I literally yelled those words, well swap out the special characters, at my TV yesterday while I was on the trainer catching up on some DCR YouTube… If you’ve already seen his video I imagine that you had a similar experience when Ray mentioned that the price is $300, for a couple bearings and some plastic. Because there is no universe where that is a reasonable price for what the Tacx Neo Motion does. OK, maybe in 20 years if we keep pumping these inflation numbers ;).

It might not come as a surprise that I disagree with DCR here, when he [mostly] gives them a pass for that insane pricing. The argument? “Everyone else is doing it”… But that’s not really true. Sure there are lots of overpriced cycling accessories, heck that pretty much defines our corner of the cycling industry. When he did the setup for the price, I expected to hear something more like $200, which is still insane, but at least defensively so.Mentioning that Wahoo sells some insanely priced tennis balls doesn’t excuse the behavior. The other examples he pulls out aren’t really substitutable goods. Which is part of the problem; Garmin gets to make it up here and feel out the market.

Is there a scenario where that $300 price makes sense? Sure, yep, absolutely. Fix the problem with sprinting; having to remove these to sprint is a big UX issue. Make the travel longer. Add some “cush” to the experience, and maybe a little side-to-side mobility on the top. Then we’ll talk. Otherwise for what this is, and the amount of casual engineering that would have been involved in designing it, it’s just crazy stuff from Garmin.