, they answered: We politely ask you to refrain from your request. Please don't send any further inquiries.

So much for availablility to the public.

Btw FES is financed from public money. So as a good tax payer i really should get one for free or at least with a discount actually selling something would help their budget problem as well.

That's hilarious haha.

I've always eyed off the FES snowboard stuff thinking it is cool. Still think it is cool.

Well, at the end of the day, FES is German and develops stuff for the German team, never intended on selling to the public, at least they're up front about that upon enquiry.

Honestly, it's kind of a silly uci rule, I reckon.

[208]

I like when factor was pulling all the stops to deter people from ordering their bike and quickly got something up for 'sale' so they were fulfilling the rule requirements.

[BigBoyND]

Seems like a silly price given that the molds are now made and any reasonable price will offset their sunk cost ...

This isn't the case for these crazy designs. The layup is notoriously slow/expensive, has a low yield, and would still be done in tiny batches. It's not at all like making a standard frame. The small parts are also usually custom local jobs. There are also other operational and sales reasons why supporting a low SKU product is annoying and expensive, but the point is its not about sunk cost in these cases.

[RDY]

I really doubt Toray are getting low yield ...

[Nereth]

Don't see why not. If they don't bother figuring out how to produce that specific bike en masse, then they'll be handicapped regardless of experience or input material quality.

[blaugrana]

The UCI needs to put a reasonable cost cap to the bikes and make sure that they are actually sold to the public. Otherwise, why even have a rule about commercial availability at all? The current situation where manufacturers partner with a single national federation to develop exclusive bikes is exactly what the spirit of the rule is supposed to prevent.

And there is also the fact that track cycling becoming (or being already) a technical arms race should end up with the sport being excluded from the olympics, which is the only reason countries are spending money on these one-off bikes in the first place.

[TobinHatesYou]

Castelli did the same with its Paris gear. They tell you there’s a 10ct minimum and to contact them via e-mail, then they don’t answer at all.

[blaugrana]

If only a sport's governing body could penalize teams or athletes that blatantly break the rules. In the case of the Olympics it's easier than ever, because all the equipment had to be approved well in advance. So if at some point between that date and the race it hasn't actually been commercialized and been made available to all competitors and the general public, you just take it off the list.

[Karvalo]

Keep it simple - Japanese Kierin rules.

[Ronin416]

Kind of sucks for the athlete who trains for 4 years to have a disadvantage due to equipment or funding and lose by a few milliseconds.

Equalize the playing field and have spec parts for all components and let the athletes legs and technique do the talking.


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[Ronin416]

Keep it simple - Japanese Kierin rules.

Second that!


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