AFTER THE BOOM, THE BARGAINS

As the bike market cuts its losses from four years of instability, RRPs are slashed and deals abound. Charlie Allenby surveys the industry to find out if now is the right time to buy

- Charlie Allenby

Wiggle-CRC, Planet X, Orange Bikes, Islabikes... The last 12 months have seen some of our biggest bike brands go to the wall. Of those that have survived, many have been forced to offer unprecedented levels of discount. The closures have led to hundreds of job losses - WiggleCRC alone axed approximately 450 last month and the winding down of iconic, established manufacturers is an outcome no one would have wished for.

As an end-user, though, it's been hard not to be tempted by the discounts bargains galore, with deals as enticing as 50% off and even buy-one-get-onefree. But is now the best time to buy? To answer this question, we need to understand how this situation arose and where prices are set to go next.

The bike industry is currently facing myriad problems, most of which began in 2020. With the boom in demand for bikes and kit during the pandemic lockdowns, brands, distributors and dealers couldn't keep up. "In a very short period, a slightly overstocked industry suddenly ran outoff the back of rampant demand around the world," says Simon Irons, associate for the Bicycle Association's data and insights team. "The supply-chain lead time is long and quite rigid - it was already six to nine months, but in some cases people were quoting two to three years."

Brands, distributors and shops were forced to gaze into their crystal balls and place orders based on where they thought the market would be on the other side of these lead times, far into the future. Those who bet big-expecting the level of demand seen during the early days of the pandemic to be sustained long-term were exposing themselves to a major risk: that the market would cool down, leaving them with piles of unsold stock, which is exactly what happened.