Bike sales are rapidly increasing as people find new avenues to spend time during the lockdown.
As parks open, roads narrow to accommodate more pedestrian traffic and the weather warms up, numerous individuals and families are seen peddling away on their bikes across the city.
“The main kind of struggle now is availability more than anything,” said Speed River Bicycle manager James Fedosov.
He said bike sales started picking up in the second week of March with the sales of children’s bikes doubling.
Fedosov said while children’s bikes and mountain bikes are always popular, they never sell out.
“I think a lot of people want to be with their families. If you ride trails out to Guelph Lake, you’ll see a ton of families together which is awesome,” said Fedosov who normally services more recreational cyclists and commuters but is now catering to many families.
Paramount Sports co-owner Lee Ferneyhough said suppliers for his store are already selling out.
“There are no kids' bikes left, there’s no bike under $2,000 left,” said Ferneyhough.
"We’re always busy this time but this is up,” said Ferneyhough adding that his priority during this time is to keep his staff as safe as possible. The store even sanctioned off an area and is limiting to three customers at a time.
Even stores that don’t primarily sell bikes are seeing them ride off the shelves.
Royal Distributing, which largely sells snowmobile and motorcycle parts and accessories, has seen an increase in bicycle sales after customers began flocking there after bicycle stores around the city started selling out.
“Bikes are by no means our avenue for selling,” said purchasing manager Jeff VanAnkum.
“Today is the first day of our store opening and we’ve been selling bikes like crazy,” said Vanankum on May 22.
He said it’s normal for the store to sell three bikes on a given day in the spring but this year, they sold over 10 bikes on the day they opened with a particular increase in e-bike sales.
“I mean myself alone, I’ve sold three and I’m not even in sales,” said Jef Vanankum.
