On 05/11/2023 09:50 am, Spike wrote:
>
> =====
> TL;DR
>
> Wiggle Chain Reaction Cycles - In administration
>
> Islabikes - ceased manufacture
>
> Three major UK distributors - gone bust
>
> Signa Sports United - announced redundancies
>
> Bianchi - announced redundancies
>
> Bicycle sales - dipped
>
> UK bike shops - record stocks
>
> Active travel - “disappointingly slow progress”
>
> =====
>
>
> Brexit, lack of cash, politics: has the UK cycling revolution run out of
> road?
>
> Bike sales boomed during the pandemic, but now cycle shops are going bust,
> sales of ebikes are sluggish and there’s a downturn in ‘active travel’
>
> James Tapper
> Sat 4 Nov 2023 17.00 GMT
>
> When Alice Clews-Smith and her partner, Kitty, moved to London, they didn’t
> see many options for pursuing their shared passion for cycling.
>
> “I think it’s fair to say that the industry and the cycling scene were very
> male dominated,” she said. “There was a lack of space for women,
> trans-femme, non-binary people. We wanted a space where these people could
> feel welcomed and included. And because not everything is about going fast
> in Lycra.”
>
> So was born the Steezy Collective, which brings together cyclists across
> the UK. Not that going fast is off the table. The collective noticed that
> there were no women in the Fastest Known Times list for the Lakeland 200
> route – 200km of mountain bike trails through the Lake District – so they
> set about correcting that, and now the list includes nine women riders,
> with their efforts captured on film.
>
> The existence of the Steezy Collective and others such as Sisters in the
> Wild, the Lakes Gravel Gang, the New Forest Off Road Club and 6am Cycling
> is part of a new wave of enthusiasts fuelled by the lockdown bicycle boom.
> Riders are now much more diverse than the cliched and not entirely accurate
> stereotype of middle-aged men in Lycra.
>
> With miles of cycle paths opening up in cities across the UK, people
> reacted during the pandemic lockdowns by buying bikes in record numbers,
> with latecomers facing months-long waits. By March 2021, cycle traffic in
> England was 64% higher than in December 2013.
>
> Now that has all changed. Last week, Wiggle Chain Reaction Cycles, one of
> the UK’s largest online cycle retailers, went into administration while
> Islabikes, which transformed the design of children’s bikes to make them
> lighter and easier to handle, said that it would stop manufacturing. The
> announcements came after three major UK distributors went bust, along with
> German company Signa Sports United, and the Italian firm Bianchi announced
> redundancies, Cycling Weekly reported.
>
> The whole industry generates about £7.5bn of added value to the UK economy
> and employs about 64,000 people
> Phillip Darnton, Bicycle Association
>
> So what went wrong?
>
> “We could see it before anyone else,” said Martin Shepherd at Reynolds
> Technology in Birmingham, which for the past 125 years has made steel tubes
> used to create bicycle frames.
>
> “During the pandemic, you couldn’t ship bikes fast enough,” he said.
> “Everybody’s lead time for orders [mostly to Taiwanese factories] started
> to go up nine months in advance, 12 months in advance.
>
> “Now we’ve come out of the other side of it, there’s just vast amounts of
> inventory because all those people who were having to order 500 bikes 18
> months in advance were suddenly swamped with stock.”
>
> Customers, on the other hand, had been hit hard in their bank accounts.
> Sales have dipped, leaving companies with stock that’s proving hard to
> shift – something analyst Velco described as an economic “whiplash effect”,
> where small changes are magnified down the supply chain. Some bikes can now
> be bought at steep discounts since 2024 models will be arriving in a matter
> of weeks.
>
> Shepherd said high interest rates, as well as post-Brexit trade barriers,
> were also playing their part. UK firms have specialised in mid- and
> high-end bikes, and sales to Europe had been substantial, but they have
> been hit by customs delays and extra charges. Now is an excellent time to
> buy a bike, but those bargains come with a price tag for the sector. If the
> market is flooded with more cheap stock, it could drive more firms out of
> business.
>
> UK bikes shops have record stocks just at the point when potential
> customers are facing a cost of living crunch. Photograph: David
> Pearson/Alamy
> “In the long term, it could result in less choice for consumers because the
> more high street shops that shut, the less people there are to fix a
> bicycle or advise them,” said Jonathan Harrison, director of the
> Association of Cycle Traders, which represents retailers and repairers.
>
> There have already been “quite a lot” of closures, he said, and there are
> now about 2,700 bike shops in the UK and another 1,100 workshops, hire
> centres and bike cafes.
>
> “The likes of Wiggle closing will have impacts on other businesses, too,
> because a lot of distributors have been over-reliant on them as a sales
> channel,” Harrison said. “So we will see further repercussions happen,
> particularly in the supply chain. But I think the market will bounce back.
> We still think there is room for growth in the number of people cycling.”
>
> There is another headwind for cyclists blowing from Westminster. Inspired
> by a narrow victory in the Uxbridge byelection in July, Rishi Sunak
> declared the end of an alleged “war on drivers”.
>
> Whether that amounts, as some fear, to a declaration of a new war on
> pedestrians and cyclists remains to be seen – the prime minister’s plan for
> drivers includes a clampdown on 20mph speed limits, bus lanes and
> low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), having slashed funds for cycle lanes and
> pavements in March.
>
> There used to be cross-party consensus on active travel, but there’s been a
> substantial change over the last 18 months against anything perceived to be
> green. Duncan Dollimore, Cycling UK
>
> Last Friday, the Commons’ public accounts committee said there had been
> “disappointingly slow” progress on increasing active travel. The Department
> for Transport has been ordered to conduct an LTN review and has canvassed
> views from local authorities, which campaigners say could lead to reopening
> rat runs closed years ago by tarmacking over cul-de-sacs and ripping out
> bollards and other so-called modal filters.
>
> “During Covid we saw a massive increase in levels of cycling,” said Duncan
> Dollimore, head of campaigns at Cycling UK. “Since then, the numbers have
> dropped substantially and we’ve lost all the benefits. And part of the
> reason is government policy.
>
> “There used to be a cross-party consensus on active travel, but there’s
> been a very substantial change in tone over the last 18 months. The whole
> narrative from the government has been very much against anything that’s
> perceived to be green, and it’s quite toxic.”
>
> He said that a media campaign with “a certain degree of vilification of
> people cycling has an effect on people and then puts people off. The
> narrative against cycling isn’t helping these local industries.”
>
> Phillip Darnton, the chair of the Bicycle Association, which represents
> larger manufacturers and retailers, said they have been trying to persuade
> ministers that the cycling industry presents an opportunity to boost
> economic growth.
>
> “The whole industry is surprisingly valuable,” he said. “It’s probably
> generating about £7.5bn of added value to the UK economy and, if you
> include livelihoods, employs about 64,000 people.”
>
> Islabikes, which transformed children’s bikes to make them lighter and
> easier to handle, recently said it would cease manufacturing. Photograph:
> James Sturcke/Alamy
>
> While it is often tempting to look enviously at the Netherlands and
> Denmark, which have been investing in cycling and cycle lanes since the
> 1973 oil crisis, Darnton pointed to Germany as inspiration. “In Germany
> last year they sold about 2.2m electric bikes and were disappointed they
> couldn’t satisfy the last 100,000 orders,” he said. “In the UK, we
> struggled to sell 150,000.”
>
> France has had huge growth in ebike sales, he added, because the government
> had offered some modest subsidies. “The French say it’s not about how many
> euros or pounds but the very fact that the government says: ‘This is the
> strategy – we want to urge you not to use a car for short urban trips’ and
> makes it attractive for businesses to make deliveries in the last mile by
> cargo bike.”
>
> Cargo bikes – larger, usually electric, bikes with a separate carrier – are
> one remaining bright spot, with people adopting them in growing numbers.
>
> The trend is particularly noticeable in Cambridge, where it was
> instrumental in shielding Outspoken Cycles, which sells and services bikes
> in the city, from the worst of the lockdown effects, according to the
> shop’s general manager, Robert Hampton.
>
> “We haven’t had the overstock issue for cargo bikes,” he said. “We’re now
> back to a lead time of about four weeks. It’s been steady growth: 20% more
> this year than last year, and 20% more last year than the year before. It’s
> much more of a steady increase of people looking more to move out of using
> a car for everyday journeys.”
>
> Meanwhile, there are still plenty of riders who take the sport seriously,
> whether that’s taking one of the dozens of routes through the flat
> Cambridge Fens or the hills of the Yorkshire Dales. While appetites for a
> £300 commuter bike have waned, people who want to add another £10,000 bike
> to their collection are still doing so, according to Shepherd.
>
> At 6am Cycling, there is room for both types of rider. The club was started
> by Tom Glendining and Lesley Sharpe in 2015 and really took off when they
> began their Fri-Day rides – a dawn trip through Epping Forest followed by a
> fry-up.
>
> “It just started through a group of us going out really early on a Friday
> morning,” Glendining said. “And more people started joining.

They haven't got jobs, then?
>
> “Everything’s shifted. Loads of girls getting into it now, which is
> fantastic. There’s Brothers on Bikes trying to get Muslim dudes out on
> bikes – they’ve started joining the fry-up rides as well. It’s not all
> about going fast – although we’ve got them too. There’s guys who ride with
> 6am who are incredibly strong riders and have done national time trials and
> all that. They’re all really lovely people. The main thing is you’ve got to
> be nice.”
>
> <https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/nov/04/brexit-lack-of-cash-politics-has-the-uk-cycling-revolution-run-out-of-road>

QUOTE:
Bike sales boomed during the pandemic, but now cycle shops are going
bust, sales of ebikes are sluggish and there’s a downturn in ‘active travel’
ENDQUOTE

TRANSLATION: Reality strikes again. And very welcome it is, too.