I can't disagree with you. The marginal cost to produce basically all of these frames is the same for most companies as carbon frames are basically a commodity product now. Something like 2-3 factories produce 75% of all of the carbon frames. For a company like Willier or another "boutique" with limited distribution and sales numbers they have to amortize their fixed costs (design, molds, etc) over a limited number of frames which forces them to target a high price point. It kind of becomes a chicken/egg problem.
The only way I can foresee breaking that trend is some sort of a technological change which disrupts the supply chain and the cost structure. Gorilla Gravity, a Colorado-based manufacturer of mountain bikes, has supposedly developed a way to automate the layup process: https://www.pinkbike.com/...ash-trailpistol.html
I'm not sure what they're doing and they're being tight-lipped about it (as they should be) but that's the sort of disruption that could drive new bikes back down to relevant price points. $2,400 for a U.S. made carbon full suspension frame is... pretty incredible. That probably translates to a $2,000 hardtail frame and you can assume that a road frame would be roughly the same price point.
On the component side I think companies like Microshift are starting to take notice of the huge gap left by Shimano and SRAM at the low-end of the market. I mean, the cheapest you can find the R7000 (Shimano's newest 105) groupset is ~$800. Granted that's hydraulic disc brakes and basically the equivalent of Dura Ace from a few years ago but, still, there's really no reason you can't make a decent groupset for $3-400. Microshift seems to have a pretty novel strategy in that they wait for Shimano/SRAM to do the expensive work of tooling the industry up for a new chain and then, after a few years go by, they produce their own groupset to use that new chain standard. They just recently announced their 12-speed thumb and bar-end shifters.
Marin is pretty good about cobbling together something like a Sunringle cassette, a no-name crank and chainring, and then rear derailleur and shifter from Microshift to produce a 1x11 groupset that's functionally the equivalent of SRAM's last generation GX for... I'm guessing here... maybe $100 their cost?
That sort of activity on the low end is driving bikes like Marin's new "Team Edition" hard tail. $1,300 and other than being a couple pounds heavier its functionally the equivalent of my $5,000 (retail) Cannondale F-Si from just a few years ago.
My point with saying the foregoing is that, over the long-run, the market does work and whatever novel features come to market today on a $10,000 bike will likely make their way to a $3,000 bike in 2-3 years. If Shimano and SRAM migrate their groups too far up in price the market will discipline them. Eventually.
The only way I can foresee breaking that trend is some sort of a technological change which disrupts the supply chain and the cost structure. Gorilla Gravity, a Colorado-based manufacturer of mountain bikes, has supposedly developed a way to automate the layup process: https://www.pinkbike.com/...ash-trailpistol.html
I'm not sure what they're doing and they're being tight-lipped about it (as they should be) but that's the sort of disruption that could drive new bikes back down to relevant price points. $2,400 for a U.S. made carbon full suspension frame is... pretty incredible. That probably translates to a $2,000 hardtail frame and you can assume that a road frame would be roughly the same price point.
On the component side I think companies like Microshift are starting to take notice of the huge gap left by Shimano and SRAM at the low-end of the market. I mean, the cheapest you can find the R7000 (Shimano's newest 105) groupset is ~$800. Granted that's hydraulic disc brakes and basically the equivalent of Dura Ace from a few years ago but, still, there's really no reason you can't make a decent groupset for $3-400. Microshift seems to have a pretty novel strategy in that they wait for Shimano/SRAM to do the expensive work of tooling the industry up for a new chain and then, after a few years go by, they produce their own groupset to use that new chain standard. They just recently announced their 12-speed thumb and bar-end shifters.
Marin is pretty good about cobbling together something like a Sunringle cassette, a no-name crank and chainring, and then rear derailleur and shifter from Microshift to produce a 1x11 groupset that's functionally the equivalent of SRAM's last generation GX for... I'm guessing here... maybe $100 their cost?
That sort of activity on the low end is driving bikes like Marin's new "Team Edition" hard tail. $1,300 and other than being a couple pounds heavier its functionally the equivalent of my $5,000 (retail) Cannondale F-Si from just a few years ago.
My point with saying the foregoing is that, over the long-run, the market does work and whatever novel features come to market today on a $10,000 bike will likely make their way to a $3,000 bike in 2-3 years. If Shimano and SRAM migrate their groups too far up in price the market will discipline them. Eventually.