An Excellent Rundown on Present Bike Industry Situation

[reed scott]

Actual info starts around 3:33

 

[FlatSix911]

Good information... thanks for sharing.

 

[Dallant]

Nothing really new here. Especially since who says what isn’t revealed.
The real issues not mentioned are horrible leadership response to COVID, Just-In-Time manufacturing vs old-school warehousing of bikes/parts, and just general lack of planning on the part of bike makers. My guess is that the small ebike companies are going to have a harder time recovering than the big three.

 

[reed scott]

Nothing really new here. Especially since who says what isn’t revealed.
The real issues not mentioned are horrible leadership response to COVID, Just-In-Time manufacturing vs old-school warehousing of bikes/parts, and just general lack of planning on the part of bike makers. My guess is that the small ebike companies are going to have a harder time recovering than the big three.

I didn't post this for you or Alaskan. It was for dummies like me who are just learning about all this stuff. I got a lot out of it. I find it reassuring to know the industry is cooking on all cylinders and there is hope for the future.

 

[Dallant]

I didn't post this for you or Alaskan. It was for dummies like me who are just learning about all this stuff. I got a lot out of it. I find it reassuring to know the industry is cooking on all cylinders and there is hope for the future.

Well you posted it. I’m just commenting on it. Don’t be so sensitive.
Quite frankly, I find the love that Rob gets is unwarranted. He’s just reading press releases and we don’t even know from who.
As someone who has orders out there for an ebike and a spare battery, the industry is clearly not yet cooking on all cylinders. I’ve heard from several LBS (who I trust more than Rob) that it’s really bad right now and they hope it might start getting better soon. If it were already better, I’d have my orders already.
Of course there’s “hope for the future”. There always is.
BTW, based on other friends, family, and other orders we’ve made, its also clear lots of other manufacturing companies are having a hard time.

 

[reed scott]

Well you posted it. I’m just commenting on it. Don’t be so sensitive.
Quite frankly, I find the love that Rob gets is unwarranted. He’s just reading press releases and we don’t even know from who.
As someone who has orders out there for an ebike and a spare battery, the industry is clearly not yet cooking on all cylinders. I’ve heard from several LBS (who I trust more than Rob) that it’s really bad right now and they hope it might start getting better soon. If it were already better, I’d have my orders already.
Of course there’s “hope for the future”. There always is.
BTW, based on other friends, family, and other orders we’ve made, its also clear lots of other manufacturing companies are having a hard time.

Evidently you missed the at the end of the post.

 

[Taylor57]

Almost makes you want to open a bike shop!

 

[Dallant]

Evidently you missed the at the end of the post.

Yeah, I didn’t make it to the end.

 

[Dallant]

Almost makes you want to open a bike shop!

Yeah and get a ton of orders you can’t fill for 6 months or so.

 

[Art Deco]

As @Brendon@TBSM put it awhile back, the only way to make a million from a bike shop is to start with 2 million. It's going to be a tough Christmas season for bikes, I think.

 

[Dallant]

As @Brendon@TBSM put it awhile back, the only way to make a million from a bike shop is to start with 2 million. It's going to be a tough Christmas season for bikes, I think.

That’s exactly why my wife’s (hopefully) getting an early Christmas present! I was warned by my
LBS that if I waited another two weeks, I might not see it till April of ‘21. Not sure he wasn’t just trying to make another sale but the point was taken!

 

[reed scott]

As @Brendon@TBSM put it awhile back, the only way to make a million from a bike shop is to start with 2 million. It's going to be a tough Christmas season for bikes, I think.

Cold weather should slacken the demand. Maybe the manufacturers can catch up. The guy in the video, reading some other guy's perspective, says the first couple months of the sudden demand increase nobody believed it was real, didn't trust that it was anything but an anomaly. Now they believe it is here to stay for a year or two. Most manufacturers can ramp up production when they have to.

 

[Dallant]

Cold weather should slacken the demand. Maybe the manufacturers can catch up. The guy in the video, reading some other guy's perspective, says the first couple months of the sudden demand increase nobody believed it was real, didn't trust that it was anything but an anomaly. Now they believe it is here to stay for a year or two. Most manufacturers can ramp up production when they have to.

It’s really hard to know how long any of the these factors will be in effect. With different parts of the country/world still being hit with COVID, it’s hard to say. JIT manufacturing is great but makes it harder/longer to fill big swings in demand.

 

[reed scott]

It’s really hard to know how long any of the these factors will be in effect. With different parts of the country/world still being hit with COVID, it’s hard to say. JIT manufacturing is great but makes it harder/longer to fill big swings in demand.

I remember when Vertical Integration was all the rage in corporate America. That passed. Just In Time manufacturing has just left mi,...billions on the table and a lesson is being learned. When you leave goodies out on the table, others can come along and snap them up.

 

[Ravi Kempaiah]

Thanks for sharing that video. Rob brings in a lot of a real MTB-setting footage and there are not many other sources like EMBN channel. So, it's a welcome addition.
The supply chain in the bike industry and to some extent the EV industry is under severe strain.

• Shimano now has 6 month lead time for OEM parts and even with factories in Asia working full-time, there is a huge backlog.
  
  
• Some factories were working at half the capacity but they are back to full capacity now. There are some logistical issues as well.
  
  
• The next year or so may not see too many clearance sales or deeply discounted prices.

 

[FlatSix911]

Thanks for sharing that video. Rob brings in a lot of a real MTB-setting footage and there are not many other sources like EMBN channel. So, it's a welcome addition.
The supply chain in the bike industry and to some extent the EV industry is under severe strain.

• Shimano now has 6 month lead time for OEM parts and even with factories in Asia working full-time, there is a huge backlog.
  
  
• Some factories were working at half the capacity but they are back to full capacity now. There are some logistical issues as well.
  
  
• The next year or so may not see too many clearance sales or deeply discounted prices.

Ravi, thanks for sharing more specific information on the backlogs in the industry.

 

[Deleted member 4210]

Nothing really new here. Especially since who says what isn’t revealed.
The real issues not mentioned are horrible leadership response to COVID, Just-In-Time manufacturing vs old-school warehousing of bikes/parts, and just general lack of planning on the part of bike makers. My guess is that the small ebike companies are going to have a harder time recovering than the big three.

Really ? Just one example brand, Aventon is pretty small compared to Trek and I've been able to get plenty of ebikes all season and they are cranking them out now no problemo. Whereas Trek told their dealers mid summer, that if you don't have any ebikes on your sales floor, you aren't getting any more until April 2021. This was verified by two different customers in the past two months who tried to buy at a local Trek store, came away empty handed but said they were happier to have found my shop and a great selection of 12 brands and over 150 ebikes in stock. A lot of which are Aventon.

 

[Deleted member 4210]

Ravi, thanks for sharing more specific information on the backlogs in the industry.

Three different suppliers have told me they anticipate 2021 to be worse than 2020 given what they are seeing now when ordering components for their ebikes for 2021 production. Competition is apparently fierce for everything from batteries, to tubes and much in between that goes on these ebikes. And with still so many new start up 'brand's' coming on the market, any available extra production capacity is nearly non-existent, especially for all those brands sharing capacity in a 3rd party factory that makes a number of brands.

This would be occurring for example for small on line brands like Ride1up, Lectric, Espin, Blix, Enzo, etc to name a few, or even some of the bigger names that sell a lot more but who also contract with third party manufacturing shared factory space, such as Magnum, Pedego, and even Rad Power. And then you have some of these ebike brands sharing space with factories making regular bikes that are being supplied to huge volume buyers like Wal-Mart, or Target who you are not going to 'muscle' out or gain production priority on, especially after they ran out of regular bikes early spring 2020, and who will fight like crazy to avoid that scenario again in 2021.

Then for major industry bike distributors who bike shops and ebike shops go to for parts, components, accessories, you name it, like a JBI or HLC (Hawley) , most items are out of stock completely, and there is in many cases still no visability on when those items will be back in stock. HLC does a good job of reporting that, and where they do show visibility a number of items like bike carriers aren't arriving until early 2021, with most parts or accessories showing no date or ETA at all.

That's what the industry is up against, and going forward none are anticipating any slow down in either regular bikes or electric assist bikes for 2021.

 

[Dallant]

Really ? Just one example brand, Aventon is pretty small compared to Trek and I've been able to get plenty of ebikes all season and they are cranking them out now no problemo. Whereas Trek told their dealers mid summer, that if you don't have any ebikes on your sales floor, you aren't getting any more until April 2021. This was verified by two different customers in the past two months who tried to buy at a local Trek store, came away empty handed but said they were happier to have found my shop and a great selection of 12 brands and over 150 ebikes in stock. A lot of which are Aventon.

That’s why it’s a guess. My point was simply that smaller companies generally have a harder time keeping up with larger companies. And certainly was not saying they will fail.
Since I don’t know where you are, it’s hard to know how your market works or even where Aventons are built. I’ve never seen a shop with 12 brands or 150 ebikes just sitting around. You and Aventon were either lucky to have ordered a large number of ebikes (and associated components) or unlucky that nobody bought Aventons In large numbers so you/they had lots of access to stock. But then I’ve never seen an Aventon or a shop that sells them.
I’m quite sure that Trek, Giant, Specialized had many more walk-in buyers (certainly in my area) snapping up anything still left on the floor. This summer I was shocked to see one whole family of 5 walk into the Trek shop (who did my Bosch update) and walk out with 5 new bikes (including 2 ebikes) that they didn’t order ahead of time.
Curious what your real order-to-delivery time is right now for Aventon bikes?

 

[Deacon Blues]

I recently visited a bike shop (about 60km from where I live) that only sells ebikes. They were in the process of unloading R&M and Moustache bikes from a large trailer and the bike store was already chalk-full of new bikes.
The owner told me he wasn't having any problem ordering new bikes from Europe.