On the other hand, economies of scale are one of the most powerful drivers of cost in manufacturing, and by heavily marketing they're (possibly) increasing market share, with the rest of us eventually being able to take advantage of those economies of scale.

In general, I don't think that companies that market and sponsor pros are just giving away money that could be given to us as a lower price instead.

Are they? Because I expected significantly lower costs from them in this "market savings"...looking at what they got I'd say there are more than a few brands that have more competitive price points. Giant for one.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Their pricing is within a few hundred on most options. The two biggest issues i see currently are (1) lack of stock in popular sizes, (2) lack of customization. If they would have had an Inflite in size S in stock i would have likely pulled the trigger. I know it takes time to offer lots of options but that is what they need to be competitive. For their inflite i want to size down and then get a longer stem, longer crank, larger chainring. The price is very good but to change all of that i could simply buy an S-Works crux frameset and build the bike up exactly and arrive at the same price point.

They need to sell framesets and have actual stock! I think that is where they could really make a dent in the market. I almost exclusively buy framesets now and build bikes up how i want them.

I think it could be argued that Canyon have the best Demo bike facility out of any company out there. Buy a Canyon, any Canyon, get it delivered to your home, set it up as you want it set up, ride it for 3 weeks, thrash it, race on it, decide you like it - great, keep it. Decide you don't like it, sweet, call Canyon and send it back, no questions asked, no reasons needed. They will arrange to collect the bike from your house (yes, you do have to put it back in the box) and will give you a 100% refund including the shipping. There may be valid reasons why you don't want to buy a Canyon, but I don't think that lack of ability to demo is one of them! I don't know of many other companies that will let you have a 30 day demo as standard!