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Pat Hus is the CEO of Bianchi USA and explains that companies ‘living hand to mouth with deliveries’ is ultimately why the supply dilemma accelerated so abruptly. However, we need to reach beyond our own national fishbowl to fully understand our conundrum. In short, even before the pandemic hit there had been a steady diversion of import spend away from pedal-powered bikes. Many of them shut as a result of being stuck with too many bikes, ageing and going out of season.Ĭoncurrently there had been significant diversion of investment into electric bike stock, and with this surfeit of availability a chicken-and-egg scenario ensued that saw mid-2020 e-bike sales rise by 88% over the previous year. This forced retailers into early discounting, which in turn made it harder for bike shops to maintain enough of a margin to stay profitable. In 2019 bicycle imports were at their lowest for more than a decade, down nearly a third from 3.9 million units in 2010 to 2.7 million in a saturated market. Thanks to industry lobbying, bike retailers were allowed to go about business as semi-usual under the banner of being ‘essential services’. With UK workers stuck at home during the first lockdown the Government encouraged daily – albeit limited – exercise, and the demand for bikes rose sharply. In another world perhaps the industry could have absorbed such disruption but, as Lazarus alludes to, the problem wasn’t just on the supply side. Is this just a flash in the pan or should they be building more factories and adding production lines?’ ‘Every major producer and retailer – of which Decathlon is one of the biggest – is ordering as much stock as it can lay its hands on, which in turn puts more stress on the supply chain. We are catching up from months of zero to low and reduced manufacturing capacity across the industry. ‘This is leading to difficulties in manufacturing the required quantities, and yet demand for bikes is up four-fold. ‘The key problem is the sheer short supply of raw material a long way down the food chain,’ says Decathlon’s UK commercial leader in cycling, Peter Lazarus. Was this the crash many people had forecast, the Covid lag in manufacturing coming to bear? Or was there more to it than just a disruption to the supply chain in early 2020? Most importantly of all, when would it all end? Wait times for bikes had risen to months, and those three dreaded words ‘out of stock’ were being heard more and more at retailers across the country. Chris Boardman was even building bikes at his local shop in the Wirral to keep up with demand.įast-forward to autumn, however, and things were looking a little less rosy. Sales, which had been plateauing for a number of years, went through the roof as demand hit an all-time high.
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Yet for a while the cheap inner tubes still flowed, while here in the UK bike retailers couldn’t believe their luck. In the biggest bike-producing nation on the planet, production had ground to a halt overnight. But then Covid happened.įactory whistles blew to usher in the Chinese New Year holidays, then the country’s government stepped in and ordered employers not to reopen in a bid to contain the viral spread. Internet leviathans drove prices low and kept stocks high tyres cost peanuts and the new helmet you bought online showed up in 24 hours with a little pack of Haribo. Words: Mark Sutton Lead image: Tapestry Illustrations: Neil Stevensįor years we never knew how good we had it.
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What caused this perfect storm, and is the worst yet to come? Last year saw bike supply dwindle just as demand began to skyrocket.