The Bikeconomics (Mega)Thread

Are you referring to ridership or sales? Curious if you're saying that you see way more cars at the trailhead since pre-Covid times (inarguable), or whether you're saying you're observing larger amounts of Shimano aftermarket product sales after Covid.

Because while they're related, they're not linked 1:1.

There is that other thread mentioning Norco possibly ending Optic line. I do live in PNW and I did not see a single newer (2023+) Norco bike yet. I probably have seen more Raaw bikes on the trails at this point. So I wonder what’s their market (definitely not EU) and how well they are doing. 

It's probably pretty dealer dependent, there's some pretty hard-hitting Norco dealers within a few hours' drive of me. I see no shortage of this- and previous-gen Sights (and a fair complement of Norco EEBS) at the bike park but I've seen exactly three new optics in the wild:

One under a Norco employee.

One under a shop owner.

One under that same shop's employee.

Both model years of Gen 3 optics are available in nearly every size judging by Norco's click and collect program. Less so in Sight but probably still more than one would want in August. Folks are now saying in that thread Norco is leaning harder into the EEBs and I guess more power to em', I hope that works out - that DH team can't be cheap right now. 

Looks like they are opening an Australia office: Norco Goes Direct To Dealer In Australia | Bicycle Retailer and Industry News

So perhaps that is a market that is strong for them? 

Shimano sales. 

I definitely wouldn’t expect a 1:1 increase but to say there is not an increase in sales with that many more riders out there is surprising. Anecdotally, I know two Covid-new riders who upgraded their brakes to shimano. 

But I guess shimano fell way behind on drivetrain hype so they maybe lost oem as well as aftermarket drive trains sales during that same time. 

Good times 

The YT Industries restructuring in Germany exposes Taiwan bike makers Ideal and Kenstone to loss risks.

https://www.bicycleretailer.com/international/2025/08/14/strong-taiwan-…

Up in Canada-land, I have seen a number of new HP Sights around the eastern Alberta Rockies say ~7-8 of 'em, and ride with a couple of folks that own the higher end ones, but nothing in qty. like years past Horst link models. I almost bought a new C1 160 MX until I found a deal on a nice WAO Arrival. It doesn't help when the mid-size bike shop in my neighborhood still has 2023 Sights on the floor, and the sales guy eyes glaze over when I ask about the HP version.

I think HP was the wrong move for the Optic - that travel range trail bike crowd still cares a ton about weight.

IMO - I think That travel range or the bike category the optic is in, Often Draws more newer riders/kids etc and ALOT of people view HP as a long travel bike built for the more gnarly MTB places and i believe those same people dont actually think about what a bike weighs When they "just want a Mountainbike"
 

The revolver is also pretty dang close to that original optic at this point.  Just needs a full 27.5 version.  

https://www.instagram.com/the_yt_mill_sanclemente/reel/DNa-wLNRhMc/ 

Oh... I heard YT SoCal was doing a 'garage sale'. This is actually pretty common for them, basically outlet/clearance level sales like ~50% stuff that is only sold in person as 'final sale'. Blah blah. That said, I didn't quite expect THIS. What they just showed on social media. That's... Different. I understand they are clearing old stock... But that waves a lot of red flags. I dunno. Would like to hear other opinions.

Again, probably not that unusual. They have tons of outlet clearance on the website at any given time and are already known for doing parking lot sales. This is just the biggest combination of those ever seen. It just... Places an elephant in the room for me. Whadya think?

Back in the day, before they sold to PON, Santa Cruz used to do parking lot sales and I picked up one of my first mountain bike frames that way.

I imagine that is what it looked like at SC and I think places like Jenson used to do them but when you are battling restructuring and leaving people in the lurch as a result it seems kind of...seedy/desperate/not a great look in my humble opinion.

Huckster type behavior you would see from a carny vibe.

I’d buy an ultra discount yt.  Worst comes to worst it’s cheap parts for a frame from a more reputable company.

This is unironically how I approached my Jeffsy build. Just looked at the specs and I was like... I could swap this entire thing on to a Stumpy15 frame (or any other 210x55 mullet with 150mm up front, nearly the most common build).

I mean the secondhand bikes I was looking at were around the same price, for a similar spec. I'd have still paid more for a modern-ish Santa Cruz with similar part spec.

My GF is the one who rolled the dice getting an ebike. But even those parts would be SICK on another frame, just not sure what it would be.

I'm just waiting to see what impact your YT review of the Podium has on the next quarter's figures. 🤣

Pretty spectacular Feb, but the rest of that looks pretty damn painful.
I wonder what happened in February to get that result?

If anything surprised Giant isn't falling off harder, but I don't have a good finger on the pulse of their non-MTB efforts. I'm assuming within their total operation (including non-Giant products, right?)... Their outright Giant MTBs are probably a small slice of the pie.

That saaiid, if they take a similar approach to their other sectors as they do MTB/eMTB, it's not hard to imagine why they could be falling behind other companies. Literally like 5+ year frame design cycles. I feel like they only released a mullet bike recently, and of course the industry has already moved on to bikes that can 'do both' via chip flippin.

The motor supplier they shacked up with shit the bed. Which is another point I'm not sure if they've clarified what they do going forward. Which motor they use. But that wasn't great even though the motor itself had an 'ok' reputation. Being the best value bike shop brand can only go so far, I reckon. When your products seem to feel ~5 years outdated no matter what. They release products outdated, more or less. It's weird.

They might be one of the hardest companies to understand, at every level. Cuz I don't understand some of their bike decisions, it feels like they barely market their race teams (despite seemingly investing faithfully into it), and their company is a global bicycle monster... But you seemingly wouldn't know it by asking enthusiasts. Maybe they are the Toyota of MTB... (or are they Kia...)

Giant seems to be the biggest ship that moves the slowest.. Solid bikes, but like you pointed out, they are usually a step behind what everyone else is doing..

As for Yamaha, as I understand it, they are still making motors, they just pulled out of the complete bike market,  at least here in the US..  But, going off the couple of bikes I saw in person, they were lacking any sort of wow factor.. The motors actually weren't bad..

I know Giant builds a lot of bikes for a lot of other companies,  but as I understand it, they do look at the bike building separately from the bike brand..

I guess it could be seen as a bit of a double whammy for them.. Not only are they dealing with their own brand not selling well, like a lot of companies,  but they have a lot of companies that also owe them money..

Is there a way to find out who Giant and other frame manufacturers actually make bikes for?

Jeff calls out a few of the companies in his blog post that goes into more details.. Definitely worth a read.. Getting an exact and all inclusive list might be a bit difficult..  

Might also be a moving target, even more so in this day and age of bankrupcies... 

LOL my apologies.
I failed to click thru to your blog post.
Ahem.... Clicking through will occur from now on! 

Just a note on Giant manufacturing bikes for other brands - they don't necessarily make all of a brand's bikes. IIRC, Giant made Trek's low end aluminum bikes (like kids bikes, entry level hybrids) but not their mid-high level frames (like the aluminum Fuel or Slash, or aluminum Domane road bike). Other brands may not be the same and could have their whole fleet made by Giant.

That does pose an interesting thought, since I would assume that Giant is over-leveraged in entry level bikes (vs high end or eBikes). Is that part of the reason for the slip in profitability? I think it's been mentioned before but a squeeze in cost of living impacts those making less money more than others, which would theoretically be the market for an entry level bike. These bikes also typically have less margin so volume is the path to profitability there which is a problem now.

I became more interested in all of this business talk and then realized I have access to some forecasting/analytics data at work so did some digging and found some interesting things. These are all global projections from 2024 so could very well be wrong at this point. It's also global bike market stuff so not just enthusiast bikes or mountain bikes.

As has been seen in other posts, the European market is larger than all other markets combined or thereabouts; I knew it was bigger but that seems wild to me.

Total bike sales are predicted to drop and not plateau until 2027. However, with the average price of a bike going up net revenue should stay similar (maybe this point will be wrong). In Europe the average bike purchase is much more than the Americas (€1100 vs $550), but still expected to increase by ~10% by the end of the decade.

I know we know this, but I was shocked at how much smaller the eBike market is in the Americas vs Europe: 2% vs 24% of all sales. They do expect the market to increase, but only to 5% in America's vs 50%+ in Europe (apparently Germany is already there and they expect 70%). This probably explains the price difference mentioned above.

It's expected that 'regular bike' sales will decline ~5-10% into 2030, but this will be balanced by an increase in eBike sales. The only market that will see a slight increase in regular bike sales is North America, and it's a small (2-5%) increase.

The issue with cycling in America is there is almost no quality infrastructure for it in vast majority of places.  I could easily physically bike to work on regular bike.  Could easily commute to any job I had in last 10 years on e-bike physically.  There is even a bike trail for most of the distance.  But the short sections from my home to the trail and the trail to work are so dangerous I’d never consider it for full time commuting.  Even in Portland Oregon where there was somewhat decent investment in bike infrastructure I got hit 3 times in greenways and bike lanes.  

I am super lucky that my neighborhood happens to back up to my local mtb trail head though.  Most people have to drive to it even if they live very close.  But it would take a huge investment and a ton of quality planning for cycling to become feasible for commuting.  Which would be exactly the motivation for me to personally want an e-bike.  And i imagine someone like my mom may be interested in a e-bike if her cycling was less about getting some exercise on the bike trail and more about getting some exercise while safely adventuring to all the places to drive to around here.

American cities focus more on moving cars and less on moving people...

pff who needs bike infrastructure if you can have freedom instead?