What is the Bike Industry Doing so Wrong?

okay so we need to talk about the state of the bike industry and I'm sure you've been hearing rumors all around the internet of different Rumblings going on but I can assure you that things are way way worse than you think just in last month uk-based retailer wiggle is being put up for sale and Chain Reaction Cycles is going into Administration Rafia announced $112 million in losses and that marks 6 years in the red for them and it just keeps going with more and more bad financials out of more and more companies so what we're going to do is we're going to take a look at what is going on and what you as the consumer have the ability to do first off there's wiggle and chain reaction on November 1st of 2023 they announced job Cuts as their parent company Signa Holdings filed for insolvency in German court now it has been rumored that Mike Ashley's Frasier group who was behind Evans cycles and probike kit might be stepping in to continue the operation but it's important to note that probike kit itself folded earlier this year and for those of you if you weren't familiar with probike kit my sincere condolences because it was a phenomenal resource for buying gear they would give you amazing closeout deals on big name brands myself I even got my physique antari R3 for like $100 and it arrived to me in three days going from England to Texas it was an incredible site where you could get virtually whatever you wanted for an amazing price and so even if discount sites are struggling this hard what does it tell us about the industry as a whole and you would think with more and more Commerce being conducted solely online these days that these sites would be thriving and yet they seem to be closing left and right and this just won't affect the retailers themselves this is going to be affecting things that are down the chain and down the pipeline from these companies including distribution and shipping logistic companies things like that that can be affected so clearly with more and more shops closing up this could just be the beginning of something far far worse to come but that does lead us into our next topic to talk about which is going to be the local bike shop local shops are having a harder time than ever and there are a lot of thoughts of what could be contributing to this according to an article in outside magazine by Robbie Carver there has been an over 42% decline in patronage at local bike shops since their alltime high back in 2001 why was that all-time high caused in 2001 well obviously it's the man himself Lance Armstrong and I don't really want to go too far into this because that could be a whole video on itself Armstrong's influence over the cycling industry at the time and things like that but that is the reason why in 2001 bike stops were doing so well was he was driving people to get into the sport and join in so obviously yeah they would have their high peak back then but that decline of 42% over these years is sharp the world has changed there's a lot more going on online like I was saying earlier and especially with direct to Consumer bike brands like Ribble Canyon all the other ones that I've mentioned on here before which I do love the landscape has changed there was a pretty recent video on GC performance I'll link to their Channel down here where it was talking about a 2024 Mone being a better value bike than a canyon aerro despite the fact that the canyon Air Road is cheaper comes with a better group set and better wheels so overall it seems like it would be the better value and I even commented this on the video to which GC performance replied to me but it has backup from a local shop and free repairs and you know what they're 100% right they got me on that one they are absolutely right right there that trumps the value of the canyon because having that support system behind you when something goes wrong especially if you're new into the sport is immeasurable so I got to give it to him GC performance yeah you called it that is a great and true statement the local bike shop is more important than ever but that's becoming harder and harder for them to justify especially when the bike prices on Direct consumer keep dropping for better bikes now they're even facing competition from the big Brands opening up their own shops my shop that I used to ride for was called bicycles Inc and it had been in the Dallas Fort Worth area since the 1970s I raised for team bicycles Inc all through high school and loved it it was a great experience erience and intro into the world of cycling racing bikey was bought out by Tre and all four of their locations overnight were essentially turned into Trek Factory Stores and I don't know what your Trek Factory Stores may look like but the ones that they took over for all the bikes Inc in my area they turned into these clinical corporate places that only serve the function to sell you something and yes I understand under capitalism that is what everyone is trying to do to sell you something but with with local mom and pop shops there's at least the feeling that they want to do this to help you because they have a passion for cycling that you can't get anywhere else now when I first started racing back in the early mid 2000s $22,000 could get you a very very respectable bike and that's just not the case anymore with the new tarmac SLA they claim that it is cheaper than the previous model the sl7 but the thing is they don't offer a sport model anymore so there's nothing to get you into the family line the specialized tarmac for the longest time has always offered one model called the sport which is what I have myself I have a Tarmac sl3 sport the function of this model was to get people into the line of the family and that has been completely removed it's now only the highest performance and the bikes are starting at5 $6,000 instead of two and so now with the prices in increasing more and more it's very easily to get the exact same bike as one of the pros for the price of a used car now and people I feel like forget the only reason that we're able to buy the same bikes as Remco or mathau or any of the other major Pros is because the UCI stipulates that any bike that is ridden by a pro must be offered to sale to the public but that doesn't mean we have to buy it so we as the consumer need to take an actual look at what our needs are not our wants what our needs are to participate in the sport and obviously the bicycle industry has always had a heart on for the latest and greatest technology and what can make you faster than fast but it kind of feels like we're Dr Frankenstein and we've lost control of our own creation and you can even see this in your own local shops that are stocked full of the best of the best but they don't have the best for or the rest and to be clear I don't think that this is the local Shop's fault I think it is the brands that they are carrying wanting to push out this is what you need to sell make people want this and obviously yeah they're going to want to put that out there because it cost $122,000 for every one of them and for the majority of us that is just not a good financial decision it's just not and also full disclosure am I saying that something like a Tarmac SLA or a canyon aoad SLR or any of these other very expensive high-end bikes are worthless no they do serve a purpose they do they serve a purpose for the pro riders I don't think that anyone out here just wanting to enjoy riding a bicycle needs to buy one of these I mean to equate it another way there's a reason I drive a Hyundai Sada and not a Porsche 911 okay well there's two reasons probably that I can't can't afford the Porsche 911 but the comparison still stands because I can't afford a Tarmac sl8 just because it is the best and the latest greatest Tech does not mean that it suits mine or your needs but the next thing I want to talk about here is the word bespoke and how it is just thrown around in the cycling industry nonstop all the time now now according to the Oxford dictionary bespoke simply means made for a specific use or a specific person but the bike industry itself seems to have taken this word put it on their family crest and made it a synonym for good I will say Rafia is probably the most famous example of this this bespoke brand sells very high-end kits and accessories and to their credit they are very very good and high quality but I am not paying $190 for a jersey I'm simply not that's just insane kits have have obviously always been expensive any of us who have been in this fort long enough know that but this has gotten out of control and it seems like almost like with alcohol Brands cycling clothing brands are now trying to sell you more of a lifestyle than the actual product itself it's more about the image that conveys from you wearing raia than the actual purpose of the Jersey it seems to also kind of go hand inand with another long time tradition in the cycling community of gatekeeping the sport from newcomers which if you're gatekeeping you need to stop right now we should be welcoming more and more people into this sport not scoffing at someone cuz they're still riding on an aluminum frame bike with a Mechanical group set and maybe wearing an affordable kit I got into cycling because I loved the freedom that I felt on a bike I didn't get into it to join a country club and it seems pretty clear to me that I'm actually not in the minority here on this opinion Neo Pro cycling for those of you who are not aware of this company they sell kits at an actual affordable good price are they cheap quote unquote not necessarily are they cheaper than every other brand on the market for just as good of quality yes they are and right here in their mission statement they write specifically we didn't go hunting for cycling cycling found us now it is a huge part of our daily lives and drives our purpose we have ridden and raced the road and track cycling for 15 years in counting and we want to help others to love it as much as we do we're on a mission and the kits truly look amazing great designs great prices and they have a customizer you can make the Jersey whatever you want I'm actually working on do Cycle Works kits right now with neopro not really with them but I'm just using their customizer but hey neopro if you want to you know sponsor a small little YouTube channel trying to be good then yeah I mean that's what I'm doing I'm going through neopro for these new kits because they're affordable and they look great they seem to be having great financials year after year in an industry where everyone else is struggling founder Lizzie West and her husband Nick model all of the kits themselves so they don't have to pay for expensive photo shoots pay for the models pay for all this extra stuff they just do it inhouse and that's a cost-saving measure that they get to them pass on to you so it's not like this is some big mystery that no one else has the key to and I want to say it so everyone is clear I think Lizzy and Nick are absolute Heroes of the cycling industry right now but so what do all of these things add up for us I think it all culminates to one thing the bike industry has an identity crisis it sees itself as this absolute Pinnacle of performance and that it's trying to close the gap between Pro and amateur but in doing so it's actually making that Gap much much bigger and the cost of Entry much much higher and therefore much much more prohibitive to the everyday person who wants to participate I'm not even saying you need to dumb down topend high-spec model bikes so that everybody else can afford them what I'm saying is you still need to give us an option for those of us who can't afford that bike that is still a good bike and not a piece of crap the industry as a whole needs to take a look at itself and really ask the question who is this for there is actual numbers to back up that participation in local races has been dropping over the last couple years and that's because when someone rolls up and you are on an aluminum bike with maybe tagar on it and they're coming up next to you with a brand new s works that's fully dur aced out it kind of is a little bit humiliating and it shouldn't be I think that's really stupid that it it is made to feel like people are less than because they just don't have the latest greatest bike and that's something that's been going on since I was in high school back in like 2005 this is has been going on and it's been going on longer than that it's been going on for the eternity of the Pro Sport of cycling the industry itself right now is on the edge of a cliff and it is very very close to falling into it and if it's not careful it will go in and it will be nearly impossible to recover do we need the exact same bike that Mark Cavendish will be using to Sprint to a hopeful world record setting tour to France stage win do we need a bespoke kit that looks like it was designed by a mcweeny writer or do we just need a good bike and a decent kit and the open road my closing thoughts and what I want to leave you with is I think that the local shop is more important than it has ever been and I think we all should make it a concerted effort to shop there as often and frequently as possible now obviously I'm not saying you have to go out and buy a new bike from the shop every 2 weeks but go out there get your your bottles get your gels get your cleats get all the little things there that make you want to ride your bike and Shop local make friends at the store talk to the mechanics get that Community behind you where it should be again because I feel like we have lost so much of that in this modern world but again these are just my thoughts these are my observations of the cycling industry and um they also might be a little tainted because I I am still sick and uh on quite a lot of DayQuil right now so I don't know maybe everything's just going a little loopy in there so thank you so much for watching thank you for sticking it through with me um I'm about to pop some more nightquil and go off into spaceand or something like And subscribe if you haven't already you'll enter yourself into some fun contests and you're joining just the coolest cycling team on the internet team do Cycle Works and stay tuned for announcements on those kits they will be a available very very soon take care be safe love you all keep it going in the comments I love talking to you it really does make my day getting comments from you so leave comments if you would like to and let's talk about it because this is a subject that is going to affect all of us [Music] bye-bye I mean if DayQuil and Kleenex want to sponsor for me too that'd be great

Channel: Dobbs Cycle Works

Views: 212,207

Keywords: cycling, pro cycling, road bike, bicycle, shop local

Id: Bmsa6dLqg8E

Length: 15min 41sec (941 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 06 2023