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news
Local Bike Shop in London (copyright Simon MacMichael)UK bike sales fall even further after dropping to lowest level in 20 years
In yet another sign of the challenging times for the bike industry, the Bicycle Association's latest report on the state of the UK cycle industry suggests that bike sales have slumped once again, months on from the national trade association reporting they had fallen to a 20-year low in 2022.
The news comes courtesy of the Bicycle Association's mid-year report for the first half of 2023, first reported by bikebiz, suggesting that mechanical bike sales have fallen by eight per cent and e-bike sales by 12 per cent. Furthermore, the total market value of the cycle industry has dropped by eight per cent compared with the same period last year.
Concerningly, the numbers come from a low start point, last year seeing bike sales in the UK dropping to the lowest level in two decades, 27 per cent below pre-Covid levels as the cost of living crisis gripped.
> UK bike sales fall to lowest level in 20 years
At the time the Bicycle Association warned the UK's cycling industry would suffer more "turbulent" and "challenging" times in 2023 and would need "to weather a difficult storm".
That prediction appears to have come true, with mechanical bike sales in the first six months of 2023 down a third on the same period in 2019, while the UK cycling market's value is projected to fall to £1.57 billion for 2023, compared with £1.9 billion in 2019.
E-bike sales particularly were mentioned as being disappointingly low, associate director of the Bicycle Association David Middlemiss saying the UK "continues to lag behind much of Europe".
While it was expected the e-bike market was one that could continue to grow, despite the challenging context, e-bike sales have dropped by 12 per cent, with e-mountain bikes the only category in the e-bike market that has seen sales up on the same period in 2022.
The report notes that e-bike sales have fallen further behind European sales, with consumers on the continent embracing them faster than here in the UK.
> UK's cycling market and infrastructure "being left behind" by Europe, experts warn
"This report shows that the UK e-bike market offers significant growth prospects, but continues to lag behind much of Europe," said Middlemiss.
"A core objective of the Bicycle Association is to work with the industry and government to position e-bikes as a key part of the UK's electric transport future and the drive for net zero. E-bikes form the first of three key themes at the heart of the BA's new Cycle Industry Growth Plan, now approaching the end of a hugely successful consultation period."
John Worthington, who was also an author of the latest report, last year predicted challenging times for the industry until "overall supply and demand return to a better equilibrium, and the economic environment improves".
Dan is the road.cc news editor and has spent the past four years writing stories and features, as well as (hopefully) keeping you entertained on the live blog. Having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for the Non-League Paper, Dan joined road.cc in 2020. Come the weekend you'll find him labouring up a hill, probably with a mouth full of jelly babies, or making a bonk-induced trip to a south of England petrol station... in search of more jelly babies.
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46 comments
25 euros for a pair of Shimano L05A disk brake pads. Twice the price of brake pads for a car (that last a lot longer) How did cycling become so expensive?
There's 3rd party ones available that are much cheaper.
There's 3rd party ones available that are much cheaper
Agreed- I get cheap EBC ones, or anything else cheap from a reputable supplier, at £5 or so and the braking (even with a heavy camping trailer) with cable discs is excellent. This is Flamborough Head
stop jacking up the prices and bikes will sell again, this seems like the basic economics of supply and demand.
£1000 now currently gets you an aluminium frame and shimano claris 2x8 gears, rim brakes.
The bike industry has brought this on itself with hubris. Prices have got out of control, while retail and manufacturing have expanded based on a boom that was never going to be sustainable in the long term. A contraction is necessary and inevitable, as is competitive pressure to bring prices back towards some sort of reality. None of this stops us cycling.
Well, what would you expect when you make wearing bike helmets compulsory. Oh, wait, you didn't ...... but people aren't riding in the UK despite that. Meanwhile Australia is posting average 1.7% annual growth rather than an 8% drop.
It doesn't make much sense to try to compare percentages as they're percentages of different figures.
UK cycling modal share = 2%
Australia = 1.56%
despite better weather.
You what?
So no comment on cycling infrastructure, disposable income, or market saturation, but instead you want to lecture people about helmets?
That's a rather sad crusade to lead.
Compulsory cycling helmets is an awful idea. Stop advocating it.
Anecdotally. Having cycled as main form of transport, mostly in and around London and up to 50 miles each way, often at speed while obeying rules of the road, for 50 years, I now walk up to 2 hours each way or take London's brilliant buses and trains.
Gave away first gen Tricross and steel Langster (fave bike) in summer 2020 during lockdown and after massive heart attack. 2007 SystemSix (clearance sale) wheels too narrow for today's potholes. Mezzo needs rebuilding. 2018 Roubaix Elite (bought 2nd hand) languishing and pleading for laps of Shooters Hill (where we now live). Orbea urban bike replaced Tricross is excellent but, usually, I walk or jog as locks, lights, etc are too much bother.
Lost my nerve as most drivers are better than in past but a few are much more deliberately reckless bullies. Ruts and potholes. Cars so big they fill lanes. Cycle lanes are suicide lanes (but now difficult to avoid using). So many other cyclists, ebikes, escooters ridden with absolutely no sense of road discipline are my biggest hate as so dangerous (all demographics are guilty). And they can't ride one-hand to signal or look backwards. Pedestrians with headphones oblivious to world around them.
Most people have no space to store bikes, no space for tools to maintain them, no experience with punctures etc, stretched to pay shop to fix them. I've been working on neighbours' bikes, plus showing them how to do it.
It's a bit like post war baby boom led to more schoolbuilding but now fewer children means schools closing. Those who have a bike don't need another so we have saturation. Ordinary bikes never made much profit but most new buyers want ordinary bikes. Most older people seem to think bikes should cost same as when they were children, despite pay and pensions being many times more per week than back then (this irrelevant for lives shaped from 2008).
OK... off to walk 55 minutes to daughter's house to keep an eye on building works. Not cycling, no room to store bike there, awkward to get it out, check tyres, put on lights. Family don't ride as risks outweigh benefits where they live
Try taking a quieter route.
My favourite bike was born in about 1972 or perhaps a year or two earlier. It was my 12th birthday present in 1978 bought second hand by my mother. It has had a few new bits, shifters, freewheel, crankset, saddle, wheels. It is used in Summer Autumn. My other bike is from 1980 and was bought 2 years ago I use that one in the Winter Spring. It is basically a couple of models up on my original bike so lighter but still on its original friction shifters and gear block. I will be riding my first 100 mile ride for charity on Sunday week on my older bike. To me riding my old bike is nostalgic and it still works absolutely fine, buying something new would somehow be like betraying a friend.
I was wondering how many extra people bought bikes during Covid lockdown, so creating a dip in demand that will remain because a number of second hand nearly new bikes will be sold by those that decided their flirtation with cycling has ended post Covid and a year old bike is a well priced alternative to a new bike.
The basic reason for fall in bike sales compared to Europe is the anti cycle stance taken by many local authorities and the appalling state of the roads which cyclists are forced to use because of the lack of safe cycleways.
Nail hit squarely on the head. There is precious little that the bike industry can do to grow its customer base in the face of such structural opposition. All they can do is chase N+1 buyers.
Just spent a day in a European city. There were actually more bikes/trikes than cars. They were simply everywhere, used by young, old and disabled. I've never seen so many cargo ebikes/trikes with child carriers too, it was just phenomenal.
And it was clear to see that whilst many machines were trusty old bikes, there was also plenty shiny new stuff around (especially e-bikes). Evidence of new growth in cycling industry.
No. That's just one of several reasons, see my other post
is it not the extra bikes bought in 2020? after all, once you have a bike, you don't need to buy another one in the next few years.
The article only mentions "cycling market's value" - this could mean 'we sold a million £10K bikes" or "10 million £1K" bikes. Just because the value has fallen, doesn't mean fewer bikes and components have been sold.
Personally, I think the industry is too busy chasing the high margin stuff and the lower end stuff that most people can afford and are probably still buying.
As has already been mentioned, bikes are simple, durable and have few moving parts and there have been no major innovations for most of the last 50 years that make a bike obsolete. My 40 year old steel frame is still going strong, it's got a newer square taper bottom bracket and I swapped the friction down tube shifters for Shimano brake and indexed shifters about 20 years ago and it still does everything I need on a bike and I think that's most people's experience. A bike frame can last a lifetime and there's not much else that can't be replaced.
Similar, till my 531 frame bike bent in a crash and it struggled to take a Suntour UltraSix. Bikes can last forever with a bit of maintenance, dual pivot brakes on Al rims were a massive advance, Not much profit on annual cable, brake block, chain replacements. The only markup is in the high end and servicing of high end. Business rates, heating, insurances (I've talked with old school shop owners), all make bikes a struggling field of trade
remember that when looking at a carbon fibre bike that costs as much as a motorbike.
I mean come on.. this shouldn't be surprising to anyone with at least a few braincells... brexit happened and it turns out that means a 14% increase across the board, covid came and screwed up supply lines across the world, prompting local shops to be pre-ordering bikes 18months in advance on a wish and prayer.. the cost of living rises to a point where the gov subsidised the whole country's heating bills.. the street level cost of bikes and bike parts rises by an order of magnitude.. interest rates are hiked up to levels not seen for 15 years, everyone is squeezed.. and on top of that we've got a bike industry which still focuses marketing at the very top end where prices are hiked for the sake of it, £90 for a tyre anyone, I'll take two.
Where is the news story here, this isn't news, where does the bike industry think the money is coming from to spend on new bikes? It's certainly not local councils who are doing a shite job of making the roads safer for bikes. [/rantover]
To be fair, the only margins are in high end. I'm in the £3k bike bought 2nd hand market. Even with a windfall inheritance, I wouldn't go high end as couldn't afford spares and repairs
Statistics are better than braincells. Most bikes and components are manufactured in the Far East.
Surely cycling is cheaper than public transport or running a car which if the media are to be believed these days, car ownership is some sort of human right and a sign of extreme poverty if you can't upgrade it.
Unnecessary features like disc brakes and handlebars with internal cabling, are making new bikes ridiculously expensive to buy and maintain.
The Used market for rim braked, externally cabled bikes and components is much healthier. Amazing bargains to be had...and so much more satisfying when dropping a £12k S-Works on a club ride..
Unnecessary features like disc brakes
We keep seeing this ridiculous assertion- disc brakes are not only cheap because they're now the default option, they're also better.
...better at locking the wheel into a skid on a road bike.
"Cheaper" is plain nonsense - £300 just for brifters and calipers - if you look at my blue bike below, you can easily get calipers and the 2 sets of levers for half that.
I'd be interested in going head-to-head on weight.
40 yo Campag friction levers continue to sell and to work 8, 9, 10, 11, 12s - there will never be a 40 yo brifter.
https://www.merlincycles.com/shimano-105-r7020-hydraulic-disc-sti-levers...
Why? This focus on weight is 99% marketing to drive up sales. In your railing against modern components you've literally just fallen straight into their trap.
The fastest, cheapest way to smash your PR's is to *add* 300g/£50 - worth of clip-ons. Weight is nothing. Aero of the giant lump of meat on the saddle is (almost) everything.
Not sure I follow you logic there. None of my steelies or my Ti is set up for disc brakes.
If I'm riding Reynolds steel, that hardly makes me a weight weenie! I only mention this factor as I have a vague recollection of discs being claimed as being lighter, hence the interest in a component weigh-in to settle it.
never locked a front wheel woith either sort of brake, can lock the rear with either osrt of brake. I just don't understand this, do people use their brakes in a binary manner like the clutch on a car?
"I have to have weak brakes because otherwise I might accidentally have a skid" is not a convincing argument for rim brakes to me.
I guess, on sheer braking power, it works the same way as car insurance in that a 1200cc is cheaper to insure than a 2000cc (the claims experience not supporting the standard driver "accelerate out of trouble" nonsense.)
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