You can get a seamless 8/5/8 tubeset and prugnat S-4 (on-topic imitation) lugs for $130 at nova cycles this week (on special):
You need another $120, roughly, for fork parts, dropouts, braze-ons, etc, i.e. $250 of materials. If all reynolds 531 tubesets normally sold for $500, reynolds would be pumping out these tubesets like mad. So the $500 pricepoint for reynolds 531 is not a realistic figure.
It occured to me yesterday, as I stared at "Colorado Cyclist", saying "geez look at all these $200 carbon seatposts, who pays these prices?" That all you need to make a carbon-fiber component is some carbon fiber cloth, some resin, a mould, and a vacuum pump.
This should have created a renaissance in bicycle parts because thousands of dollars of tooling is, theoretically, not necessary to make bicycle parts. What I don't understand is why these carbon fiber parts cost $200 instead of $20, when the barriers to entry for the parts makers are so low. By now, carbon fiber should have broken the monopoly held by the metals processors, i.e. reynolds, columbus, tange, campagnolo, shimano, etc.
We should probably move this slightly off-topic discussion to the iBOB list,
- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA