Affordable bikes?

You mention cars but there’s barely any cheap cars left and average new car prices have skyrocketed over the last decade. The top 10% of Americans are spending more than ever, and everyone else is limited on disposable income so brands in most industries are catering towards the smaller and smaller group of people at the top with disposable income. Competition with the used bike market also makes budget bikes much less attractive. You can get a solid hardtail off marketplace for less than $1k and a full sus for $1200ish, lots of great options if you extend the budget up to 2k. So for people with less disposable income used markets the way to go. I also really doubt it’s possible to build a sub 1k 160 bike that will hold up to any real riding without even more exploitative and slave labor than is already involved. 

A sub 1k full suspension bike isn't worth riding... especially so in 160/160 format where you can't hid poor suspension behind a firm feel with limited travel.  The last FS i test rode in this bracket was a giant stance at ~1,600 dollars a hard tail would have been my choice in that price range.  

As @ervin321 mentioned... There aren't great examples left of niche markets being able to sustain affordability.  Hell, same could be said of groceries.  The path forward for bikes is relatively clear, just like it is if you're into cars, motorcycles or other gear based hobbies.  If you want good deals, then you need to self educate and learn to buy second hand and find that diamond in the rough.  

Hot take incoming... I feel like bikes are actually cheaper today, then they were when I got fully engrossed into the sport in 2004.  Back then, we were still paying 3,500 dollars for bikes and they were terrible, unreliable and sometimes poorly designed hunks of junk.  These days, you can actually buy a modern full suspension bike for 2,500 dollars that is sorted and is performing at 80% of what a 5,000 - 8,000 - 10,000 bike does.  Seriously, deore 12 speed, deore brakes, fox rhythm suspension etc have completely changed the game.  Even the most haphazardly designed over seas manufacturing catalog frame has kinematics that are tolerable.  

TLDR: While bikes are not cheap in todays money, they are actually cheaper in todays money then they were in yesterdays money.  10 years ago the minimum point of entry full suspension bike was 3,500 - 4k and now you can get something under 2,500 that is good enough to ride for 10 years with minimal annual service costs.  

Affordable doesn't mean cheap; Expect to pay a good amount for durability and serviceability, there's more to the price of a bike/part than bling and weight.

Buy bike >> keep it working. You don't need a new bike every season, but it may need some new parts from time to time. At some point you may need a new frame/rolling chasis. There are some great companies out there that keep parts in stock for a long time, in case something happens. This is more important than a "lifetime warranty" if you ask me.

If you are into other Styles of riding, consider steel. Road/gravel/conmuter and even mtb hardtails made of steel last a very long time, they are slighty heavier, thats true, but even if they cost more than most aluminum made alternatives, you are most likely to get your money worth out of them.

So yeah, don't buy cheap, buy smart. Cheap stuff is part of the throwaway culture that bring us where we are

a good well specced steel hardtail will ride better than a entry level dual suspension bike IMO.

And that’s still $1500 to $2k 

Stuff(bikes) is more expensive, but it operates in a totally different capacity. 

I paid the equivalent of $4900 for this in 1994. XT/LX spec.:

It was a nice bike, but light years away from what we have now. 

In 2024, 30 years on, $6799 was MSRP for this:

That $1900 buys so much more bicycle now it’s nearly nuts. 

That's a lot of em dashes and disruption you got there

Just because I'm a pedant, those are hyphens.  This is an em dash: — Edit: Err... whoops.  Muphry's Law strikes again.

As for the question itself, I don't think the recreational cycling market in general is large or centralised enough to benefit from economies of scale like some other industries do.  For example, a Toyota Corolla is a lot of car for the money purely because Toyota makes close to a million of those with minimal variation, and more than ten million vehicles in total, every year.  The small boutique bike companies that appeal to a lot of us make hundreds or thousands of bikes per year.  Think of a car company that makes only that many cars per year.

I can't say there isn't room in the market for someone (e.g. Shimano) to come along and build a highly standardised bike down to a price, but does the fact such a bike doesn't exist say that nobody thinks there's enough demand for it to be profitable, or simply that nobody is willing to take that risk?

Regarding em dashes, go look at the OP again.

https://www.jensonusa.com/sale/marin-bikes 

sub 1k...frame https://www.jensonusa.com/marin-alpine-trail-carbon-2-frame-2022

I think to do an actual decent sub $1000 USD (MSRP, not something on blowout sale) enduro bike you'd need to invest into casting tools which are fairly expensive.  Cast the head-tube and BB Shell/pivot pickups.  Cast the seatstays left and right sides, cast rocker link and cast the chainstay from the bottom.  Could probably bond very basic round, straight wall aluminum tubing into castings to avoid paying for a welder and post weld heat treatment/straightening etc.

3 frame sizes with a reach adjust head-tube, no paint.  Trash build kit, No warranty (30 days to check for defect), no free shipping.

All of that would have to be made correctly from the start, then you try to spread costs over 10 years and high volumes.  

Big initial investment, big risk, thin margins and you'd probably have to stand up a factory of your own to do it.  Also- the market for very cheap (good) bikes seems small.  Those people either get hardtails or buy used.

^used bikes and if necessary used hardtails is the budget option.  And clearance/buddy deals.  Lots of new bikes aren’t bought at new bike prices.  I imagine a few brands do a fair amount of crash replacement frames.  You just might not get exactly what you want versus what makes sense from a value perspective.

So the question I think really is what do brands offer to make you spend the premium for a new bike.  Knowing the market well enough to scale just enough to sell out with a single short clearance sale.  And offer a high enough service level that someone really values that first owner receipt before moving that product onto the used market.

Here’s my hot take:

Most people should not start their bike journey mountain biking. They should be doing most of their biking in their neighborhood, developing bike skills and exploring their local environment, while hiking and backpacking to get their nature fix in, learning how to wrench on their own bike, and then go on to mountain bike. 

Spend that cash on a much more capable commuter or gravel bike, then move to a mountain bike once you know enough to build a bike up from used parts, even if you decide to buy a complete mtb.

I want to emphasize that in my view, mountain biking is not a sport that is beginner friendly, nor should it be. I do believe that the sport should grow, but also that it should grow as a result of mountain biking being a logical extension of a person’s existing bike habits. Going from zero to mountain biking is a good way to get in over your head, get injured, and sanitize trails. 

That's interesting- do you think that Specialized has moved somewhat in this direction with their DSW frames like the Chisel FS? I can see where, if scaled appropriately, this would make the welding and alignment of an aluminum frame much less expensive to produce. Then again, I keep hearing that with tariffs and other macroeconomic factors that aluminum is no longer as affordable to use for bike frames.

I was reading Goupil's post as implying AI had been used to write the OP. But according to zeroGPT, he's just the only human that uses em dashes!

*the only human since 1940

Maybe, although the DSW frames might cost even more- still need to be welded and they require a bunch of special hydroforming and that tooling.

I think to make a really cheap frame you need to get away from welding.  Or go fully robotic- which is how I think department store bikes are made.

Could probably do it in steel. Robotic laser weld all the joints and smart use of a bunch of flat plate. BMX style flat plate dropouts and key points on the rear end. No heat treatment step needed so cuts out a big step. Could do it in stainless steel and cut out paint. Factory direct from Taiwan with no middle man, there is probably a factory that would end up making more per frame doing this customer direct at $1k than they make per frame now.

I got through the topic and it got me thinking. When we compare bike prices to motorcycle prices, what kind of bikes are we really talking about? What is the average user and the average use of a motorcycle that is in the price range of our mountain bikes? I think very few motorcycles in the ~5k pricerange get beaten at least weekly on some harder terrain and not require a lot of servicing on their own (correct me if I'm wrong here). If they are mostly used for joyrides on tarmac, commuting or traveling, we shouldn't be comparing them to out mountain bikes, but commuter, travel and road bikes. Road bikes for example have a lower barrier of entry to MTBs (electronic shifting and disc brakes did not help here) and also don't require as much servicing. This is even more true for most commuter and bikepacking bikes.

In October of 2022 I actually brought a new motorcycle instead of updating my 2018 e-bike. Now the only problem I have is that motorcycle insurance has doubled in price since then. A decent ebike is still triple the price of 2018 but I’m lucky that my ebike still goes the same as the day I bought it new. 

Absolutely, the comparison is ridiculous. It's like when people compare an $80 economy car tire to a 3CG DH Assegai for $115. They're in completely different universes of performance.

The amount of maintenance I don't do on my road/gravel bike compared to my MTB continues to blow my mind. It just keeps running. It's barely higher maintenance than running shoes. And as you alluded to, I'm able to be damn competitive on group road and gravel rides on this old cyclocross bike that I bought for $400 on FB Marketplace. Sure, I've put more money into it since I got it, but we're still under $1000 for the bike, all in. I spend that much for just maintenance on my MTB every year.

Plot twist, the lifespan of running shoes for a serious runner is apparently a couple hundred miles, depending on the weight of the runner. And it's the cushioning that gives out. It's not that the shoes are useless after that point, but they're not optimal (kinda like the carcass of a downhill tyre getting softer after a few runs). 

If you're seriously into running, just buying the shoes is not cheap. Even though running is touted as a very cheap sport. So it's the same everywhere in the end. 

Maybe some people are missing the point. Comparison is an S Works Levo is $24,000.  A really good new motorcycle is $12,000. The point is real or perceived value. Does the cycle really look like a value or a depreciation monster. (NZD)

You should be comparing the S-Works Levo to a Multistrada RS @ $38k

Since the S-Works Levo is literally the most expensive mountain bike you can buy at $20k USD, two seconds of googling tells me that the MTT 420RR Turbine Superbike is the most expensive off the shelf motorcycle you can buy at $275k USD. That would be more of an apples to apples comparison.

And if you're going to tell me that a $12k USD Ducati is plenty, and more bike than any of us need, I will happily make the same point about most users and a new $3000 MTB. A $12k motorcycle in 2026 is a phenomenal product that blows the doors off motorcycles from a few decades ago, and is more bike than 99% of riders will every need. The same is true about any $3000 MTB in 2026. Similarly, if you take a $12k street motorcycle to the track and start beating it to death on timed laps, it's going to get expensive quick. Ditto for that $3k MTB.

Just popped in here to say that I spend on average, 2-3 hours wrenching in the garage for every 1 hour I spend riding my dirt bike.  I will admit that my 26' Santa Cruz Bullit cost more or less, the same as my 2017 500 EXC... But my 500 has fork bushings that can be loose enough to knock and you can't feel it, brake calipers/pads that rub slightly are fully sealed and never retract fully, Fork pistons and internals that are 3x the diameter of what is in my mtb fork, steel bolts everywhere and at least 50% of the motorcycle is injection molded plastic.  

All that to say, can we please stop with the motorcycle comparisons?