This is an interesting article on road.cc about the issues around the #cycling industry and nosediving profits.
It mentions "In very basic terms, pandemic = bike boom, bike boom = brands purchasing more stock to meet demand, pandemic ends and demand drops = less buyers for said stock, less buyers = stock sitting on shelves unsold. In short, not good."
But I would add this would not be an issue if... 1/2
link: https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-live-blog-15-may-2024-308373
...if we went back to the old days where bicycle products did not have a shelf life, with new generations of equipment being released annually. You don't need a 2024 groupset if you can still change gears like it's 1999. The industry got itself into a fast fashion mindset rather than actual product improvements or repairing things only when broken.
@ronanmcd Maybe they got into that mindset from the technology industry, but they can't add a game-changing new feature every year. There are only a few thousands of people making enough money from cycling to justify annual turnover of equipment. It's not like you and I using a computer to earn a living.
14 sprockets on the cassette! 14! Now you can... Uhhh.
@kevinteljeur Yeah, there's definitely an element of them looking with envy at other industries' unrestrained growth. And now they stand to lose their core markets as the golfers return to their clubs, and the pandemic boomers return to sitting in cars shouting at the world.
@ronanmcd Not that I think the car industry is a shining light but you wouldn't expect a new model of car every two years and think that everyone's rushing out to buy one. It's a lot of money and you don't need to.
Maybe Canyon or Trek should release a fat bike made of stainless steel with the gears levers on the forks and you can't get mud on it or cycle over rocks.
@ronanmcd@kevinteljeur Also, boom being amplified to businesses by limited availablity -> same customers asking multiple places for a bike. Who then order stuff reflecting all these queries.
@ronanmcd Something to bear in mind is that they have multiple tiers of bike in various categories, separated by maybe a couple of hundred euro, each with multiple sizes. If you change this every year... Yeah, that's a hell of a trap to fall into. And some of these will sell like hot cakes, and some won't. I don't think they're making bikes on demand.
Look at Ribble (which is boutique, admittedly). They'll only build it if they've sold it. It's not scalable, but it's strategy with safety.
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