Bowman Cycles has liquidated following continued struggles with supply chain issues during the Covid pandemic.
BB Velo Limted, the trading name of Bowman Cycles, has appointed a voluntary liquidator, as per filings made at Companies House spotted by Cyclingindustrynews.
The Bowman Cycles website is no longer accessible and displays homepage “currently unavailable”.
In November, Bowman founder and managing director Neil Webb told road.cc of his brand’s supply chain woes, but stressed he was trying to “work out how to refinance” the business.
“All that has made life very difficult this year and there isn’t an end in sight to the manufacturing issues coming out of Asia [where many of their components are produced].
“For instance, we placed an order with Shimano in December last year that will only start arriving in August 2022. Usually, we’d have bought some stock from Madison [Shimano’s UK distributor] to see us through, but there’s absolutely nothing around.”
Bowman launched a new frame just before the pandemic arrived, further complicating the manufacturer’s predicament.
“We’d put in orders for 12-1400 frames over the course of 2020 but didn’t see the first of those arrive until May this year. There are still 600 frames from that order which haven’t been shipped.
“Then you throw in all the extra shipping costs, extra costs of materials. Everything is more expensive, delayed, or simply doesn’t turn up. It’s just an absolute clusterf**k for want of a better word, to run a manufacturing business at the moment, the delays go all the way up the supply chain.”
Webb added that suppliers and distributors appeared to be prioritising their larger clients, meaning “the big players are taking all the space”.
“All the smaller businesses like us that I know are experiencing this same problem in some way, shape or form and these constant delays have taken huge amounts of man power to manage.”
In response to our readers’ claims of unfulfilled orders, incorrect builds and a lack of communication, Webb apologised and was keen to point out any existing orders customers have with the company should be fulfilled.
“I’m aware we haven’t been able to get in touch with people for five or six weeks, which I understand is really sh*t,” he continued.
“In hindsight we should maybe have told people ‘yes, we’ve got your email but we can’t tell you an answer’, but we thought the problems we’re experiencing would have been sorted out quicker than they have been.”
At the time, Webb set Bowman Cycles a 10 to 14 day deadline to restructure or find more assistance, something which now seems not to have materialised.
53 thoughts on “Bowman Cycles liquidates after “absolute clusterf**k” of supply chain issues”
Yet another Brexit benefit.
Yet another Brexit benefit.
Not a Brexit supporter but
Not a Brexit supporter but how is Brexit anything to do with it?
Global supply chain has been disrupted for quite a while. Shipping costs are up and the ever given did cause a few problems.
Lack of freedom of movement,
Lack of freedom of movement, mountains of more paperwork and shocking customs delays. Just in time engineering has been massively affected.
JIT is a global problem. The
JIT is a global problem. The cycle industry would have been pretty much experiencing the same issues even if in Europe.
When was the last time you bought any cycle stuff?
Are Ribble having issues due to brexit or due to the far east ?
You realise that shipping is a big problem in terms of slots and cost.
the costs of shipping a
the costs of shipping a container from China to Europe in the past year have tripled. National lockdowns, shortages of workers and social distancing have created a massive slowdown in manufacturing of goods and their distribution chain, and yeah as the article says the bigger companies are jumping the queue ahead of the smaller ones.
Costs of a container are
Costs of a container are increased from 3000$ to 22,000$ in 18 months. Availability of the physical containers to ship products is poor. Covid directly reducing factory operational times are difficult. Brexit adding importation duties and reducing attractiveness of GB as a place to due business all are factors in this and other companies demise. Any company going to the wall is full of heartache for the workforce and customers. Sad.
I’d like to think a decent
I’d like to think a decent mathematician/engineer could model the whole shipping container network (and global supply chain) as a network of nodes and links with all the dependencies and feedback effects. I get the sense that it evolved during a time of relatively gradual change in an upwards direction, and the shock of a few step changes and momentary reversal of direction has caused the whole feedback loop to jam up horribly – to put it in technical terms.
You dont need to be good at
You dont need to be good at maths. We in GB make very little products , so import MOST products. They have to be shipped here in containers. at 3000$ shipping fee they were shipped back to Asia. Now at a return cost of 22,000$ they are not returned and sit in ‘container mountains’. 1500$ worth of steel to make a new one in China.
F**k-all to do with Brexit or
F**k-all to do with Brexit or have you been living on the moon for the last 22 months?
Brexit has added a layer onto
Brexit has added a layer onto supply problems on top of Covid.
Plenty of components are available from European suppliers but are too expensive to order now because of import costs.
I can’t as my freedom of
I can’t as my freedom of movement has been destroyed.
How often did you pop to
How often did you pop to Germany to buy a new cycle part?
When was the last time you bought any cycle parts ?
swldxer wrote:
Perhaps they’d been winging it for a while and it was time to show them the DOOR!
I guess no one is
I guess no one is particularly surprised by this? I hope every customer recovers their money.
Secret_squirrel wrote:
Unless they paid by credit card it’s unlikely.
Yep – we said Brexit was
Yep – we said Brexit was going to be an absoulte cluster f**k – and the people said ‘yes please, that what we want’.
Hope the customers get their bikes or money back – and I hope the staff at Bowman are OK too.
Brexit is causing problems in
Brexit is causing problems in Shimano’s East Asian Factories now?
Brexit has caused the cost of shipping from East Asia to quadruple?
Rich_cb wrote:
Brexit has caused the cost of shipping from East Asia to quadruple?— Rich_cb
No the the first. Entirely possible to the second.
Shipping costs have rocketed
Shipping costs have rocketed globally.
How has Brexit caused that?
As has been posted earlier :
As has been posted earlier :
“Costs of a container are increased from 3000$ to 22,000$ in 18 months. Availability of the physical containers to ship products is poor.”
In what way can that be linked to brexit ?
Errrm. Surely the cost of
Errrm. Surely the cost of shipments getting in/out of customs is part of the cost of shipping. Inflated costs for lorry driver wages. Thats before we even start with opportunity costs of customs clearance delays etc…
Secret_squirrel wrote:
It’s not the cost of customs clearance proceedures, which doesn’t vary much, but a shortage of shipping containers in the far East. So as stated above, the cost of a container has gone up from $5000 to $22000, so a small business cannot afford to absorb this cost. A lot of small firms who import stuff from the far East have stopped trading, because their profits have vanished
The cost of the container far
The cost of the container far outweighs the in/out of customs.
Driver costs were mainly as a result of covid where new drivers were not able to be approved and existing drivers left for other industries.
It’s far too easy just to blame it all on brexit.
I very specifically wasn’t
I very specifically wasn’t blaming it all on Brexit. However this article says its a contributing factor. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/57810729
What about Brexit?
There are HGV driver shortages across Europe, but in the UK Brexit has made things worse.
To be fair the online searches for this topic seem to split along party lines but given how much of Brexit was based on lies and on the Tories current track record I’m going to assume the other side is generally more accurate.
The article names Covid not
The article names Covid not Brexit as the cause of the supply chain issues? I guess only Bowman’s owner knows the full story.
its not either or – brexit
its not either or – brexit has compounded the problems casued by the pandemic, one or other on their own might have been manageable – the pandemic being the more gloablly disruptive – but both together are too much. only once the pandemic is over will we clearly see how much long term damage brexit is doing. We’ll see far fewer small businesses decide they can set up here without free access to the biggest market in the world (the EU)
So this probably means,
So this probably means, outstanding orders, even of “stocked” parts will not be fulfilled any more?
Considering that as a fact, does anybody know of a third party source for the Palace-R rd-hanger?
I dont need one at the moment, but i would like to keep a spare.
Try BETD components. They
Try BETD components. They specialise hangers. If they haven’t got it they can copy your one.
Why we have ended up with an industry that creates literally thousands of hanger variants I don’t know. Surely the design needs could be resolved down to a dozen or so for new bikes?
Being a bit selfish, I was
Being a bit selfish, I was going to buy a Palace 3 this year. The only one that met all my requirements. Does anyone know of another aluminium, light weight & racy road bike with a threaded BB and preferably rim breakers?
I hope someone puts some money in and buys Bowman as a going concern.
How racey? How much do you
How racey? How much do you like rim brakes? How fixed are you on Alu?
There’s a lot of choice of entry level road bikes with Alu frames and rim brakes, but if you want something a bit lighter and more aggressive for racing then the majority of the market becomes disc brake and/or carbon frames.
Condor Italia RC might fit the bill?
I’m ok with disks but I want
I’m ok with disks but I want alu because of lower environmental impact than carbon (though I would have to have carbon forks). The industry is riding the wave of COP26 but needs to look at how much landfill carbon it’s creating.
Cannondale CAAD13 BMC Teammachine ALR or Trek Emonda ALR – all light and racy enough but all have pressfit BBs
Kinesis Aithein?
Kinesis Aithein?
Interesting, thanks for the
Interesting, thanks for the tip
Hope you have got some bling
Hope you have got some bling to hang off your frame? Shimano parts are like hens teath at the moment, Thats a global pandemic, and the only shops that have stock that I can see via google are German, for example bike24 and the like. They will not ship to the uk only Northen Ireland, thats Brexit, double the pain and trouble for us in the UK! It as I can see is that the big brands are hovering up all the stock to hang off there new 2022 bikes and have left nothing for any one else to puchase. The intresing side note is that a brand like Gaint has been for a while now making more and more in house stuff to put on there bikes, it started with bars seatpost ect and then wheels and behond, in MTB they have there own fork the Crest. This may not just be a cost thing it may also enable them to control what they have and bulid in hard times. All this is were Bowman and many others smaller players are losing out and I think we the consumer lose also as we are ever forced down a ever narrower road of choice!
60kg lean keen climbing
Giant arent a great example – in fact the’re nearly completely opposite. They own half the factories in Tiawan producing OEM stuff. Half the finishing kits on half the other brands come from them.
As is the way of the world,
As is the way of the world, success breeds success. ‘Giant is the only bicycle company that covers the full value chain from R&D through manufacturing to marketing and branding,’ says Li. ‘Despite our size, and because everything can be done in-house, we can get market information quickly and respond quickly.’
‘I feel that raw material suppliers are eager to work with Giant,’ says Klemm. ‘Our reputation definitely gets us in the door if it’s a new partnership and allows us to work collaboratively. Most of the time we have the capacity to experiment in-house and will then approach a supplier with a concept – for items that we cannot simply produce ourselves, that is.’
These wide-reaching internal capabilities have only become more valuable in recent times. Klemm says they have allowed the company to adapt quickly and work around the complications caused by the Covid-19 pandemic with minimum disruption. In some cases the enforced change has even been to the brand’s benefit.
Taken from link posted? I may have not have used the right words as My dslexic brain thows a cuve ball sometimes but this may be a good reason for using Gaint as My example. So sad to see that a company such as bowman go, The palace 3 was a good if not special bike and I hope its spirit will live on and we will see more of these type of bikes and the poeple who make them in the near future.
Get a Cervelo Soloist S1 in
Get a Cervelo Soloist S1 in alu if you can find one, first generation aero, as light, probably fast, screw in BB shell, internal cables, and looks a pearler.
And if you come across a 61cm
And if you come across a 61cm version in black and silver with a dent in the cross tube and a nice Italian groupset and Zipp 404s….it’s mine. Nicked from the back of my car by a couple of IKEA catalogue distributors…Annoying as it came from the CSC HQ in the Alps.
The BMC Teammachine ALR01 has
The BMC Teammachine ALR01 has threaded bottom bracket which was a criteria for me as well when looking for an alumininum frame bike.
Only here to see how many
Only here to see how many people blame the global supply chain collapse on Brexit.
You were very late to that
You were very late to that particular party… 😉
srchar wrote:
Yar me too.. hoping there’s still the legs in here to blame it on Team Ineos too.. I’m pretty sure the demon Jim Ratcliffe had a hand in Bowmans demise.
I suspect that this has more
I suspect that this has more to do with the lack of resilience / capital and Bowman’s business model rather than anything else: essentially they seem to ‘design’, import and assemble ALL their parts and when the availability of those parts declined or increased in price – due, for the most part to increased shipping costs – they had no room to manouvre.
Add to this no economies of scale in a very crowded and competitive market place and there you have it…
Bugger, I love my Palace R,
Bugger, I love my Palace R, the Green Bomber as it’s affectionately known, and was looking forward to updating it to the Palace 3C in sherbert yellow.
I hope Mr Webb’s expertise will not be lost to the cycling world. and I wish him well.
The documents on file at
The documents on file at Companies House says that the liquidators were appointed by way of a creditors’ voluntary liquidation (even though the members of the company have resolved to liquidate it).
So, their creditors have said they’ve run out of time and need them to liquidate the company and its assets so that they get paid.
I’m pretty sure that anyone who paid up front for a new bike will be way down the order of priority for repayment (after HMRC, the liquidators, any secured debts (loans, mortgages) and any suppliers).
EDITED:
Their statement of affairs lists assets valued at c.£12K available to pay creditors; and lists the main creditors as totalling c.£167K, being £38K to HMRC, £13K to the employees, £26K to Mr Webb himself, £15K to a Mr Rice, £3.2K to Paypal, £37K to Barclays Partner Finance, £4K to EV Cargo Global Forwarding, and then £4K to Glory Wheel Enterprise Co in Taiwan and £13.5K to Tianjin Kelin Bicycle Co in China).
brooksby wrote:
Guessing there is no need to read further, as HMRC usually get first dibs, particularly when the total assets only cover a fraction of their outstanding HMRC bills.
Jetmans Dad wrote:
Although if it’s a voluntary agreement, that may mean that HMRC have agreed to take pennies in the pound in order to get something, leaving some pocket change for the other creditors. I doubt that includes customers, though.
When did someone who screws
When did someone who screws together parts made by other people become a manufacturer? They’re an assembler. The risk in being dependent on suppliers, or sub contractors, for everything you do, is the one that’s come to fruition for Bowman – the suppliers don’t deliver, and you’re out of the game. That’s not the fault of the guys behind Bowman, because that’s how cycle retailing is right now, but let’s be honest about that.
Exactly. Companies need
Exactly. Companies need shorter, more resilient supply chains. This is going to be the big economic theme of this cycle. Manufacturing will come back onshore and things will get more expensive. Much more expensive, if the BoE continues to sit on its hands. Good excuse for ordering N+1 today.
exilegareth wrote:
And a large number of larger bike manufacturers are in the same position, subcontracting frame manufacture to various small firms in taiwan, while ordering their components from shimano or sram.
In may cases they likely own the IP on those frames, but they are still reliant on their subcontractors to deliver.
It’s not the frames that are
It’s not the frames that are the issue though is it? It’s everything that goes into it – groupsets for the most part.
Is there a single company in the world that makes everything it needs for a bike? Even Shimano don’t do that and they are one of only 3 companies that probably could
There one reason, and one reason only why companies that Bowman do what they do – money. People would moan at their prices if they brought it all (groupsets aside) in house. It’d add 2k minimum to each frame – and would make them a niche framebuilder the same as all the other niche framebuilders. And people would still need to wait for ever to get one.
Seems that Bowman don’t make
Seems that Bowman doesn’t make anything…and may not even assemble anything that you can’t buy from another bike assembler…you could probably do it yourself. I do. Only ever bought two complete bikes, a C50 a while ago, and a Factor 02 in lockdown.
Does anyone have access to
Does anyone have access to Bowman’s terms and conditions of purchase. My Palace 3 frameset has begun to oxidise on the seat tube and I’ve submitted a claim through my bank, as Bowman are no longer operating and fulfilling warranty claims.
I’ve searched online but seem to be coming up short and haven’t had any emails stating the t’s & c’s when purchased in 2020.
Great bike, shame about the downfall and build quality in areas.