What Would Make You Buy a New Bike?

Sell higher is a theoretical example that was actually a reality in a lot of fields during the pandemic - bikes, scalped GPUs, cars. Not to mention limited edition cars, but there's an investor bubble in that field now. Still... 

Your car has the factory warranty regardless if it's certified preowned or not. This I know for a fact as i was in a position where the warranty was transferred to me by a dealer doing the last in-warranty service and putting me down as the owner for recall purposes.

Exactly my question, why does the company care about the value, they got their share. The share that takes warranty into account. Insuring your bike or car has nothing to do with it, if you don't take your car in the road you don't need to insure it. The insurance covers liability to others, not the factory warranty. 

I still fail to understand why anybody else but the original buyer should get stifled on the warranty...

As for Trek and X-fusion... They are the system integrator and cover the product. With cars when something fails you take it to the official service provider. They replace the part and return it to the factory. If it's a supplied component, the supplier gets hung out to dry, unless the failure is a misuse or something similar. If there are subsuppliers, they get hung out to dry by the supplier and the warranty claim rolls downhill. And it's not the owner that has to deal with it. It's not my fault Trek put an X-fusion fork on the bike that uses Orings from an unreliable supplier that made a bad, leaky batch. I bought the bike from Trek. They got the money and should take the cost of the warranty into account.

This system integrator point is the exact same reason why people buy prebuilt computers (from the likes of Dell, HP and smaller SIs) - single point of support. Those in the know build their own systems but also have to deal with each component on their own and diagnose their systems on their own. To be honest I'm up for that with my bike, but then give me component pricing that will make building a bike from parts viable compared to buying it complete. Then I'd be happy to deal with warranties for each component on their own.

As someone still riding their 2017 Knolly Warden, the checklist for the next bike is:
- A decently tall stack height. My bike's front is a little low and I feel it mostly on climbs. Exact numbers uncertain...

- Deep stand-over height. Currently I can only run a 150mm dropper due to the length of the seat-post and I would love more room to move.

- Longer chainstays.

- 150mm to 170mm rear travel.

- Gearbox + belt drive. I am sold on the gearbox for all the standard reasons, but I recently did an unfortunate deep-dive on chainline and now can't imagine buying a bike without a fixed chainline. If I don't want to single-speed the only option is...

- Easy to fix. Heck I want all fasteners to be hardware/automotive store stuff, I want bearings to be easy to replace, and the standard stuff about no proprietary doo-dads.

I like what most others have said, and while I respect the e-bikes I simply don't want one myself. I really do like the warranty ideas and think that it would be valuable not just on frames but all major parts (High end forks can cost over 2k CAD...)

"Your car has the factory warranty regardless if it's certified preowned or not. This I know for a fact as i was in a position where the warranty was transferred to me by a dealer doing the last in-warranty service and putting me down as the owner for recall purposes.

Exactly my question, why does the company care about the value, they got their share. The share that takes warranty into account. Insuring your bike or car has nothing to do with it, if you don't take your car in the road you don't need to insure it. The insurance covers liability to others, not the factory warranty. 

I still fail to understand why anybody else but the original buyer should get stifled on the warranty..."

Isn't it linked to how the bike industry works ? I mean, for cars, brands own the factories that produce the cars, and produce said cars as long as there's demand for it and can produce parts even when it's not for sale anymore, but for bikes, most brands just ask bike factories in Taiwan to produce batches of X frames. They probably top the sell target with a % amount of frames for warranty and then that's it. Each year they'll produce another batch with different paint until the frame is replaced by another one.

What I mean is that by not warrantying the second hand buyers they possibly have much more control over warranty % rate that "should" happen (except when there's a real ugly flaw in design or production which hopefully appears early if additionnal production is needed), instead of having way too many warranty framesets sleeping in a warehouse "just in case".

When looking at the overall population, how will the % of warranty claims change if a bike is sold to a new owner? For the % to change the second owner would need to be a different (average) human than the first owner. Or, on average (statistically) how likely is it that a bike ridden by the average rider A ridden for a year, then ridden by rider B for a year will fail at a higher rate than if the same bike was ridden by rider A for two year or rider B for two years?

Note, we are not talking about an extreme shredder in either case (because under said shredder the bike would fail even sooner if said shredder was the sole owner), we are talking about the average rider. Once a few 100 frames are in the wild, averages play out. With said averages the design failures are the ones showing up, not riders destroying bikes for the fun of it.

As for how bikes and cars are made... Point on external suppliers. As for car companies, the big ones are system integrators (they go to Tier 1 suppliers, your Bosches, Broses, Continentals, Valeos and the like) and say 'we need X, Y and Z components', sometimes they need something very special (and provide a complete spec sheet and requirements for the part), usually they take something off the shelf if it fits their requirements. They then assemble the complete car with mostly bought components from suppliers, the chassis, suspension geometry and the drivetrain are the major parts designed and assembled in house with the rest of the components developed and supplied by external suppliers. The major automakers perform validation tests on the complete vehicle and provide warranty on that. The component suppliers usually have more stringent requirements than what is actually needed (don't ask me how I know this) and each component supplier provides a warranty further up the chain.

If I touch on external factories, you have Magna Steyr near Graz in Austria which assembled all 1st gen BMW X3s, all Aston Martin Rapides, has been making and is making Mercedes Benz G-wagens (previous and current gen), current BMW Z4 and Toyota Supra (same car basically), etc. And the warranty for those cars is the same as for everything else on the market

If we the buyers will demand better warranty, we will get it, we won't get it by the good will of the brands.

Being able to sell my old bike would allow me to buy a new bike. No one wants used bikes when new bikes are 30 - 50% off. So i will ride my current bike with upgrades like transmission, brakes and suspension. The frame is fine. 

Derailleur-less shifting.

Hose-less brakes.

Tires that never need to be re-inflated.

Seat post that drops without having to be pushed down.

Suspension that can be as supple as a DH and firm as a hardtail with the push of a button.  

A slack front end that gives me security on the steep and gnar but also doesn't loop out when the steep and gnar is going in the other direction. 

Chainstays that make me able to hold a wheelie like Wynn but also rail turns like Bruni.

A localized EMP to disable e-bike motors and strava computers in my vicinity. 

I had an interesting situation happen recently that is another, often unheard-of take on "What would make you buy a new bike". I was the second owner of a small, made-in-Colorado, brand of modular bike. I had heard rumblings of the company going under for a while but never thought it would happen. The shop I work for just so happens to also be a dealer of the brand in question. When a new bike was announced to dealers but never released, I knew something was up. Long story short, the nail in the coffin came when the brand closed their showroom with only a cryptic message on the door, and all options to buy bikes were removed from the website. 

The bike I owned was getting up there in age, with a few seasons of hard gravity riding under its belt. I knew the time had come to start looking for a new ride, and it just so happened that my riding priorities were starting to change. When I bought the bike, I wanted a durable, gravity focused bike that I could ride with confidence at bikeparks in the Southeast, yet still pedal for some of the harder descents in Pisgah. I also have a short travel Revel Ranger that I would ride 80% of the time due to it's capability and efficiency both up and down. Honestly the perfect all around bike for most of my riding. 

As I head into my final season of racing collegiately, I am looking ahead to my goals and desires of riding after my racing focused days are over. I want something more efficient and pedal-able than a 40+ lb. enduro sled. While I still want gravity capability and longer travel, I didn't want something that was solely focused on plowing through chunk but rather more fun and playful that I would look forward to riding. Through my desire to support small US based brands, (and working at a dealer), the Revel Rail 29 jumped out to me as soon as I put a leg over it. Very shortly after I heard of the closure, I was able to order the Revel and I could not be happier. 3 rides and and no complaints!

This is a very subjective question (obviously) that mostly boils down to what bike the rider has now and what the goals are (captain obvious).  I think the answer is more clear and potentially more universal on the emtb side then it is on the pedal bike side.  I think that reality is clear to the people designing and making the bikes that you'll have a much harder time getting people to replace their mtb's then you will their emtb's.  

As for pedal bikes... or mountain bikes as we used to call them...

For me however, I have a 2019 enduro bike (2019 SC Megatower V1) and a 2022 trail bike (giant trance x 29 advanced).  Things that would get me to upgrade or swap out either of those would have to include most, if not all of the following:

-Mullet and 29 compatible with flip chip or linkeage change (must)

-in frame storage (nice to have, bordering on must), fully sleeved internal routing or external routing (must), no headset cable routing (must), UDH compatibility (must), Pressed in headset cups to accomodate angle adjust headsets (nice to have, bordering on must)

-Geometry improvements over my current rigs and or hitting my requirements (490-500 reach, 445-455 chainstays, 77-78 deg sta, 460ish seat tube length, 640ish stack) (these things would be a must)

-Kinematic targets or improvements over my current rides.  for my enduro bike, slightly lower leverage ratio with 25% progressivity, manageable pedal kick back and anti-rise.  Similar for my trail bike, but less progressivity required because I will run an air shock

As for eMTBs... 

For my ebike, I prefer light weight, reduced power ebikes... but I'd be open to certain full power bikes once weight comes down. I currently have an orbea rise that's been converted to a more enduro type of situation through longer stroke coil shock, longer coil fork and real tires.  So take the below with a grain of salt with the above reference point in mind.  

-Vastly improved and feature rich chargers.  Including bluetooth connectivity, app control, storage/maintenance functionality with balancing and discharge/cycle ability, DC supply to DC passthrough functionality to allow charging the bikes via 12-24v

-Vastly improved and expanded firmware settings for the end user.  Power profiles that allow power ramp up control, power over run settings, start delay, max power/torque etc, extensive walk mode tuning, ability to create more power modes to allow you to clone a mode like trail (shimano) or trek's emtb mode but tune the power output/delivery, change how progressive limp mode or power reduction based on battery life remaining and other things I can't think of now.

-Motors that are serviceable by a certified shop or end user with service manuals

-More open information and access to battery bms to allow user cell replacement or refurbishing and/or mfg re-furbishing services to rebalance the pack and replace weak cells. Modular batteries would be a huge plus.

-As for the bikes themselves... from my brief ownership of ebikes, the following things would improve the user experience: External cable routing or fully sleeved internal routing to avoid pinch points at the motor/battery locations, no charge ports or power buttons located on the seat tube, if the battery is removable the interface must be fully dialed so that there are no loose/weak or wear points in the batter/motor connection, Standardization of motor mounts across all brands would be a huge win for users

-Generation two of lower rpm motors that require less reduction gearing (gen two of the tq system is likely to be impressive once they are able to dial in the near field weakening to expand the power delivery range across a wider rpm range)

-Geo and kinematic wise, I think there is a lot of room to develop and dial things in.  I feel like we have a nice range of style of emtb's now with things all the way from the trail/xc side to things like the transition relay.  I'd like to see some high pivot ebikes.

Overall, I think the transition relay is the only bike that has gotten my attention coming from my modified rise... that being said, while that bike provides the maturity in kinematic and geo that I am looking for, and a significant advancement in system weight and an enticing option of letting me have a 170/180 park bike replacement if running without a battery... the powertrain is still not quite as advanced as I want and I feel things are going to be 1-2 generations from now.  I would likely try to hold out and keep my rise until 1-2 more generations have passed... but I have 4,500 miles on it now and it will be needing a new motor/battery soon... so the reality of putting 2k into this to get another 3 years out of it, vs fire sale for 3,500 - 4,000 and moving onto a new bike with that same 2k investment... I'll likely end up with a relay.  

I haven't brought a NEW bike in like 20 years.. Id get a new one, if your mum would gift me one 😁😁😁...

Some unsolicited internet life advice.

Either do your own uni work or leave and focus on a real life job. 

You could also save some coin and learn use the AI software that the paper writing service likely uses. At least that way you’d learn some ‘AI input engineering’.

The secondary bike market, for me, always seems dicey.  Especially with carbon frames.  

I would be more inclined to buy a secondary AL frame, just because from pictures, you can get a sense of what's going on.

Otherwise I think there is the fine line of JRA and a real warranty claim.  Not sure how a company would deal with that.

I was going to respond bvy seconding this, and also pointing out that anyone who uses that service is extremely likely to have their data shared in the future, but then i realised that"ellie" is almost definitely an AI bot herself...... 

Super content with my current set up, but then they are both '23s (Relay & Smuggler). I'm convinced I will hang on to these longer than any bikes before them.

I figure I'd buy a new e-bike when they make a big jump in tech. As others have stated, integrated gearbox, lighter/ smaller battery packs, etc.

I'd love to ride DH enough to be able to justify a Frameworks DH rig some day.

I'm in the process of buying a (new to me) used bike. The deciding factors were all the little things.

Frame adjustability (wheel size, geo, travel), post insertion depth (210 dropper instead of my current 180 limit), bolt on external routing... Doesn't hurt that it's something I've lusted after for years, German aluminium.