It may be difficult to get your hands on a new bike again this summer and beyond as shortages continue from 2020.
In fact it could last until 2025 before the shortage eases, according to local bike shop owners.
“We have more demand than we’ve had manufacturing capacity for,” said Lee Ferneyhough, owner and operator of Guelph's Paramount Sports.
Major part suppliers Shimano and SRAM can’t meet the demand, according to Ferneyhough.
In most cases bikes are being built well before they hit the sales floor, sometimes being built over a year in advance. Now, bikes are being made within the year, he said.
Certain types of bikes are harder to come by, like higher end bikes or e-bikes.
“Last year caught us off-guard in the sense that we didn’t really know what we were dealing with,” said Ferneyhough.
They learned from last year to not have wait lists or pre-orders for bikes because it ended up being a clerical nightmare. Ferneyhough said they contacted people who pre-ordered bikes numerous times because the wait time for their bike would keep extending since manufacturers and distributors either didn’t have the parts to make the bike or shipping estimates were long.
Manufacturers and distributors were giving stores delivery dates that passed without any sign of the promised bikes. Customers were having to wait longer than expected.
“They tell us what we want to hear and what they’re being told is what they want to hear but it might not necessarily be true,” said Ferneyhough regarding the dates of when they would receive the bikes they ordered.
Shanghai has been locked down for seven weeks and the city is a major shipping port, so delays on bicycles have been long since they aren’t leaving the city to their destination.
“On the manufacturing side of things, what we’ve been told recently is that Shanghai could produce the worst ripple effect that we’ve seen throughout this pandemic,” said Lee.
Most of the bikes at Paramount Sports are ones the store ordered in 2020 and have only just arrived this year.
“Given that we did receive more bikes this year than we did in 2021, we just sold more,” said Taylor Moran, sales manager at Speed River Bicycle.
From May 2020 to May 2021 Speed River Bicycle received 550 bikes. From May 2021 to May 2022 they received 990. Even with 440 bike increase Moran said they are still facing a shortage.
Moran said bikes ordered in 2020 only showed up this year, just like Parmount Sports.
“The enthusiast-level bikes, gravel bikes, road bikes, mountain bikes and the like that we ordered in 2020 have already come and gone because they are in such high demand. Those bikes disappear the second they get here,” said Moran.
Moran said the demand for bikes has been so high the parts and component manufacturers could not possibly meet the demand with the current infrastructure.
“Throw in all the disruptions that COVID presented in terms of shipping, and supply chains, and production shutdowns. All of those compounded to make this shortage last even longer, all the while the demand never eased up,” he said.
Similarly to Paramount Sports, Speed River Bicycle allowed customers to put deposits on bikes but the wait times, colour, price were in flux.
“To avoid all that disappointment and to avoid all the time I was wasting just calling people back we only pre-sell a bike if it has an ETA of 60 days or less."
Moran said they do have bikes to sell this summer but nowhere near the inventory volume they had pre-pandemic.
