Bike industry told to “survive until 2025” as cycling market report says overstock issues “might be resolved” next year

My opinion on this is that (nice) bikes and motorbikes cost about the same is because that's a price the public are prepared to pay for a discretionary/fun/toy purchase, regardless of whether it has a motor or not. And a nice bike is available in lots of sizes and is basically the same as used by pros, whereas a bicycle-priced motorbike is single size and a looong way firm anything used in racing, whether that's on or off road

The highest end racing bikes don't come close in price to the most expensive racing motorcycles. That said, the high end watch industry is doing fine with selling watches that cost more than most people's homes. Good thing there are still cheap watches and bikes huh?

For the price of the highest end WT racing bikes (£15k to £20k?) you can easily buy a junior class bike that will be fairly fast around a track, and lap within 12s of full-on race British SuperBike (in the hands of a top rider). Hell, you can buy 2 or 3 of them!

For the price of 2 WT race bikes (£30kish) you can buy a SuperStock race bike, that will lap within about 2s to 3s of the 100k to 200k top British SuperBike. If you know what you're doing, and look around and buy used kit, you can probably put a bike together for around the cost of a top WT bicycle that will lap pretty close to a top SuperStock bike.

You can buy a new, near race ready Supersport bike (£15k to £20k), which will lap about 6s to 9s off the top British Superbikes.

UCI world tour <-> SuperStock or SuperSport is probably the fairer comparison, as both have to be homologated by sale to the public.

Jippily wrote:

Maybe after this the industry will start to realise bikes really shouldn't be costing more than motorbikes.

This is a pointless and utterly useless comparison.

The bicycle industry is not in this state because an S-works SL8 with Dura-Ace (or a similar model from other brands) RRP is £12,000*. It's not the expensive models clogging up warehouses and retailers' shop floors, they sell well enough, it's the much lower priced models that normally sell in vastly larger quantities that are causing the problem, due to the exaggerated boom-and-bust nature of the post-covid bicycle market.

Halfords do not sell expensive bikes - almost all are under £1,000, most are considerably cheaper than that - but they too have been struggling, with "bike sales dropping to 30 per cent below pre-Covid levels" as reported here on road.cc last Thursday.

Very pricey bicycles exist just as there are stupidly expensive cars, watches, clothes, cameras and so on. You only have to look at how Leica cameras have been marketed in the last, say, 30 years to realise that there are people that will pay silly money for something bearing their logo.

* almost all sizes of the S-Works SL8s are sold out on Specialized UK's Tarmac page. The Red Bull BORA - hansgrohe Edition model is £14,500. The 500 that were made have all been snapped up. Yep, that's a struggling market, for you.

Overstocked = Overpriced IMO.

flooding the market with very expensive bikes and parts. Greedy corporations. 

Thousand of bikes they can't sell. Then nearly all the top brands release new models. Treks new Madone is way ahead of their expected replacement time. What was wrong with the Gen 7 (I can't use the word 'old' since it really isn't) Madone that it had to be replaced so soon? It's less than 2 years old!
 

Specialized did the same with the SL8 Tarmac. They are, quite frankly, taking the piss.

So what you expect to do with lots of Gen 7 Madones' when there is a brand new replacement on the market? Same with the outgoing Emonda which is a brilliant bike but ultimately now discontinued. There will be countless fully built bikes in shops and warehouses ready to ship with no buyer when they want obscene money for them. 

What if you have a new bike in order, only to see it replaced before you even receive it,  or shortly afterwards? You're going to feel cheated. 
 

Another thing that I think it totally absurd is this and I apologise to Sigma as they are not the only ones doing this: 

https://www.sigmasports.com/item/Trek/Emonda-SL-Disc-Frameset-2021/Q9L9

https://www.sigmasports.com/item/Trek/Emonda-SL-5-Road-Bike-2024/11FXB

Here we have a complete bike costing less than a 3 year old identical frameset (less paint colour)  by £600! 
 

That is totally bonkers. Sure there is limited sizes available but that's not always been the case. Its the fact this practice exists is the absurdity of it all only for the bike industry to say they are in trouble due to overstock issues. Why isn't that frame a good grand cheaper? Let someone buy a bargain frame and build it up themselves. 

The Emonda was due for an update anyway. This bike being lighter let them get rid of a bike and replace another bike

It's actually NOT lighter than the current Emonda. It's a smidge faster if you can comprehend 77 seconds in an hour in real world conditions, It's lighter than the current Madone. 
 

"It’s 77 seconds per hour faster than Émonda and as fast as the previous Madone (as a complete system comprising bike, rider, bottles and cages) at 200 watts"

Now I'm no maths genius. But if this is true. That meant the current Madone was ALSO only 77 sec per hour faster than the Emonda if it's AS FAST as the current Madone. 
 

Also since the Emonda IS a lighter bike than the current Madone , surely that makes it a better all round bike before the introduction of a slightly faster but much heavier hybrid of the two. 
 
For this, go watch https://youtu.be/nbJvSJNZ67o?si=xETpUCfWILBcfpmY

There a complete bike with Sram Red weighed 7.34kg on their scales. 
 

just for context, my current Emonda SLR 7 with di2 Ultegra and Hunt Aero 50 rims. Weighs less. In fact my bike weighs 7.5 with pedals, bottle cages, garmin and rear light attached. 
 

So where is the real improvement in weight or speed? 
 

or is this just Trek cutting on production by replacing 2 bikes with 1 and making it sound better than it is. Cos they need to still sell bikes after all. 

Those prices finally got shop employees making better pay. Bikes have realistically had very little inflation until the pandemic. The real fall came from that inflation happening so quickly.