Rapha Pro Team clothing now available

How do you know what Rapha's mark-up is Ubercurmudgeon? I seriously doubt that it's out of line with anyone else's in the cycle clothing industry, certainly i bet it's a lot lower than say… Assos. It's also quite possible to produce in high volumes at a lower unit price and build in a higher margin than a low volume high unit price producer.

Also I don't see how you can single Rapha out as being a rip-off when there are other brands who's clothing costs at least as much and quite frequently more - Assos for starters. Also unless you actually own any Rapha kit how you are in a position to judge whether it's worth the money or not?

Finally, as so many other comments on here seem like they're cut and pasted from previous Rapha reviews I'll ctrl-c ctrl-v this in…

It does rather mystify me why whenever we feature something like this [from the other week's Vespertine Vesp review] or from Rapha a load of people who aren't going to buy whatever it is feel the need to tell us all why they aren't going to buy it which is usually accompanied by telling us that anybody who does has more money than sense… as if it's any business of any of us what people chose to legally spend their money on.

So, what are you saying, that the only people who should be allowed to have an opinion on the value-for-money of a company's products are people who know precisely what their markup is? That would limit the discussion in this case to just the private owners of Rapha, their accountants, and those prepared to believe them without question. Sounds rather cultish to me. By the same logic, the only people who would have been qualified to discuss, say, Contador's doping bust and subsequent trials, would have been him, his trainers, and his supporters. That would have denied the world a hell of a lot of top-quality steak jokes, which would have pleased his fans, as much as a ban on Aldi and Lidl jokes in relation to Rapha would please some around here.

Sadly, cycling journalism in general is becoming more than more like automotive journalism: focussing on the luxury end of the market, where sensible approximation of costs must be abandoned, lest someone points out the emperor is strutting around in the buff. Such a move is great for the journalists, but might not be so great for the industry in the long term. I doubt, for example, the US government would bailout Specialized and Trek, as they did Ford and GM, should the current generation of MAMILs decide the golf is more their speed after all. It's just my opinion, but I prefer the approach of electronics and computing magazines and web sites, the more reputable of which do "tear-downs" of products from the likes of Apple, Sony, Samsung, etc, to determine - as best anyone outside those companies can - what their profit margins might be. They interview experts in the appropriate fields. They gain the knowledge to be able give their readers are fair impression of who is giving them the best value-for-money. Rather than just coming out with nonsensical stuff like "the more expensive something is relative to the other products available, the less value is a factor in your decision to buy it", and waiting for the next consignment of luxury samples to arrive to be reviewed, or the next press release to regurgitate.

Oh, and I'm not sure why you think I wouldn't regard Assos as a rip off too. Which I do. Although they probably do have more costs than Rapha, such as all-European production and actual factories with employees, not just suppliers they can squeeze, so I'm not sure their markup isn't a tiny bit less ludicrous. That said, from the lack of any Assos stuff in the road.cc reviews archive, I guess they have one less expense than Rapha: they've never sent you anything.