The three main suppliers of carbon fiber, Toray Industries, Inc., Mitsubishi Rayon Co., Ltd., Toho Tenax Co. have increased their price a huge 66% according to news coming out of Eurobike.
It’s not yet clear how this will affect the 2011 prices for carbon fiber frames, forks and other bike components but this new price development will surely have a big impact. Pinarello, as an example, uses Toray fibers.
This may be the best time to go out and buy that 2010 Italian bike you have been lusting after.
Eurobike was huge: 41,482 trade visitors from 102 countries. An additional 22,300 cycling fans attended today’s "Public Day"; 1,732 journalists from 35 countries were also there to cover the event.
Photo: Pinarello Dogma uses Toray; photo courtesy of www.granfondocycles.com
Stories for the Italian Cycling Journal about rides, granfondos, having a good time cycling in Italy, Italian cycling history, etc. are very welcome. Contact me at veronaman@gmail.com. There are more than 1,500 stories in this blog. The search feature to the right works best for finding subjects in the blog and there is also a translate button at the bottom so you can translate each page.
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As good a reason as any to buy a new Italian bicycle we suppose! Reminds us of the days when folks told us how they talked their wife into letting them buy a titanium bicycle back when those were "all the rage". Something about the "Honey, I'll never need to buy another one" since they supposedly would last forever. Where are all those old titanium bicycles nowadays?
ReplyDeleteRemember that carbon is just one ingredient to the frame, other costs include the design, moulding, distribution and more.
ReplyDeleteThe component cost of the carbon in the retail price of a frame is relatively small. So a price rise in this one ingredient could bump up prices, but not by dramatic amounts.