The Bikeconomics (Mega)Thread

Leopards + faces..... It'd be funny if it wasn't for the genuine harm they will cause to uninvolved countries populations.

The solar panels thing is already happening - started a few months ago:

https://renewablesnow.com/news/maxeons-solar-panels-remain-stuck-at-us-…

When talking about us economy (30 trillion) and the import/export part of it, how does paying subscriptions and service costs to us companies come into play? Technically if a European pays for cloud storage to Amazon, Google and the like it's outside money... But there's nothing being shipped over the border (except data). 

Those companies have European subsidiaries/offices, and in this instance Data centres in Europe and the UK. 

But the profit will flow through to the US eventually, and hence the R&D and head office are based there so the US gets the extra employment. 

So these counts as exports, but it's not a dollar for dollar, as some of that income must be spent in Europe to sell the service there. 

Adding for context

I think Trump's initial tariff talk was one of his "thinking out loud moments " that probably shouldn't have been said out loud, on camera,  during a nationally televised interview. Hopefully by now, someone on his team has pointed out 1) How tariffs work, 2) who pays them the tariffs,  and 3) how much money they actually  generate...

My mind is just blown at all of the Americans that think the economy is bad, and gas is expensive.

I just don't get it. We are the economic envy of the entire planet by a HUGE margin and our economy is just insanely good.

To top it off, I made more on my 401Ks last year than I did at my job and my side business, and neither is low paying.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jan/02/brompton-profits-plunge-amid-bike-industry-turmoil

Folding bike brand Brompton in 99% decrease in profit, they made £4K in 2024

Hard times for these guys 

To be fair there's been talk of them folding for years.

👏 

One could say since they started making bikes...

well played!

how you gonna go and get comment of the year on January 2? 🤣

so good!

The year has only just begun, and we might have the post of the year

Has anyone seen how insanely expensive Brompton's are? I'm not surprised they're struggling for buyers

@sspomer Comment of the year awards when?

Screenshot that one..

I would say that most American's think the economy is bad because the top 1% make all the profit while they struggle to make ends meet on crappy wages. Half the US households don't have a 401k. 

Your local bike mechanic doesn’t make enough money to enter a bike race, let alone buy a bicycle.

The stock market isn’t the economy.   The vast majority of americans are living one paycheck away from homelessness, in constant fear of medical debt, with less purchasing power every week due to the financialzation of the economy, stock buy-backs and sheer unregulated greed.

Ymmv, of course.

The median income in the last ranked state (Mississippi) is higher than the median income for the entirety of the UK.

Your problem is lack of social programs, not lack of income. American's are obscenely rich, yet have ~15% poverty rate (from OECD data). 

If you get an international perspective you'd realise how well off the majority of Americans are

Manufacturers shouldn’t be saddled with carrying the burden of a social safety net though- that is a particularly American Problem, and it’s why this thread exists in the first place…  

The American economy is a blind consumption machine based on hope and smoke and mirrors and the fantasy of infinite economic growth 

The underpinnings of the economy are not sound- poor STEM education, horrible educational outcomes per dollar spent, 3rd world healthcare outcomes, historic attacks on family planning, zero affordable housing being built or subsidized, automobile and intermodal-shipping container-centric infrastructure… all Americans pay real social and economic costs for these failures, lost, unrealized gains, if you will, from the poor state of this nation’s infrastructure.

America, is not a serious place.

edit:

also, to be clear, i think More Bicycles could save us all 😉 ⚡️ 🚲 

Is only personal-gain for this one-man-show.  Outward talk of course is actionable change within current economic times, yet is going to prove a long-game for current leaders this Oaf wants to impress.  This is a person who only speaks about himself - every time, all the time.  A penny in his pocket is our 'good' to his blinded eye.

Tariff = Border/Immigration = Greenland/Panama = 'Chyyyyynaaaa(sic)' & Ruskie Merchant Vessel trade routes.  

This long game w/ TV Stars, Vampire-Expert ex NFL players is meant to continue avoidance of continued regulations on the environment in order to open transport through the waters of Greenland.  Absurd, yet this is what it is. 

All for a dollar.  An entirely Tranactional Relationship doomed to fail.

I'm okay with you having an opinion on the Bike Mechanic profession not paying enough. However, factually speaking we are living in golden economic times. I'd suggest a bike mechanic that needs more money, find employment that pays more, as that's a job of passion and discounted bike parts, not economic advancement. It's not just the stock market that has done insanely well (and it's due for a major correction and could easily drop 20+% in 2025). It's exceedingly low unemployment, its high wage growth, even inflation is very good compared to the rest of the 1st world.

And the next time someone says gas is expensive I swear I'm going to punch them in the face. It's absurdly cheap when adjusted for inflation, before even considering that vehicles are 2x more efficient. If you choose to live in a high tax state that taxes your fuel high, that's not high fuel, that's your elected officials. Gas is $2.19/ gallon in Austin right now.

That said, as much as I despise Trump (and I do, he's an Authoritarian felonious POS), there is one thing that he is absolutely correct on (his reasons might be more about racism than lower end wage earners): Unchecked illegal immigration has dramatically lowered wages for low skilled labor. So, in that regard, the political left is decidedly anti-worker/ anti-blue collar/ anti-poor/ anti-minority through their open border policies. Of course, it's also the reason you can buy so many things so cheaply.

When I was a child in the 1980s, lower economic status men and women, often of color, many convicted felons, had good paying prideful work doing landscaping, painting homes, roofing, janitors, maids, childcare, etc. They were often small business owners, paying taxes and hiring employees. These same people sit at home now and collect a welfare check because it pays better than competing against illegal immigrant labor that doesn't pay taxes.

I had a 7 figure semi-custom home built in 2022 through a major builder and my family and I would spend every Saturday checking on the progress of the build. I recall one Saturday we were in and there was a pregnant woman and children sheet rocking a million dollar plus home. How is any American ever going to compete with that and pay taxes, have auto insurance, health insurance and so on? It's not possible.

New construction would of course cost 30% more if employing legal Americans. But then again, there would be a lot more available housing if illegals are removed.

The USA consider to have an illegal immigrants problem because your citizenship and visa system is convoluted and takes an insane amount of time to get through. Canada have a similar issue of worker available for agriculture but instead of relying on undocumented temporary workers that can get exploited by their employers, Canada has a specific legal system in place that guarantee some minimal working conditions, rights and citizenship status so they can have access to services like any other Canadians and also pay income taxes.

i know it's a fine line between relevant discussion about economy and the bike industry in this forum thread and i'm always blown away by how civil everyone is here. i appreciate that! as it's starting to get a bit more general, we have an "off the bike" forum area if you want to talk general global policy, thoughts on immigration etc. - https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/VitalMTB/Off-the-Bike,3

let's keep this one as bike-specific as possible.

Not sure if it was already mentioned, but after canceling an order I found out that German shop Hibike is "in the middle of an insolvency proceedings".

I’ve been getting lots of ads for evil bikes on sale. Some on IG are even some of their quite old frames (straight steerer tubes). Any idea on if they are in trouble?

We've suspected Evil is in trouble for a while, as they haven't released a new bike in god knows how long. 

More info here (in German, you can google-translate it):

https://www.mtb-news.de/news/insolvenzverwaltung-bei-hibike/

At first I though you were talking about Haibike the bike company when I first saw the e-mail... Still, I did do a few purchases with them. On the other hand, lately, nobody gets close to Bike24, Bike-Discount and for some things r2-bike when it comes to German mailorder shops. TradeInn (BikInn arm) has good stock on RS suspension parts, but I'm not sure how Bike-Components still lives given their prices lately...

Curious if anyone has seen or heard anything about Ari (Fezzari). With the rebrand and having to clear old bikes out with the old name and still having pretty decent discount on new badged stuff. Also the new downhill bike. 

Here's what sucks for a company right now.. Let's say Ari didn't get caught up in the covid ordering frenzy and inventory is where they are comfortable. They still have to discount product to avoid losing sales because so many other companies have dropped prices.

That being said, I haven't heard anything regarding their finances. I noticed a while back that the old Fezarri branded bikes didn't seem to have huge numbers available,  but they had some really good deals if your size was available..