$10,000 bikes - What's the point?

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Specialized's top-end S-Works + McLaren Venge carries an enormous US$18,000 retail price - and yet the company says the entire stock is presold.(Image credit: VeloDramatic)

This article originally appeared on BikeRadar

Halo bikes cost roughly one-fifth of the average US household income – meaning they're only the stuff of dreams for most. But as unattainable as those bikes seem, there are people that can and do buy them. BikeRadar spoke with several of the top companies in the industry and all of them reported that flagship bike sales – while low in total number – are still ticking along, global economic issues be damned.

Even industry powerhouse Specialized – no stranger at all to mass production and huge volume – says sales of its impressively broad range of halo bikes are better than expected. The company's top-end road bike, the S-Works + McLaren Venge, is a joint collaboration with the heralded automaker of the same name and costs US$18,000. Its most expensive mountain, the S-Works Epic Carbon 29, isn't quite as outrageous but still commands a whopping US$10,500 – and the company can't keep either one in stock.

"We build halo bikes to see how far we can push our product line – literally building what we feel are the best bikes in the world for that 1-2 percent of riders who desire the very best, to see exactly how light, how stiff and how aerodynamic we can push our overall bike designs," said Juskaitis. "Every time we produce one of these bikes we learn something new. Sure, the great majority of us can’t afford them, but these are the products we aspire to."

Flagship bikes are also developed to cater to sponsored world-class riders and teams. Their physical demands far exceed the daily rigors of most everyday riders and as is always the case in sport, every team is looking for every possible advantage over its rivals. That unique microcosm provides an ideal testing environment and continually forces everyone involved to push the envelope instead of contently settling for the status quo.

"There absolutely needs to be halo bikes in order to push the limits of what's possible," insisted Cervélo media liaison Mark Riedy. "It's not realistic for a manufacturer to be able to come out with a frame that weighs 25% less and is stiffer than the current base production models without rolling it out as a super limited production model. We just can't jump into massive production right away with cutting-edge technology.

"Halo bikes are where the latest technology comes from and these are the product used by our athletes and teams," Sims told us. "Ultimately, what gets developed on the halo bikes will trickle down to the more affordable models. If you take for example our Allez bikes, they are very entry level but these frames are stiffer than the frame that Levi Leipheimer used to win the Tour of Germany a few years ago. What is the S-Works bike today becomes the Pro bike tomorrow."

"Many of the technological benefits that our engineers develop can be carried down to non-halo bikes," said Felt communications manager Bill Childers. "The more that we can pull down to the rest of the line, the better the bikes are for our customers. We developed the InsideOut process [for the F1] and reverted to a more efficient round tube design but we were also able to utilize the same process and round tube design for the F2-F5. So, as a result of seeking to produce the fastest bike possible, we are also able to raise the performance of all the bikes in our line."

As with any gear-oriented sport, people just like to have the best – if only for the illusion of competitive advantage – and some of those people have the money to spend. Moreover, many buyers don't make their bicycle purchases based on how well it suits their abilities. Truth be told, we often buy based on what we want to be and the image we want to project and just like so many people own cars that can go 240km/h in a world that rarely lets them go half that, it's the idea that it's capable of such a feat that we find so compelling.

Top-end bikes are also cheap in the grand scheme of expensive playthings. Consider that one typically needs less than US$10,000 to buy the exact same machine as what top pros are using and then compare that to motorsports, where that same amount of money gets you a used Honda Civic. Sure, that Ducati nets a heck of a lot more speed per dollar than any bicycle but it's not the best. If you're truly after the exact same equipment as the pros, we dare say that Valentino Rossi's machine might cost just a little extra.