How Zone Prices Are Worked Out on brandmybicycle
A down tube costs more than a crank arm, and nobody decided that by hand. Every zone price on brandmybicycle comes from the zone's print area, its visibility and the bike's goal. This post explains the arithmetic and what it means when you pick.
Most sponsorship prices are a number someone chose. On brandmybicycle, no zone price is typed anywhere. Each one is derived from three things: the zone’s print area, how visible the zone is and the bike’s goal. This post explains the arithmetic, because knowing it changes how you pick a zone.
The goal
Each bike’s goal is its own list price as published by Scott in Germany, converted to dollars. The road bike’s goal is the price of a Scott Foil RC Ultimate; the gravel bike’s is the price of a Scott Addict Gravel RC. There is no second figure and no markup. The goal is the number the zone prices have to add up to.
Print area
Every zone has a print area in square centimetres: the amount of vinyl that actually goes on that surface. An upper down tube is a large, flat-ish surface; a stem is small. The area is measured per bike, so the gravel bike’s wider rims carry more area than the road bike’s deeper but narrower ones.
Visibility
Every zone also has a visibility factor, a multiplier for how much of the road sees it. The down tube faces the side of the road the bike passes and carries the highest factor. Rims spin and are seen from the side by everyone, so they are high too. The top tube and head tube face forward and sit in the middle. Stays sit lower and partly behind the rider’s legs. The bar, stem, saddle, seatpost, crank and bottle are seen mostly by the rider and carry the lowest factor. On the gravel bike the chain stay and fork cargo mount carry slightly different factors from the road bike, because the longer stay and the mount are more exposed.
Weight and share
A zone’s weight is its print area multiplied by its visibility factor. Add the weights of every zone on a bike, and each zone’s share of the total weight is its share of the goal. That share, in dollars, is the price.
Two consequences follow. A zone with a large area but low visibility, such as the saddle, can cost less than a smaller but more visible one. And a bike’s zones always add up to its goal, so when every zone is sold the goal is filled, by construction.
Rounding to whole dollars
Shares rarely come out as whole numbers. Every price is rounded to a whole dollar using the largest-remainder method: each price is rounded down, then the dollars that were lost in rounding are given back one at a time to the zones with the largest remainders, until the total equals the goal exactly. No zone is ever rounded below what rounding down gives it, and the sum never misses the goal.
What this means when you pick
Because the prices are derived, they tell you something true about the surface. A high price means a lot of vinyl in a place a lot of people see. A low price means a small surface or one the rider sees more than the road does. Neither is a bargain or a premium; they are what the surface is. Our post on choosing a zone turns this into practical advice.
It also means the same zone name is a different price on the road bike and the gravel bike, because the two bikes have different goals, different areas and slightly different factors.
A worked illustration
Take a bike with a goal and three zones, with weights of 50, 30 and 20 after multiplying area by visibility. Their shares are half, three tenths and one fifth of the goal. If the goal divided cleanly, those would be the prices. If it did not, each price is rounded down to a whole dollar, the handful of dollars lost in rounding is counted, and those dollars are added one each to the zones whose rounded-off fractions were largest, until the total equals the goal exactly. The real bikes have 21 and 24 zones rather than three, but the method is identical and the result has the same two properties: whole dollars, exact total.
Why the method is public
The prices could have been chosen by hand and nobody would have known. They are derived instead so that a sponsor can check them. The zone list, the areas and the visibility factors are the same ones the site uses to draw the bike and to build the board, so there is one description of each bike and the price is a property of it rather than a number beside it. If the method or the goal ever changed, every price on the page would change with it, visibly, at once.
Checking a price yourself
Every open zone shows its price on the bike page beside its name. If you want to check one, the zone’s share beside each paid row on the board is the same fraction the price was derived from, and the shares on a full board add up to the whole. There is no hidden table to compare against; the page is the table.
What does not change the price
Your logo, your name, when you claim and how many zones are already taken do not change a zone’s price. The only thing that would is the goal, and the goal is the bike’s list price. The number you see on the zone before you pay is the number you pay, and it is the number the board shows beside your name afterwards.
Questions
Who sets the zone prices?
Nobody, by hand. Each price is derived from the zone's print area, its visibility factor and the bike's goal. If the goal changed, every price would change with it.
Why does a rim cost more than a stem?
Larger print area and a higher visibility factor. A spinning rim is seen from the side by everyone the bike passes; a stem is seen mostly by the rider.
Are prices whole dollars?
Yes. Rounding is done so every price is a whole number of dollars and the prices on a bike add up to exactly its goal.
Is the same zone the same price on both bikes?
No. Each bike has its own goal and its own zone list, so the same zone name is priced separately on each.
Can a price change after I claim?
Your zone is yours at the price you paid. Prices on open zones only move if the goal moves, and the goal is the bike's list price.