Extended cog ring $$$$

Appreciate the Price of the EX Cog man..the way I see it you have 3 Options:
- by the Cog and NW Chainring and save bucks
- convert to 1 x 11(SRAM or Shimano) and spend loads of bucks
- dont Change anythimg and dont loose any bucks...

Get it???

"- convert to 1 x 11(SRAM or Shimano) and spend loads of bucks"

Nailed it. This is a big part of the reason why they can charge what they do. People are more willing to pay $70 for a semi-solution than the hundreds required to step up to a dedicated group.

Hard materials like 7075-T6 apparently take a lot of machining time when milled from billet. They've got to program it and run a large enough batch to make the programming time worth it (can take ~8 hours to program the machine). Time is money with those machines.

If it were a softer material, like a 7075 without a temper, they churn out a larger # of parts in the same amount of time, since the machine could mill through the softer material faster without the bits flexing or whatever, but it still could be expensive if they were making many smaller batches of 8 different sizes, like 26t to 38t (see SRAM XX1 rings), due to the programming time. Or they could just straight up be charging as much as the market is willing to pay.

The steel cassette on XX1 is an even harder material. Now that's actually worth the money if you know what goes into it. It's practically artwork. Would you ride on artwork? Its lifetime was mainly limited by its alloy cog, but even that has replacement now, though it's not really cheap.

That all said, if you're not making money on such a purchase, nor are losing out on money making opportunities by not getting it, what value is left? Fun factor is all in the head. One can make their brain think that heat is pleasant and pain is pleasant. Just tell yourself that if singlespeeders can get away with 32x19, then why can't you get away with a $38 32T NW ring and a $13!!10spd 11-36 HG50 cassette off JensonUSA.