Cycling market downturn worse than expected, says Halfords

Exactly this I think, it's a red herring to say that kids have been put off by the price of top-end cycling equipment – there are plenty of good budget bikes available and the secondhand market through eBay, Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace etc offers far better bargains than I can remember being available when I was a kid in the pre-Internet days. What's happened is, as you say, kids are doing different things these days, my generation (50s) and maybe the two below it has stuck with cycling as we've grown up, obviously most of us have got richer and so can afford more expensive bikes. That's not what's putting kids off, the price of rugby boots, cricket bats, tennis racquets etc hasn't gone up much in real terms and yet everywhere you look clubs are desperate for players, municipal courts are standing empty. It's a tragic shame and it's going to have severe societal consequences in terms of health if we don't do something to pull it round, but it's happening everywhere and it's because of the changes in children's lifestyles, to try and go off on some ridiculous rant it being all the faults of manufacturers and those who review their products is just ridiculous.

There's probably 3 times as many cars on the roads now, if not more, than when we were kids. That's a pretty big disincentive to the sort of happy-go-lucky cycling around the neighbourhood or village that us retirement age folks enjoyed as kids.

planetjanet wrote:

The cycling industry, in bed with daft cycling 'journalists', forever pushing more and more fancy, ridiculous, overpriced bikes and kit HAVE KILLED CYCLING for young people.

Are you sure?

The motor industry, in bed with 'journalists' is forever pushing more and more fancy and overpriced cars but it is doing OK despite the increased cost of fuel, insurance, servicing and so on. Or maybe loads of BMW, Audi and Mercedes dealers disappeared and I didn't notice.

Mobile phones get more and more expensive but people don't say "I've stopped buying new smartphones, I just have an old one for messaging and use my Dad's laptop when I need it" or "Buying clothes at retailers and online is sooo expensive, I only visit charity shops now".

And let's not ask whether people are buying less food, booze, fewer takeaways etc when food price inflation has been around 30% p.a. (the answer is for many that they are not; though I don't mean that no-one is experiencing hardship, far from it!)

So perhaps the health of the cycling industry is not determined by the price of premium top-of-the-range models. We've already been told that sales of those models are steady, it's much lower down the price range where the problems are - the markets where volume of sales is far higher than your SL8 Dura-Ace stuff. And journalists can only review what they're given and invariably that's higher-priced bikes because more people want to read about them, even if they have no intention of ever buying one.

From what I've read, it's a classic boom-and-bust scenario; Covid provided the former but things like Brexit, the return to car-centric 'normal' roads and financial uncertainty due to inflation, house prices and various other factors (including government u-turn on active travel and green policies while pitching in on things like LTNs and the fictitious 'war on the motorist') have hit the cycle supply chain hard.

Doh, you totally missed the point about YOUNG riders, straight over your head and onto irrelevant whataboutery.

There are numerous entry level bikes which aren't selling, meanwhile, the premium end is still selling; of course roadcc is aimed at enthusiasts that like looking at bling bikes; no different to motorist enthusiast media that feature flash motors.

The reality about the bike business is that it's not price but lack of interest from most people, including the young, which has resulted in the bike industry downturn.

My experience as a long time bike flipper is that the lurgy lockdown triggered a lot of people to buy bicycles and try cycling, most of whom didn't like it and quit cycling as soon as normal life resumed. After decades of fixing and selling bikes at affordable prices, they have stopped selling, with especially no interest at all from young people.

planetjanet wrote:

Doh, you totally missed the point about YOUNG riders, straight over your head and onto irrelevant whataboutery.

I think you're conflating top-end bike prices with reduced participation, whether that's riding bikes for leisure or competition (for which there are multiple reasons). As Rendel has pointed out, good used kit is widely available and finding it online is easier than ever so new bike prices aren't necessarily the barrier they might appear to be.

Islabikes' situation is the result of competition in the marketplace. The market for kids' bikes has changed for the better in the last 10 year. But the YOUNG riders you refer to are not the ones who are struggling to find the money to buy bikes so I don't understand why prices might put them off.

Or do you think it's the lack of newspaper rounds for them to save up their pennies that is causing reverberations across the whole industry and far beyond?

I believe my post is based on facts, not hyperbole, so I suspect you chose to dismiss it as whataboutery rather than consider that I disagree with your diagnosis.