OK, now that we're drawing parallels between custom bicycles and custom motorcycles (trust me, a VERY apt parallel) I'm on solid enough ground to wade in.
One point hasn't been mentioned regarding prices that is critically important: The customer who pays $40,000+ for a custom motorcycle doesn't ride!
OK, in the previous statement, my definition of "ride" means doing more than a sunny Sunday cruise out to the local safe biker hangout making sure one gets home before dark (it cools off and bugs tend to come out as the sun goes down) - 50 miles or less. Actually putting down 5,000 or so miles a year (minimum) either commuting to work and/or doing long distance trips is riding. And those guys will usually stick with garden variety mass-market-produced-in-a-factory-under-well-known-name motorcycle. Mainly because those bikes are more cost effective, comfortable, reliable and infinitely more practical, than the custom versions.
I've got no doubt that in trying to sell incredibly expensive custom built bicycle frames would best be served by targeting the same crowd. Someone who has an incredible cash reserve for toys, who will show up with said toy occasionally (when the weather's nice and the event isn't too physically demanding, preferably well-attended and trendy), and let it spend the rest of its existance hanging on a wall or sitting in the garage.
Look at your average Hell's Angel/Bandido/Outlaw/Pagan/whatever colors he's flying. You'll find a mildly modified H-D, not a wild custom-built chopper. And the rare exception to that statement built his own. And rides it.
Of course the CR survey says leave the prices where they're at. We're the guys who actually ride them, who use them for the finely made road tools that they are. Were were buying motorcycles, we'd be buying stock, basic Harley-Davidsons that could conceiveably be RIDDEN to Daytona Bike Week, not automatically put in an enclosed trailer, hauled down, and then spending the week doing three mile runs between bars and down Main Street (like 99.99999999999999% of those five and six figure customs you see on International Speedway Boulevard).
We ride - and we don't have gobs of cash to throw away on a mere status symbol. So we want the prices kept as cheap as possible.
By the way, don't ever expect custom bicycles to take off like custom choppers: There's this little shortcoming of physical conditioning. Yer average rich guy may have a Bowflex, but he quit using it after the third day because it's too much trouble. And it doesn't take any physical conditioning to straddle a $40K Big Dog and putt down Main Street.
Doing five miles on a custom bicycle is a different matter however.
George R. "Syke - who's flown colors for the last sixteen years and rides 20K a year" Paczolt Montpelier, VA
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