Lauf Cycles has followed numerous other bike manufacturers in raising prices in response to Donald Trump’s tariffs.
In a notice on the bike brand’s website, Lauf says all bike and component orders placed after June 4th, regardless of shipping date, will have an eight per cent tariff surcharge added.
The Icelandic brand says it has “resisted for a while” but “needs” to add the extra cost due to the “extraordinary tariffs” on its imported components.
“We will do what we can to minimise the pass-through of tariffs,” Lauf said. “We’ve resisted for a while now, but on June 5th we need to add an eight per cent tariff surcharge to all our bikes and components. We hope you understand. And, we encourage you to compare our pricing to others’. It should still be industry leading.”
Although originally based in Iceland, Lauf moved its assembly factory to the United States a few years ago.
“Most (almost all) bike brands in the US do their assembly overseas, but we wanted to get closer to our end-users. We wanted the flexibility, responsiveness and efficiency of being physically ‘on-site’,” the tariff statement continued.
“Plus, in all honesty, we just love making bikes. We love being able to physically sign off on every single bike we send out. We want to make what we make. This was one of the better decisions we’ve made. Being closer to our end-users has endless benefits. Also, through our US assembly factory, in Harrisonburg VA, we are well prepared for a rapidly changing future.”
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However, Lauf said that despite all its bike building being done at the Harrisonburg site, the policy of the US president has left them with “extraordinary tariffs on our imported components”.
The president’s controversial economic policy remains a source of frustration for many across the bike industry. The situation remains unpredictable, a so-called tariff truce agreed with China last month, but Trump on Friday announcing he will double the tariff rate on steel and aluminium imports from 25 per cent to 50 per cent from Wednesday.
One of Trump’s top advisers, the commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, yesterday told Fox News that he expects the tariffs to stick around following the 90-day pause which expires at the start of July. “Tariffs are not going away,” he said.
Last week reports suggested that BMC is set to slash a quarter of its workforce, the brand blaming tariff uncertainty for having influenced the decision. Likewise, high-end bike component brand Rotor recently closed its US office.
The impact of Trump’s tariffs on business has been the big talking point in the bike industry this year, numerous brands such as Trek, Specialized and Giant raising prices in the US as a result.
In April, Brompton boss Will Butler-Adams called the tariffs “naive”, with the folding bike brand’s US prices also likely to rise.
Silca sold out of its new electric pumps almost instantly, the brand blaming the “global tariff issues” for the product being “not currently economically viable” in the US, meaning that just 100 would be available to its American market.
Meanwhile, a trade association representing the cycling industry in the United States has also claimed that the tariff trade war could lead to bike helmets becoming less affordable, leaving children “unprotected from potential injury”.
