mkseven said... Then they might sell a road bike for $10,000 thats a fair few sails worth for something with not much on-going development costs and a much bigger market.
Are the development costs for a $10k bike really that low? A succesful newish top-end manufacturer like Cervelo has costs such as wind-tunnel time, engineers working on bottom brackets, guys who can fabricate full carbon fork and steerer combons, etc. The costs of producing the mould for something like a fork and steerer, let alone a frame, would seem to be miles higher than the straight mandrel used for a mast or the constant-section sections for a boom.
And then there's the marketing/team costs you need for cred and input. Cervelo run a slick PR/website, and a full Tour de France "test team" plus a women's team. Running around three continents with a signpainted bus, dozens of bikes, several cars, mechanics, soigneurs, directeur, film crew and team of 25 pro cyclists doesn't seem particularly cheap.
Although I'm certainly no expert in any way, it would seem far from surprising e if Cervelo or a similar manufacturer actually had a much higher development-cost spend than NP.
Maybe NP are just going to use last year's moulds from the brands they produce under contract; apparently other small manufacturers do.
. But I guess I only saw a brief glimpse of it (as with many fields), I should stand corrected by someone that works everyday with it.
.
