kiwi nz wrote:
So when you buy a much more expensive bike with the same specs as a cheaper one, you are really just paying for the marketing and the stickers on the bike as opposed to noticeable differences.
I've seen a picture of the giant bicycle factory in Taiwan and Giant, Trek, Scott and Conolongo bikes are all made on the same production line.
There are only a small handful of factories that mass produce carbon frames. Giant being the biggest, and from what I've heard, a few more in Taiwan and China. So yes, That factory in China that is producing Cervelo frames is likely also pumping out brand 'x' bikes as well.
The price delta between frames is likely more than just stickers;). There are a more than a few people who back the creation / design / distribution of that brand. There are a lot of mouths to feed between the process of designing a frame and getting it to your door. However, there are some companies (Stevens bikes comes to mind), that simply do what you mentioned; they take a generic frame, slap their sticker on it, and price it like it was their prized possession;).
The Stevens Super Trofeo TT is a great example of the B.S. marketing that some companies do:
"Countless hours in the windtunnel to create these aero-optimized tube shapes. Countless hours of fiddling to create the perfectly intgrated cockpit. Countless hours of engineers' know-how to hide those Tektro brakes behind the fork and make them invisible to the wind. We did our work - now it's your turn" Countless hours in the wind tunnel? - I call BS on that. Countless hours creating the cockpit? - BS. If they did, they sure didn't come up with a great result Hiding brakes - ...you get the idea "we did our work". - What? they re-badged a generic frame that can be bought from several asian resellers! They didn't do anything.
Pure marketing B.S. ...For all of this, they charge about double what you 'could' be paying through other resellers.