Factor track bike: why does it cost $60,000?

Bikes can be expensive, like really expensive. Even lower-tier road bikes are often around £1,000/$1,000/€1,000. That shoots up to above £10,000/$10,000/€10,000 for pro-level bikes, far beyond the reach of the average cyclist.

That’s a lot of money, but even these prices pale in comparison to the cost of Factor’s track bike which will set any potential buyers back a wallet-burning $60,000 - yes, you read that right, $60,000!

It’s an almost unfathomable amount of money, but why does it cost so much?

Read more: One-off Colnago Gioiello Numero 1 sells for £108,000

One thing is clear, it certainly wasn’t presented like a $60,000 bike on Factor’s website - at least when our presenters filmed this video. There were no chainrings or pedals, the cranks were at completely wrong angles, plus there was a very uninspiring background - all big bugbears for Ollie Bridgewood which have cost many bikes super-nice votes in our weekly GCN Tech Show.

Read more: Latest GCN Tech Show

The image on Factor’s website has since been updated with a much sleeker-looking bike. That bike features a UCI sticker, meaning it should be commercially available, something that is backed up by the fact it’s possible to register your interest for when the bike becomes available - you’ll just need 60,000 spares dollars lying around. Despite this, it proved incredibly difficult to gain any details about it, with a call to Factor’s head office leading to a dead end. So, what is the deal with the new bike?

Channelling their inner Sherlock Holmes, Ollie and Alex Paton believe that it has something to do with the Olympics and the arms race as brands attempt to create the quickest bike on show.

Brands naturally don’t want to give their competitors an advantage by making their bike’s available, but that’s hampered by the UCI’s rules.

To learn more about this complicated arms race, watch the full video above.

For more tech features, news and pro bikes, head over to the tech section on the GCN website, linked here.