The $17K Merckx, Value, and Bikerumor Comments

Well, the interwebs were all abuzz with the release of this special edition Merckx: http://www.eddy70.com/

OF COURSE, a hyper-expensive bike is going to bring out the trolls.  I know, I know, I should know better than to crawl under the bridge with them, but right now, in the doldrums of winter, dumbass blog comments are what anger me the most about the bike industry.  True to form, Bikerumor was among the first to post about the frame, and agin true to form, their resident trolls responded immediately:

Frippolini - 01/28/15 - 3:06pm

@ badbikemechanix…
I can buy the collector argument IF the bike would have been ridden by a cycling legend, but in this case its just a hyped bike with pretentious marketing and a totally exaggerated price.
However, you by chance don’t agree with me, I’ve got lots of “collectibles” that I can offer you.

As for my comment to Eddy Merckx (the company)… are you serious, 17k ? The only thing, from my perspective, that could motivate this price level would be if the proceeds would go to charity. Any comments?

and:

doug - 01/28/15 - 5:46pm

A manufacturer saying something is special does not make it special.

If it was a NOS team bike then maybe… but just saying its worth 17 grand because eddy has one too is f***ing ridiculous.

They will sell all of them, no doubt. There will always be more money in the world then sense

There are other responses as well, but the above are pretty representative of a phenomenon that has been driving me fucking bonkers lately: dumbasses who confuse "price" with "value."

I'm not going to insult you by copying and pasting the definitions; you're as capable of using Google as I.  The important difference is that price is a number.  It's a statement of, "if you want this thing, you need to give this many dollars in exchange."  There is no arguing or interpreting of price.  It's a fact.

Value is a perception.  It's a person interpreting the price, comparing it to the other goods and services that might be exchanged for the same amount of money and deciding which they would rather have.  It's an opinion, and like all opinions, will differ from person to person.

The dumbasses represented by comments like those above are incapable of understanding this difference.  Is $17,000 a lot of money for a bike?  Bet your ass it is.  Actually, that's a fact insofar as you can compare that price to the price of other bikes with similar properties and see that it's relatively a lot of money.  

Is the bike worth it?  Maybe, maybe not.  If they make 70 of these, I promise it will be worth it to more than 70 people.  But it's not to me, and who the fuck cares what I think.  Green is my favorite color, but that doesn't mean it has to be your favorite color too.  People value all sorts of shit that I think are crazy - expensive cars, watches, wine, etc.  And I value a few things that other people think are stupid - bikes, whisk(e)y, tools, etc.

Why is this worth thinking and ranting about?  Because value is at the core of the bike industry's woes.  Americans don't value bikes; they're toys to be used, neglected, thrown away, and replaced for as little as possible.  We've historically done a poor job of explaining the value of buying a quality bike from a bike shop versus a department store.  What this means is there are a lot of people who ride a bike and hate it for reasons that are completely solvable, and bike shops are going out of business.  Since bikes shops are the ones who can solve the issues that make riding insufferable, there's the potential for a dangerous negative feedback loop here.