Nowadays a decent mountain bike can cost more than a brand new motorcycle. The use of advanced materials and the ever-increasing investment into research and development has resulted in price increases year on year
Even with eye-watering price tags becoming the norm in the MTB industry, downhill bikes stand out as some of the most expensive on the market.
Keep reading to discover why.
Here’s Why Downhill Bikes are So Expensive:
Downhill bikes are so expensive because they are designed to cope with extreme downhill riding and jumping at speed, requiring a strong frame and components. They are specialist pieces of equipment that are sold in low quantities, they don’t benefit from economies of scale and so demand a premium.
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How Much does a Downhill Bike Cost?
The lowest price a new downhill mountain bike can be purchased for is $3,000 – $4,000. Higher-end models from top manufacturers can cost in excess of $10,000, sometimes substantially more.
Before diving into the specifics of why downhill (DH) bikes are so expensive, it’s worth quickly comparing their price to other full suspension MTBs.
To get a feel for the price difference, we’ve compared the cost of new DH bikes from a number of top bike makers to the price of trail and enduro bikes from the same manufacturers.
In the comparison we’ve taken the prices of the lowest cost DH, trail, and enduro bikes offered by Scott, Trek, Canyon, Santa Cruz, and Commencal.
Top-end bikes of all types run into the 10’s of thousands of dollars, so we’re just considering the ‘low-end’ to get a feel for how pricey it is to get into downhill biking, relatively speaking.
Cost Comparison of Downhill, Trail, and Enduro Bikes
Here’s a quick comparison of the lowest-priced downhill, trail, and enduro bikes from 5 top bike makers.
In the analysis we’ve only looked at full builds, not frame kits. On top of that, we’ve only included full suspension bikes to keep the comparisons as fair as possible, including hardtails would’ve skewed the results.
| Brand | Downhill | Trail | Enduro |
| SCOTT | $4,700 | $2,900 | $2,200 |
| TREK | $5,400 | $2,450 | $3,830 |
| CANYON | $5,300 | $2,000 | $2,900 |
| SANTA CRUZ | $7,150 | $3,800 | $5,500 |
| COMMENCAL | $3,700 | $2,700 | $2,800 |
It’s clear that there are major variations in the pricing between each bike maker.
There are also some differences when comparing the cost of each type of bike. For example, the Scott trail bike is more expensive than their enduro, whilst Trek is the opposite with their enduro costing considerably more.
There’s one pattern that each and every one of the brands shows though: The downhill bike is the most expensive, and by a large margin.
Why do Downhill Bikes Cost So Much?
There are a number of factors that make downhill bikes more expensive than other full suspension bikes. In summary, they’re more expensive because:
- They are designed to take the most punishment, so they need the strongest and most robust frames and high-quality components.
- They are specialist bikes designed only to go downhill as fast as possible. Specialist equipment is more expensive.
- They are sold in much smaller numbers than trail or enduro bikes, so downhill bikes don’t benefit from economies of scale to the same extent.
Now let’s briefly consider each of these points in more detail.
Strong, High-Quality Components
Downhill bikes are designed to take more punishment than any other MTB type. Bikes fall into categories from 1 to 5, every downhill bike is designed for category 5 usage. But what does that mean?
It means the bike is designed for ‘extreme jumping’ and ‘downhill grades on rough trails at speeds of over 25mph’.
In other words, DH bikes are designed to tackle anything you can throw at them. The result is they have thicker tubed frames than other bikes, which means more material. The advanced materials used in MTBs nowadays are expensive, so this accounts for some of the additional costs.
On top of more expensive frames, many other components of a downhill bike are also more costly than those you’d find on a trail bike.
DH bikes have around 200mm travel in the front and rear suspension compared with 110 – 150mm for a trail bike and 140 – 180mm for an enduro. More travel means bigger, more expensive parts.
With this much travel the forks themselves need to be thicker. Whereas a trail or enduro bike will have forks with 34mm or 36mm stanchions, a DH bike will typically have 40mm stanchions. (If you’d like to learn more about fork stanchion diameters, check this article out.)
On top of that, the double or even triple-crown construction of DH forks pushes the price up further.
A favorite fork for DH bikes is the Fox Factory 40 FIT Grip2, which cost in the region of $1,700 to purchase. A high-end 36mm trail/enduro fork like the Fox Factory 36 Float Performance costs around $900, that’s almost half the price of the DH fork. We analyzed why Fox forks are so expensive here, check it out if you’re interested
(This huge amount of travel can be both blessing and a curse for downhill bikes when it comes to jumping. We’ve done a full assessment of the jumping abilities of DH bikes in this article.)
A similar trend is seen in the prices of other components. Using brakes as another example – DH bikes travel faster and down steeper trails than any other bike.
Not only that, but they’re also the heaviest member of the MTB family, E-bikes aside. Their weight plus the high speeds achieved means they need bucket loads of stopping power.
The result is bigger brake rotors with high-powered calipers, which all add up to a more powerful, more expensive braking system than a trail or enduro bike requires.
Downhill Bikes are Specialist Machines
All types of riders will benefit from a trail or enduro bike. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, but for the most part, a decent one will give you enough flexibility to ride 95% of the trails, roads, and singletracks you’ll encounter.
That’s why many people who have never been to a MTB park in their lives will happily ride a trail bike to work or through the park for some exercise at weekend.
Downhill bikes are a different beast. They’re designed to shred the gnarliest downhills with the biggest drops, rockiest descents, and massive jumps.
They’re almost useless at everything else, but that’s okay because they do what they’re designed to do better than anything else. In fact, we took a deeper look into why downhill bikes aren’t a good fit for trail/casual riding in this article.
This impacts the price, however. Being such a specialist piece of kit, downhill bikes don’t need to cater to the casual rider. People buying DH bikes know what they’re capable of and are happy to spend the extra cash on a machine that will perform extremely well in a very specific task.
Downhill Bikes are Sold in Low Numbers
Far fewer DH bikes are sold each year than retail or enduro bikes, so they don’t benefit from economies of scale to the same extent.
Economies of scale is the principle that the more units of a particular part are made, the cheaper each individual unit can be produced for. And of course, lower production costs mean lower sales prices.
This principle applies equally to the frames themselves and to all the other components. Far fewer 40mm stanchion, double-crown forks are sold each year when compared with 36mm trail forks.
Whilst far fewer DH bikes are sold to the everyday rider, downhill MTB remains one of the most exciting disciplines to watch.
There’s a considerable amount of money in DH in terms of events and sponsorship deals at the pro level, and ultimately DH bike sales are a big contributor to further research and development of DH bikes that enables the pros to push the sport further year after year.
Are Downhill Bikes Worth It?
Downhill bikes are worth it for riders who want a specialist machine that will take them down the most intimidating descents in the fastest possible time.
For the majority of riders, downhill bikes aren’t worth it. They’re not a good option for an all-purpose mountain bike as they weigh a ton, have way more travel than most folks will ever need, and have a geometry that’s completely optimized for downhill.
Unless you’re frequently visiting MTB parks with brutal downhills that operate a shuttle service or a bike lift to get you back to the top, you’re probably better off with a decent trail or enduro bike.
