Where’s my bike?
‘Manufacturers are in a bind. Is this just a flash in the pan or should they build more factories?’
For years we never knew how good we had it. Internet leviathans drove prices low and kept stocks high; tyres cost peanuts and the new helmet you bought online showed up in 24 hours with a little pack of Haribo. But then Covid happened.
Factory whistles blew to usher in the Chinese New Year holidays, then the country’s government stepped in and ordered employers not to reopen in a bid to contain the viral spread. In the biggest bikeproducing nation on the planet, production had ground to a halt overnight.
Yet for a while the cheap inner tubes still flowed, while here in the UK bike retailers couldn’t believe their luck. Sales, which had been plateauing for a number of years, went through the roof as demand hit an all-time high. Chris Boardman was even building bikes at his local shop in the Wirral to keep up with demand.
Fast-forward to autumn, however, and things were looking a little less rosy. Wait times for bikes had risen to months, and those three dreaded words ‘out of stock’ were being heard more and more at retailers across the country. Was this
