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The chef's kiss of this comment is answering the thread title at the end (again).
"Does anyone want me to actually unpack why I disagree with sethimus on this point?"
No. Not now, not ever. We all need to collectively learn our lesson on this one.
I work for a medical-adjacent fortune 50 company. our senior leadership has already started assessing how this is going to have a significant impact on our entire industry and what (if anything) can be done to mitigate the impact (effectively nothing in the short-term).
Yes let's hear why you feel there shouldn't be a return to a more progressive tax structure.
Tell us all about how well trickle down economics has worked out.
we have an "off the bike" forum area if everyone wants to go deeper w/ broader, non-bike topics
https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/VitalMTB/Off-the-Bike,3
I agree with much of what you said. But just remember more than half the country has no college education and a lot of the people with them aren’t exactly stellar job candidates. So I do think it’s important to create those very jobs I completely respect you for not being interested in yourself. But you talk to a lot of people from poorer rural communities and that’s exactly the type of work they are looking for.
I work for a multinational logistics and supply chain management company based out of Central Europe. We had our expectations set that this would be a tough year and projected a further downturn from the industry-wide slowdown in 2024. This was in mid February.
After April 2, there is now a prevailing mood that 2025 might be the worst year for this industry in this century. What's happening now with tariffs doesn't just affect North America. The repercussions of these new US economic policies affect global trade.
Damn! A topic on which I have actual expertise, and Spomer and Jeff (rightly) shut it down.
If everyone will indulge a single post, I think I have a relevant point. Putting aside the cumulative debt and focusing solely on the annual deficit of revenue to expenses, we can't solve the problem by taxing the wealthy or cutting spending. The math doesn't work on either.
Besides demographics, the fundamental problem is that far too few people make enough money to support their families and pay a meaningful amount of tax. The only way to raise enough revenue is to get way, way, way more people making enough money to do those things. We'd all be a lot better off if more focus was placed on solving that question versus the budgetary issues of federal spending and tax.
To the extent having more people making good, "middle-class" money can once again be accomplished by having them make things, large numbers of small bike manufacturers going out of business and the fact good bike mechanics can't make a better wage are examples of things that need to be fixed. Or put another way, this thread is quite relevant to the most fundamental problem.
Of course, tariffs as they are currently being implemented aren't the answer, but that's already been laid out quite well.
There’s a lot of angst in this thread, and for good reason. But I think we need to find a way to tie this back to bikes before it unravels into a Twitter-like cesspool of value debates that will never (ever) work on a screen.
I’ll use my blog (www.jeffbrines.com) to unpack broader ideas like wealth taxes, tariffs, government spending vs. taxation, and other topics that, truthfully, don’t have much to do with bikes. Hell, I may even bring back my podcast as a better way to explore these ideas. It’s easier for me and more digestible for anyone following along (who really wants to read 5,000-word blog posts anyway?).
As for my little app, it’s already at a point where I could release it. It’s simple for now, but I like the idea of tracking the price of a few bike-related products over time. I can handle the scraping, but I’d love input on which parts are worth tracking and where to grab that data (which retailer).
Also curious, social accounts (X or otherwise) you think are worth monitoring against bike stuff? Same goes for Google News alerts: what keywords would you want to keep tabs on?
And while I’m mostly trying to stay focused on bikes, macroeconomic stuff obviously impacts the space. I’m thinking of aggregating a few macro sources into an LLM, letting it do the heavy lift: explain how a given piece of news might affect the cycling world, and compare it to last week’s take. Run it on a cron job once/week.
All thoughts welcome.
Edit: while I'm thinking about it @Primoz - I lost a ton of respect for Ray after the book "The Fund"; fun read for anyone into finance, private funds, and the inner workings of Bridgewater. He's a psycho, he also hasn't outperformed in forever.
Feel like I'm always posting EscapeCollective links here, but to be fair, they are one of the few places paying journalists to research/report on the bike industry in more than a superficial way. They have a piece up on the tariffs: https://escapecollective.com/new-us-tariffs-are-going-to-wreak-havoc-on-the-bike-industry/ It includes quotes from a few small brands, including Esker & Borealis.
Bicycle Retailer is also publishing some good,detailed stories: https://bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2025/04/04/bike-maker-hopes-avert-unexpected-million-dollar-tariff-charge
This thread began in October 2023. Unfortunately, I think that even ~18 months later, the answer to "Will more companies be shutting down in the next 12-24 months?" is still 'Yes.' We started off talking about a largely industry-specific post-COVID slowdown and we've now moved on to tariffs, trade wars, and general macroeconomic instability. It's a good time to learn how to maintain and prolong the life of the bike you're riding now.
As a lifelong bike industry head I have been apprehensive about contributing to this forum topic, despite the conversation quite often being interesting, informed and high level, as it felt morbid to discuss the potential job loss of friends, colleagues and acquaintances. While I don't think I am going to reduce the angst of the thread as I sit here reading industry news early on a Saturday morning after another anxious nights sleep, I will take the opportunity to bring things back around to the bike business. I think this article brings home some of the potential immediate effects of the tariff policy (sorry for linking a competitors "news" site). https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2025/04/04/bike-maker-hopes-avert-unexpected-million-dollar-tariff-charge and while specific to bikes points to why this will have huge up and downstream implications to the global economy.
Some things that stood out to me
The immediate cost associated with paying the new tariffs could not have been budgeted in ahead of time and for an industry already struggling with low to negative margins on sale product it is unclear to me where the additional cash comes from.
“Our customs broker normally gives us terms (on duties), but that’s for $20,000 or $30,000. Not $1 million,”
It should not be understated how important terms are in the bike industry and terms on importation expenditures is something that would generally fly under the radar. It seems likely that the required outlay of cash to get things in country is going to present serious issues and may lead to product sitting at port or, as noted in the article, diverted to other markets. Tern is a relatively small brand in the US. Imagine what the increase in landing costs of a boat full of new Levos would look like. Diversion to other markets will be limited given the size of the US vs. Mexico and Canada and comes with additional unplanned for costs and logistical complications
With this being the third article that I have read this week referencing brands asking factories to hold orders or putting all new product on hold for the immediate future (Is Borealis slow closing?) factories are going to come under pressure. The business is not setup for them to warehouse product and in many cases, especially where terms come into play, the smooth flow of goods from the factory to the end user is essential to their viability. There is nothing smooth about product earmarked for the US sitting in a warehouse in Vietnam. It also should be noted that while I have read a few articles about efforts to move some level of future production to US most of the talk is looking to places like Portugal or Eastern Europe where there is established facilities to support the business. This speaks to the reality of having to build something from scratch vs. the best worst established option.
I have so much to say about this topic that its coming out in hopefully semi-coherent bursts but for now I need another coffee and a moment of Zen.
Apologies for being derivative with the Retailer link, I was knee deep contemplating new layers and missed your post.
All good. You added some good insights.
Allow me to express my enthusiastic support for not debating tax rates here.
One of my favorite things about this thread is that we have people from all sides of the political spectrum talking about politics at a very deep level by mostly staying out of the incendiary stuff- tax rates, redistribution, economic philosophy, etc, the stuff that Jeff described as "value debates that will never (ever) work on a screen." If we can stay focused on the economic factors that directly impact the bike industry, I hope we can continue having this wonderful and productive conversation across our differences.
Also, that million dollar suprise tariff article in BRAIN is wild to read. Like Sophie's Choice.
Is there a ballpark number of added costs per container of bikes that would be imported through Mexico / Canada and how would it affect the retail price? This seems like a most straightforward way to deal with the problem (I understand that with the pace things change right now it might not work or be feasible for long).
I mean, when nordic countries banned the exports of their salmon to Russia, supermarket shelves in Moscow were suddenly filled with the salmon from one country well known of their fisheries, seas and clear streams - Belarus. Of course it was more expensive, though.
Unfortunately tariffs apply to the country of manufacture and not where they were imported through. So a Chinese good coming through MX will be roughly the same as through Long Beach. There may be the potential to setup assembly in another country like MX but you would need to have “substantial transformation” “which occurs when the product gains a new name, character, or use” according to a very quick google of US customs rules.
*This would likely apply to a bicycle that goes through the frame up assembly process including paint. But then you would have to weigh the added costs associated with this process VS. waiting out a change in US economic policy.
Can confirm, previous to the new tariffs, bikes coming into Canada that were produced and packed in other countries than the US were not subject to tariffs, as they were just warehoused in the us. But as soon as they were painted or packed such as Project 1 Trek, they're subject to tariffs. Trek actually offered to offset the extra costs for Canadian dealers for this bikes, but now with the tariff being charged as it comes into the US i think everything's getting hit, sometimes more than once.
There is a difference between trade restriction like European countries not selling fish to Russia and import duties (tariffs, custom taxes whatever you wanna call it).
With trade restrictions, yes second market are used to avoid such restrictions. In the case you mentioned, Belarus could buy the fish from Europe and then resell it to Russia since Belarus doesn't have the trade restrictions with Russia. This is also how Iran purchase most of their restricted goods through second market. China is doing the same currently with NVIDIA AI GPU.
With import duties, trades of good is not restricted just costlier. WTO has a most favored nation clauses that companies can request upon custom clearance that would apply an averaged global import duties for a specific HS code instead of the country of origin normal duty but I have no idea if this can still apply with trump tariffs.
As for added cost, here a quick example that should give a rough idea:
Most commonly used container are 40ft, they usually holds 20 skids. Assuming you can put 12 boxed complete bike on a single skid (6 wide by 2 high) that would mean a 40ft container have around 240 bikes. Let's say they are relatively high end bike and have a 3k unit cost that the assembler is invoicing the bike company. So that container has a value of 720 000$.
If that container is coming from mainland China, previous duty on regular adult bikes was 54% (trump bumped the regular duty during his first term and Biden raised it also during his term). Now the complete import duty with April 2nd tariffs is 94%.
So from 388 800$ in duty pre April 2nd to 676 800$ so a 288 000$ net increase.
If that container is coming from Vietnam or Taiwan, previous import duty was 11%, post April 2nd it is now 57% and 43% respectively.
So from 79 200$ in duty pre april 2nd to 410 400$ or a 331 200$ net increase for Vietnam
From 79 200$ in duty pre April 2nd to 309 600$ or a 230 400$ net increase for Taiwan.
And that is for a single 40ft container.
Unfortunately, they have already been dealing with this.. Chinese companies were setting up shop in Mexico and assembling products made with Chinese parts to try and side step the tariffs on Chinese goods by saying "Made in Mexico ". Didn't take long for customs to figure out that game...
Anyone has numbers on how much % of the world bike market is the US? I somewhere read they sell about as many bikes in the US as in Germany, so how important is the US market in total?
I tried to check in Giant public financial reports but there is like 20 Giant subsidiaries that sells to each other so a mess to consolidate full numbers for USA vs EU.
Shimano public financial reports are easier to read:
https://contents.xj-storage.jp/xcontents/AS02673/b86e89fb/6eae/49e7/b21e/ca5e2f795c95/140120250207567352.pdf
Page 17 has the info that is relevant to the discussion. There is one caveat to take into consideration is that Shimano Asia number includes sales to OEM assembler that then sells complete bike to USA & Europe. Europe has a bit more local assembly but still a good chunk of their sales is aftermarket and services sales. That is even more true for Shimano NA.
Complete Europe market is atleast 3x time the size of NA market.
Estimates from what I’ve seen seem to range from around 8-13% in dollars and 14-15% in units.
The balance of those numbers isn't what I expected. So Walmart sells more bikes than I thought?
Taiwan caved. UK Caved. EU will cave because Italy isn't on board. Chess not checkers. Bike brands will fail. But it's not because of a trade war. It's because their investors bailed. Enjoy the show.
Wow, a rare tariff supporter on the vital forums.
I think it is actually an OK view to have, if you don't want global trade and the benefits that come with it, that's fine. Just be prepared to accept lower quality, more expensive goods, and worse work for the average person because now you need to man the manufacturing and textile plants yourselves.
FWIW I don't read this as supporting tarrifs (@SteveClimber), but on the other hand, how do you cave when another country applies tarrifs on your products? What can you even do?
Not only Walmart but also Dick Sporting goods, REI, etc. But Europe also has equivalent retailers for the low-end. What helps Europe for the Cost per Unit is probably the cargo bike and e-bike (they were 3-4 year easily earlier than NA on e-bike adoption)
Considering the market opened down 6% I feel its probably a good idea for me to release this little app. Its a good place to watch how the publicly traded companies in the bike, outdoor, powersports or "outdoor adjacent" space are performing through this shit show. Few thoughts...
URL: www.otherhours.com
-The name isn't great. I just had that domain so I used it.
-All quotes are delayed; I am using the Yahoo Finance dataset which isn't great (but is free). I'm also using FRED for the CPI/yield stuff. I would not rely on this to trade or anything, but it should be accurate enough to see big picture trends. I will add charting ability shortly.
-The news feature is what I'll be working on this week. As it stands its terrible, but I have a vision for it that'll be useful (if I can pull it off). Considering this is just for fun/playing around I don't know how much time I'll really put into it. If I do this right it'll aggregate all the business news appropriately alongside all the PRs from the publicly traded companies, SEC filings (if we want that) and even some social stuff and allow for an admin to "keep", "delete" or "spotlight" certain stuff. Its a big lift, but I really want it to work.
-I'd like to put an earnings calendar together for these companies/ major economic events so everyone can pay attention as needed.
-I have a lot of scraping work to do if I am going to track pricing, but I still don't know what product (or products) makes the most sense and where I should scrape pricing from.
-Once to a place I really like it I'll add newsletter functionality; IE, an LLM summarizes what happened at the end of every week and sends you a nice email so you can check it out. (or month) - When I have time I'll add my $0.02, too.
EDIT: If you get a 502 error; refresh or reload. I have this on a pretty limited compute environment at the moment. I'll improve this soon, too.
The Tariffs are a negotiation tool. The admin wants even trade not lopsided. By adding tariffs. we are bringing these countries to the tabel to get the tariffs they have on us removed. AKA they caved in the negotiation. They are willing to concede and remove their tariffs in trade to get the ones Trump put on them taken off.
In the meantime, I have an incoming factory order of a couple thousand mtb pants that are going to be hit with an additional 26% tariff, for 53.9% total import tax. India. That would be all fine and good, if:
1: I thought consumers would be wiling to pay 26% more. LOL.
2: Tariffs would hold at 53.9%. They won't, so I'll be in a permanent hole on this year's inventory. These import taxes will roll away within a few months.
Businesses need a predictable environment in which to operate. If I knew the tariffs would actually be permanent and fair to businesses placing orders right now, I could navigate higher import taxes. But I'm going to eat this, and as a tiny company in an industry that's already eating itself alive, that's a daunting prospect.
Let's be real here, high-labor (lots of seams and zippers) apparel production will never come back to the USA or any other high income country. No one wants repetitive hand production jobs. Kitsbow tried and failed, and even NF is now producing most of their stuff overseas. When I launched Abit Gear I tried domestic production. No good factories would take new orders, they couldn't hire enough staff to maintain existing customers, mostly military. Even if I found a domestic factory I'd have to sell the shorts for $230 instead of the current $120.
But again, this is all just academic. The tariffs won't hold, we all know this. Those of us with incoming orders right now are getting screwed. Big, well capitalized companies will be fine, they have the financial reserves to take a temporary hit. Small businesses on a growth path are getting slaughtered. Fun times.
USA just added an additional 50% tariff on China effective April 9th just to add a little bit more pain and uncertainty to the story.
20% initial tariff + 34% reciprocal tariff + 50% retaliatory tariff on China's retaliation = 104%
The short term pain is going to be pretty painful I guess ?
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