Trek and the Pandemic

[troiks75]

Interesting article about 'the shortages' and how Trek have managed

https://marker.medium.com/inside-the-co ... e6849a9f3b

[10speedsemiracer]

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Very interesting article, thanks for posting.

[Coffee_Jimmy]

That was a good read. I was one of the people who bought 2 new bikes during the pandemic.

Thanks for sharing.

[skyblot]

An interesting thing that was not mentioned in that article is the effect of the 2019 trade situation with China. If you recall, the USA put an import tariff on bicycles sourced from China. The net result is that 2019 was the year with the smallest number of bicycle imports to the USA since year 2000 as importers let their stocks run down while anticipating a revoking of the tariff in December 2019.

In the USA, excluding e-bikes, imports for 2019 were roughly 13 million bicycles, with an estimated sales for the year of 16.5 million. So supply chain stocks were run down by 3.5 million (or more depending on sources)... (I don't know about you, but I find these numbers staggering!)

This looked like a good move for the first 4 weeks of 2020....

Manufacturers who recognised a surge in sales and ordered with confidence (ie Trek and others) are doing OK, those without the buying power are doing it incredibly tough.

[caneye]

very interesting read.

where do we go from here? what next?
with US (and other first world nations) well on their way with their vaccine programs, how will that impact cycling popularity?

is the cycling spike in demand a once-in-a-generation economic phenomenon, by product of the pandemic? can't be sustainable, can it?

hard to read the tea leaves.

[troiks75]

Just placed a deposit on a Trek Domane SL5 with delivery expected in October, fingers crossed it actually happens

[Mububban]

Just placed a deposit on a Trek Domane SL5 with delivery expected in October, fingers crossed it actually happens

White and red, or orange and grey?

[troiks75]

Just placed a deposit on a Trek Domane SL5 with delivery expected in October, fingers crossed it actually happens

White and red, or orange and grey?

orange and grey...... tough choice buit the white makes it look to race bike like lol

[BritniPepper]

Interesting. As a Medium editor, I'm wondering who this guy is. Not a Medium partner, wrote two articles, gave up.

The comments are interesting. A couple of replies dogwhistling racism. My understanding is that China is not keen on losing markets and will do anything they need to do to make their products more attractive. Lots of luck finding an affordable product made by people of Northern European ancestry.

Britni