So as almost everyone on this forum knows, unicycles are expensive. They seem a little overpriced, considering that its half a bike, and a bike is often a seventh of the price for a uni. I don’t make unicycles, so I don’t know what costs go into making one. Could someone who does explain?
Are they expensive because they’re low in demand and it costs a lot to make small amounts?
The tarrifs also make an impact, I know. Recently, UDC raised their prices by a lot. A non brake Nimbus uni is over $500.
What can we do to make unicycle manufacturing, and in turn unicycles, cheaper?
I’m not sure what the situation is where you are, but taking the cheapest new bike at decathlon is 240€, a UDC club is 150€. You can’t compare a cheap bike to expensive unis.
To get a MTB that is similar to my Muni in robustness, I would pay at least the same. Yes you may argue that the Muni should be less than half because it is less wheels and parts, see below for the reason on that. But a seventh of the price is not really comparing fairly.
Exactly that. Not really much more to add, the economy of scale is real. If you order 200 of something, the factory will charge you much more than if you order 10000, because of the cost associated with tooling, changeovertimes etc.
Probably nothing. But I genuinely think that unicycling is not super expensive compared to many other sports. Maybe I’m a bit blinded by what cyclists spend (you can buy a few high end unicycles for the cost of a mid level MTB..)
Yes there are cheaper hobbies, but I’m pretty sure I spend less than 250€ average per year on unicycling equipment (including shoes, clothes etc.) for many years while riding multiple times a week. In comparison running, which many would deem one of the cheapest hobbies is also ~150€ per year in shoes when I do 2-3 runs per week.
There is not enough of a market for unicycles to revolutionize and industrialize unicycle production. It’s a niche sport, and it would be a very risky move to start a company selling cheap unicycles, due to the low demand.
There’s just no way the big unicycle makers can lower the price on a unicycle, and still be making a profit.
Motor bikes - cross (prices from chatgpt) : 1000 € → >10k €
Motor bikes - road/track (prices from chatgpt) : 7000 € → >20k €
Car - from karts to formula 1 (prices from chatgpt): 1500 € → 10k €/year (kart) → 5-10 M€ (reaching F1)
Unicycling is in between rollerblades and Moutain bikes. The cheapest muni is 400€ on cdk.fr, the most expensive close to 1000 €. A full custom unicycle, made for unlimited road race with schlumpf hub, custom made frame, carbon rim and high end components could reach 6k€. And the hub would be half the price of the uni.
Oh, and of course, the prices I listed (except for moter sports maybe) are for commercially available bikes, not custom stuff, some track bikes can reach 100k€…
So no, unicycling isn’t really an expensive sport (but to lower the prices, we would need some concurrency in between the manufacturers (and more manufacturers), but for them to stay alive, we would need more unicycles sold, so more unicyclists. And it would help with scale economy. So teach unicycling, and speak about it around you.
And let’s face it, there’s been an inflation (more expensive material, shortage, etc) which meant manufacturers had to increase their costs. I have a KH24, 12 years old. I bought it brand new for 500€.
Bike parts in general got more expensive too. Price of raw rubber went up, so did steel and aluminium. And let’s not forget that most high end bike parts are made in Taiwan, which China has been threatening for a while and will attack one day for sure.
Unicycles aren’t overpriced. Given the small batches that are made, all overhead costs (developement, administration, preproduction costs, tooling and jigs, distribution and marketing, etc.) have to be distributed over way less produced units. So the overhead share on a uni is probably way higher than on most bikes. Compared to bikes of the same range and quality, unicycles don’t cost that much more than half the bike, meaning that the margins of the unicyle producing companies are way smaller than usual for most of the bike industry.
What you have to make sure is, that you compare the right things. It doesn’t make sense to compare i.e. a high end mad4one with carbon rim and Schlumpf hub to a walmart bike. as well as nobody would compare a cheap uni from the discounter to a word cup downhill bike or Pinarello Dogma F.
I always recommend that people buy second hand if you can. Yes it takes time and effort (and sometimes there simply aren’t the unicycles available), but it’s the only way to get real bargains.
I agree with everyone else though, unicycles are really not that expensive when you consider the alternative options.
I suspect you now like many of us, have lived long enough to see the massive decrease in spending power of your local currency, which is just how it is.
There are so many aspects to this though; an increase in wages for staff, an increase in taxes for businesses, an increase in materials cost, an increase in fuel costs, electricity costs, shipping costs…
I’d like to see unicycles be cheaper, but I simultaneously understand why they’re the price that they are, and wouldn’t want to see businesses struggling to survive, or stopping existing as they try to maintain prices which are simply no longer viable.
The only other way to make unicycles cheaper would be to make manufacturing cheaper, and we could almost certainly only do that by seriously exploiting workers in another country. It’s likely that the cheapest unicycles (and bikes) out there have gone this route and if you buy one of those you probably don’t want to meet the cow.
Robotics and further use of automation (removing as many expensive humans as possible) only really helps with much higher volume production items as the upfront cost is so huge.
I was going to tag someone for their insight, but I’m sure anyone involved in the unicycle manufacturing business will pop up if they want to. I suspect many of them would also tell you that they do what they do (especially if it includes design and development work) for the love of unicycling and don’t really take anything like the kind of wage they’d get if they were doing such work in another industry.
I don’t understand the problem. There are cheap unicycles for under $100. On the one hand, people want quality, on the other hand, they don’t want to spend any money.
IMHO, we (meaning: occidental people) have been flooded with cheap things from Asia for the past decades. During that time, we have accommodated to these low prices, and now can’t see how costly it is to produce good products. As we say in French: “we want butter and butter money”.
All in all, I do agree with y’all that unicycling is not a very costly hobby compared to other sports. Of course, it always depends on what you actually want to spend (I’m sure someone really into skateboarding can spend more than 1,000 per year if they’d like to), but you can ride without having to spend too much!
Yes, that’s right. I also spend not more money in a Unicycle. It’s just a Unicycle. My Unicycles are expensiver than one of my Bicycles. And this Bicycle is in good Conditions and work very well for me. Also the Unicycle. My first Muni costs 450 Euros. It’s nothing when you use the Unicycle very much and 10 Years later is this Unicycle my favourite Unicycle for rides in the wood.
A fund where old people pay 150% and young ppl pay 50% for a uni.
Or easier, old people pay 150% to the vendor and young 50% for the same uni.
But the alltime best one remains the contract of generations, elders give the uni to young unicyclists for free when they stop the hobby.
Now don’t stop at unicycles, it works with everything else as long as there is no government or vendor in between. Just the forum can be the platform.
My new BC Wheel cost me 230 EUR. Maybe it is a lot of money, but I think well worth it, even if it is only a wheel and 2 platforms for the feet. It’s in the colour I chose and as I cannot make anything like that myself, I think it is a decent price. I consider myself lucky having found a shop that makes them.
I would love to give my unicycles to my kids, but they don’t care to learn to ride.
I’ve been on both ends of basically those deals. I have gotten used parts for cheap or free, or parts at dealer price when I was a student. And I really appreciate those helping me out at those times.
I’ve also given away old uni parts, or for example sold my last Muni for basically the cost of the last service I did on it. I’ve easily had my moneys worth of fun on that one, I didn’t feel any need to try and squeeze out a few more euros.
Those deals are around, but if someone wants to be at the benefiting end, they have to be a bit more patient with it and wait until the opportunity comes, it’s not a buy now and get exactly your dream setup deal.
Yes, me too. Some good Cranks for the half of the normal price. Or my Pedal. It was a Reverse Escape Pedal also used for 25 Euros. Normaly it costs 95 Euro but the Pedal broke. Now I bought a Temu Pedal for 11,30 Euros and it works perfect. You don’t need very Expensive parts on your Unicycle. You can customize your Unicycle, if you want.
