How to Navigate the Great Bike Shortage in 2022

What shopping for new rigs and gear will look like in the year ahead, and how you can—maybe, possibly—get the machine you’re after

The bike industry has always ticked along with ebbs and flows. There have been booms and quiet periods. But nothing could have prepared the industry for the unprecedented maelstrom, ignited by the pandemic and fuelled by other ill-timed circumstances, like devastating storms, that have had far-reaching effects that have extended to all areas of the global supply chain.

In 2020, bike shops juggled a deluge of newfound interest i n bikes sales and service—because, mostly, pandemic precautions still allowed people to ride—all while pivoting to accommodate various lockdown measures, such as curbside customer service, and/or trying to set up online stores. This rise in demand resulted in the unprecedented shortages of 2021. This year is shaping up to be similar as production delays and shipping issues persist.

So, how can you navigate the bike world if you have your heart set on a new set of wheels? And what happens, say, if you break a chain? I spoke with bike shops across Canada to piece together what the bike landscape looks like, to learn how exactly our bike dreams are being affected by this global predicament and to try to find out how we can navigate the year ahead—all while keeping in mind that processes and information can vary from shop to shop and supplier to supplier.

The executive summary? Be patient.

Secondly, if you want a bike, lean on your local bike shop(s), while respecting the extraordinary circumstances they’ve faced for the past two years. If you are not dedicated to a particular bike shop and are in dire need, you’ll need to channel your inner Sherlock Holmes and get sleuthing.

HOW ORDERING PROCESSES HAVE CHANGED AND WHAT THEY MEAN FOR YOU

“It used to be that every shop had a little bit of what they needed and every warehouse was backed up with stock,” says Kieran Andrews, a co-owner of Wild Rock Outfitters in Peterborough, Ont. That system is no longer working. Any stocks for resupply are gone.

Lockdowns at factories, staffing issues, materials shortages and delays, shipping complications and the exorbitant price of even securing a container— all these elements affecting other industries have also affected the bike industry. In the world of bikes, some companies have the infrastructure to better provide restocking dates and etas than others.

When it comes to orders, the large bike manufacturers usually deliver the earliest orders first. It’s the first-in/first-out system. So, if Order 1 is 200 bikes for a large shop, that shop will get the bikes (or a good portion of them) before the next order goes out. “The classic model used to be that the season before, you tell the company what you want, give the company a booking to base its production on. Then, the bike company would ship the order in about three batches,” explains John Fornasier, e-commerce manager at Sweet Pete’s Bike Shop in Toronto. Now, the shop may eventually get what it ordered or it may have to adjust expectations on that order.

“With the supply-chain issues, companies are realizing they need to supply a little bit to everybody as opposed to supplying all to, say, five companies while 15 are getting zero. We are seeing a little more of an allocation of product by certain companies,” says Tim Mcdermott, who does product and sales for industry brands, including Intense and mec in Vancouver.

For you, the consumer, this situation means that a vendor may have approached a bike shop with a list of bikes it has. If the bike you want is not on the list, it may not be possible to order it at all. “Reps are trying to decide where this inventory is going to be best suited, making sure everyone has enough to sell,” Andrews says. His shop has even received bikes it didn’t order, and then has had to figure out what they were meant to replace in the ordering system.

“We really just get what they send us,” adds Fornasier who explains that bikes they don’t want will get put back in a pool for other bike shops.

One thing to keep in mind if you are ordering this year’s model of bike: you might not get this year’s colour and parts spec. Those could have changed by the time your bike is ready. This variability is one of Andrews’s frustrations as some vendors are putting new bikes on their websites and promoting them in magazines. “For all intents and purposes, they’re making the end rider believe those bikes are available,” he says. “That total disconnect from customer service creates problems when you’re having to explain that model X is not available for a year.”

SO, HOW DO YOU GET IN LINE FOR A NEW BIKE?

If you’re in the market for a new rig, your success in finding one will depend on what you’re looking for. Also, please refer to the executive summary: be patient. Some shops are still waiting for bikes they ordered in 2020. “I think honestly, the best thing you can do is just get to your local bike shop and put yourself in their hands and get on a waitlist for something that is pre-ordered,” suggests Andrews, a sentiment echoed by the other experts. That being said, you will likely be looking at an eta of 2023, with some exceptions.

At Sweet Pete’s, a particularly hot model of touring bike is showing 2025

for availability, while the store has a good stock of entrylevel road and mountain bikes and mid- to entry-level commuter bikes. If you want a carbon-fibre road bike or full-suspension mountain bike, you’re still looking at a wait time of months. “It varies, depending on what exactly you’re after,” says Fornasier, who has seen folks come from out of town to purchase bikes, having expanded their search area.

BE PREPARED TO (MAYBE) PAY MORE

Fornasier points out that one thing we’re thankfully not seeing are the crazy markups we saw in 2021 in, say, the lumber industry, just because demand was high. You have, however, seen this trend in the used-bike market where clunkers have been listed at ridiculous prices. But if prices go up on a new bike, the costs of materials and shipping are the causes.

“We’re all being really challenged with upward pressure on pricing, everywhere from raw materials to component pricing, to what it costs to ship,” Mcdermott says. “It’s skyrocketed. Those are real costs that are impacting the price of a bike. It’s a real concern. We don’t want a situation where we price people out of the sport. As an industry, we need to make sure we keep that in mind.”

A few companies are offering price protection, meaning you’ll pay the price quoted to you when you ordered the bike. Some big-name companies are not offering this feature.

Bike shops have to figure out how to handle price fluctuations. Each one needs to come up with a policy and figure out how to communicate it to customers. The beginning of the pandemic saw a lot of bike shops simply eat the costs. But remember, the markup on a bike is not that high. “In a low-margin business like this, we can’t absorb all those price increases,” Andrews says. His shop now mentions the potential increase up front as part of the conversation. They’ll take a small refundable deposit and offer the consumer first right of refusal when the bike comes in.

“We’ve been burned a few times now,” says Paul Rogers, co-owner of Long Alley Bicycles in Halifax. “The first people who placed deposits on bikes, by the time their bikes got here, the prices had jumped 15 per cent. We ate the cost and didn’t make money on those bikes in that case. What we do now is we offer to split the price hike with them 50/50 as a gesture of goodwill. The suppliers have done their best to build the prices into their new lineup.”

WHAT ABOUT BIKE PARTS?

As with bikes, parts are starting to trickle in. However, Tim Woodcock, owner of Woodcock Cycle Works in Winnipeg, says that, based on feelers to different vendors across North America, the overall supply of parts is shaping up to be the same as last year, if not maybe a little worse. A lot depends on the orders that shops placed for this year. “Since we’re on the Prairies, we always do a lot of prebookings to try to get product to get us through a good part of the season. If you didn’t book it, you’re going to have a tough time,” he says.

Depending on what you’re after, in some cases, you may have more luck looking to more boutique brands for certain components, as the bigger parts suppliers work to keep up with demand. “It’s good overall for the long-term, because it’s giving the big two some competition,” Woodcock says of the industry’s biggest component makers, Shimano and sram.

“If you want an 11-speed road drivetrain, parts are still backordered to the point our service department has bikes sitting waiting for them,” says Fornasier.

This scenario is pretty common across the country. Besides having new bikes, Long Alley Bicycles offers what the website refers to as “refurbished remixes.” Rogers explains how in the beginning it was an extra card they could play with the surge in demand. That is, until parts became scarce, making it difficult to complete even remixed bikes.

Even industry insiders have had to wait like everyone else. Last year, pro mountain biker Jenn Jackson, who wrenches at Spoke Bike and Ski in Kamloops, B.C., had to carry over some parts from her 2020 mountain bikes, and source some items through online bike classifieds as well as friends for cyclocross. “Being proactive meant it all still came together in time, even if it was unconventional and a bit stressful,” Jackson says.

While it’s smart to have a couple of spare parts in your personal toolbox (see ‘Think Ahead for Tuneups’), hoarding parts hurts everyone. “In the odd case, we’ve

“Most bike shops are filled with really passionate riders who are turning themselves inside out to help.”

had to pull back a few things,” explains Woodcock on managing the flow of parts. “Everyone has heard about the 12-speed chain delay. We had enough, but then we had some web orders. In a couple of cases, shops were trying to buy them all. They would put through three orders for 25 to 50 chains at a time.” Woodcock says he had to apologize and explain why they had to manage their flow of parts and couldn’t sell off everything because they were trying to keep some stock for the local community. For a shop that wants to see lots of butts on bikes, it went against the grain a bit. “For someone with a flat on the way to work, we want to stay as their local bike store,” he says. “It goes back to that whole thing about buying local. I could have probably sold out of every single part just online, but customers have appreciated that there are parts around. Our hashtag is #instockwoodcock,” he says with a laugh.

THE ESTIMATED TIMES OF ARRIVAL

Some companies provide etas for their bikes as part of their ordering systems. These are helpful, especially compared with suppliers who don’t seem to have transparent reporting systems in place. But all etas can get pushed to later dates, especially with the uncertainty around shipping. “We have a staggering amount of product on back order,” Andrews says.

“One thing I’ve learned is that etas don’t really mean anything,” Rogers says. “We joke they’re being authored by Stephen King or some other great writer of fiction because they have no bearing on reality.”

“It does make it very difficult to keep track of what you’ve already ordered,” Rogers adds. “You’ve got what you have on hand, what you ordered in pre-season booking orders, there is stuff floating around in back-order land, spread across 10 suppliers. And you’re basing a lot of decision making on fictitious etas.”

Fornasier has been surprised that some smaller companies have been doing a better job at getting his shop the bikes they wanted compared with some of the bigger companies.

Andrews says his biggest concern going forward is that at some point demand is going to settle and the industry is going to catch up and there will be a massive glut of inventory. “The bike brands have to be very cautious and forecast carefully,” he says. “If you have a bike shop with poor cash flow for the past two to three years and then you ship a few million dollars worth of bikes when they don’t have the credit to pay for them, that’s going to be a problem.”

BIKE SHOPS ARE NOW PIVOTING PROS

The hours put into customer service have increased immensely along with those required to manage inventory. Andrews has a staff member who spends 25 hours a week simply taking care of the back-order list. When Andrews tallied up the hours spent helping one particular customer, he realized that it took 114 emails, four store visits and three and a half hours of phone time before the customer picked up their bike.

“Most bike shops are filled with really passionate riders who are turning themselves inside out to help,” Andrews says. “The situation is making it difficult for us to do that. We ask for patience. I think sometimes a customer might be left feeling like we—the bike shop or i ndustry—is doing this to them. It would be nice if people could recognize more of what we’re doing for them. There’s an enormous amount of work that goes into every bike sale. I don’t think people see that.”

“We have a very good reservation system i n place,” says Woodcock, whose staff flags product as it comes in. “We try to get stuff out as quickly as we can.”

The Sweet Pete’s website has a feature that will send a notice when a certain bike becomes available. “At the end of the day, all the retailers in North America pretty much sell the same thing. What’s going to differentiate them is the service,” Fornasier says.

While it doesn’t seem as though the industry is going to right itself before at least 2023 and maybe beyond, there is some lemonade that has come out of these lemon years.

“If 15 to 20 per cent stick with it, that’s a really nice uptick of new people in cycling. That’s a great thing for the sport, the industry and the environment,” Mcdermott says. He also adds that there have been programs to support these riders, such as Vancouver’s Slow Streets and some streets

being shut down to cars during the pandemic. These sorts of initiatives by business improvement areas and municipalities, along with infrastructure scrutiny on bike lanes and safety, have been happening across Canada.

“There were a lot of people we’ve spoken to who were very thankful for their bike purchases, like whole families,” Andrews says. “As an industry, we’ve been part of a really positive thing that’s happening in a time when much of what’s happening is negative. It’s exhausting, but satisfying.”

“As an industry, we’ve been part of a really positive thing that’s happening in a time when much of what’s happening is negative. It’s exhausting, but satisfying.”