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@JamesNQ
People do know how absolutely stupidly expensive that reflective tape on the frame is, right? It's not the same stuff as the eBay jobs you whack on your bike, it has to go through certain safety tests to make sure it's upto the job for x amount of years, I bet there's £300 worth of decals on the frame when you factor in the labour time to install it. Back in the 90s a family member used to do work for the Police after they had wrapped the cars around various objects and the price of the tape and installation was not far off the price of the car.
I imagine a huge amount of R&D goes into making these bikes work so well the cost is justified. Durability and keeping the cost as low as possible is the key. Yes you could make them faster, handle better but what's the point? The bikes they are using are sold by the bucket load so they know exactly what will break after x amount of miles so they can keep stock of those parts which will be cheap, there's no super new technology, it's all run of the mill durable stuff which is cheap to maintain and if it does wear out or break you just chuck it and replace it.
People who say these aren't £1700 worth of bike are looking at them like they'd go into their local bike shop and purchase one. If you break down the costing of one they're pretty good value for money.