STREAMING REVOLUTION: PROTESTERS MAKE POINT WITH VIRAL CLIPS
punitive tariffs on bicycles produced in China reached 25%.
There are multiple reasons for the pandemic bicycle boom.
Around the world, many workers were looking for an alternative to buses and subways. People unable to go to their gyms looked for another way to exercise. And shut-in families scrambled to find a way to keep kids active during stay-athome orders.
“Kids are looking for something to do. They’ve probably reached the end of the internet by now, so you’ve got to get out and do something,” said Dave Palese at Gorham Bike and Ski, a Maine shop where there are slim pickings for family-oriented, leisure bikes.
Bar Harbor restaurateur Brian Smith bought a new bike for one of his daughters, a competitive swimmer, who was unable to get into the pool. On a recent day, he was heading back to his local bike shop to outfit his youngest daughter, who’d just learned how to ride.
His three daughters use their bikes every day, and the entire family goes for rides a couple of times a week. The fact that they’re getting exercise and enjoying fresh air is a bonus.
“It’s fun. Maybe that’s the bottom line. It’s really fun to ride bikes,” Smith said as he and his 7-year-old daughter, Ellery, pedaled to the bicycle shop.
The pandemic is also driving a boom in electricassist bikes, called e-bikes, which were a niche part of the overall market until now. Most e-bikes require a cyclist to pedal, but electric motors provide extra oomph.
VanMoof, a Dutch e-bike maker, is seeing “unlimited demand” since the pandemic began, resulting in a 10-week order backlog for its commuter electric bikes, compared with typical one-day delivery time, said co-founder Taco Carlier.
The company’s sales surged 138% in the U.S. and rocketed 184% in Britain in the February-April period over last year, with big gains in other European countries. The company is scrambling to ramp up production as fast as it can, but it will take two to three months to meet the demand, Carlier said.
“We did have some issues with our supply chain back in January, February when the crisis hit first in Asia,” said Carlier. But “the issue is now with demand, not supply.”
Sales at Cowboy, a Belgian e-bike maker, tripled in the January-April period from last year. Notably, they spiked in Britain and France at around the same time in May that those countries started easing lockdown restrictions, said Chief Marketing Officer Benoit Simeray.
“It’s now becoming very obvious for most of us living in and around cities that we don’t want to go back into public transportation,” said Simeray. But people may still need to buy groceries or commute to the office one or two days a week, so “then they’re starting to really, really think about electric bikes as the only solution they’ve got.”
In Maine, Kate Worcester, a physician’s assistant, bought e-bikes for herself and her 12-yearold son so they could have fun at a time when she couldn’t travel far from the hospital where she worked.
Every night, she and her son ride 20 miles or 30 miles (30 or 50 kilometers) around Acadia National Park.
“It’s by far the best fun I’ve had with him,” she said. “That’s been the biggest silver lining in this terrible pandemic — to be able to leave work and still do an activity and talk and enjoy each other.”
Joe Minutolo, co-owner of Bar Harbor Bicycle Shop, said he hopes the sales surge translates into long-term change.
“People are having a chance to rethink things,” he said. “Maybe we’ll all learn something out of this, and something really good will happen.”