Our friends at Commencal have published an update which may help to shed some light on the current situation with availability of bikes, parts, etc. as well as pricing and lead times, written from the supply side…
[Press Release] – To the mountain biking community,
This famous year of 2020 is about to end…
What a time!
As you know, the bike industry has generally been among the lucky ones to “benefit” from the situation.Demand has exploded. People have realised the value of cycling and the joys of mountain biking in the great outdoors.
And this is obviously very good news for our planet.
But on the other hand, with this rapidly growing demand, several factors are now slowing momentum.
First of all, production. Particularly components. Finding the vast majority of components required to assemble a complete bike is extremely complicated today. Saddles, tyres, suspension, transmission. Major component brands such as Shimano, SRAM, FOX and Schwalbe, who produce mainly in Taiwan, give lead times of between 9 and 18 months. They are normally able to deliver within a maximum of 3 months. The reason for this stems from difficulties in finding certain raw materials and/or factories that have had to be shut down due to COVID, which also lengthened supply times.
On top of this, issues related to transport. The delays in moving goods from Asia to all other continents have skyrocketed. A concrete example, it took us about 3 weeks to ship a container from Taiwan to Golden, Colorado, but now we need between 2 and 3 months. The ports are full. Boats are floating outside port entrances for several weeks whilst waiting to be able to dock (see photo). Transportation prices have suddenly and strongly increased. We are currently paying on average 4 times more for the delivery of a container compared to the same time last year.
Final point, exchange rates. The currencies of our main countries (United States, Canada, Europe, Australia) have fallen sharply against the Taiwanese dollar. The cost price of our bikes has therefore increased sharply in just a few months.
Therefore, for all these reasons combined, our production and delivery times have been greatly extended, and the cost price has exploded.
This is why we have been forced to review the price of some of our bikes in a number of currencies. And of course, we apologise to those who are patiently or impatiently waiting for their bike, or who can’t find their dream bike in the right size.
We hope for a return to normal as soon as possible but we believe it won’t be until the end of 2021 at the earliest.
Happy holidays to all and let’s look forward to 2021 anyway!
