On Mar 17, 8:09 am, Andre Jute <
[email protected]> wrote:
> Actually, I probably have less invested in my bikes than most people
> on RBT, and I bet each of my bikes cost less than 70 per cent of the
> bikes ridden by RBTers. I have already pointed out elsewhere that the
> dearth of good rear lights, and their prices, is a scandal.
The price of good lights really is not a scandal. I once was in the
"good light" business. Manufacturing them myself, in small quantities,
and selling them pre-Internet at tiny margins. There are actually too
many small companies making too many good lights, and none are
achieving economies of scale, and no one is getting rich.
If there's any scandal at all, it's that poor lights are permitted to
proliferate due to the lack of realistic standards (or any standards
in some cases).
Any factory in China can assemble crappy LED rear lights and wholesale
them for sub-$1, and these end up being retailed for $5 to $10. The
CatEye rear light probably costs about $3 to manufacture, but they
also have the overhead of a real company to support. By the time they
wholesale them to dealers for $15, and the dealer marks it up 100%
(standard for accessories), you have a $30 rear light, but they're
(CatEye) probably is not getting rich off of this (especially
considering the weak dollar).
Now if someone could find a good rear light in China and Taiwan, and
sell it online for 50% margin, you might have $10 good rear lights.
>I have explained how you can DIY good lights cheaply.
As have many others. It is rather amusing how some people try to
invent stories about how expensive and difficult it is to build good
lights. So many mis-statements came from one individual that a few
years ago I put up a "Myths and Facts" section on my lighting web
site, with many of them coming from him. From 'It takes weeks of
cobbling in a workshop to construct a rechargeable bicycle lighting
system,' to 'MR16 and MR11 lamps are "decorator" lamps, because they
are used in some track lighting fixtures and display cases,' and 'you
must have bought cases of MR16 and MR11 lamps which you are trying to
unload," he's proven himself to be a veritable unlimited source of
misinformation on yet another subject which he knows little about. It
actually ceased to be amusing after a while, and a kill-file proved to
be a better solution, eliminating the temptation to engage in debate
with a know-it-all who knows nothing.