The Bikeconomics (Mega)Thread

In Australia at least the Trek stores aren't real local bike shops. They are 'Trek shops' and stock only trek and bontrager with a handful of other accessories. Even then they dont stock at lot of small trek items and it can take quite some time to order parts in. It's not even worth ordering in anything that isn't Trek or Bontrager. 

I bought a Gen 6 Slash at a very big trek store in Australia around 12months after it came out and they had released updated parts and service bulletins to fix the chain dropping issues. None of it had been updated or fixed on my bike and I had a few chain drops before I sorted it out by chasing everyone around at Trek. The chain wasnt set to the right length for AXS TType , new upper pulley wheel wasn't installed, and the lower pulley wheel guide not installed either. It's now 12 months later and all their floor stock is original Slash without any of the service bulletin kit installed. 

I also cant understand why the high end Trek bikes are so much more expensive than the mid level stuff. You end up paying way more for it than buying parts individually and building up a frame. 

 

And again, I'm shocked trek didn't think of downside risks of a slowdown. 

They've acquired stores and drastically cut their offerings and servicing departments, limiting sales potential and then, in what must a surprise to them, sales have cratered. 

Hope they can sort it out. The bikes have been amazing last 4-5 years when they finally moved away from knock block. Some of the best in each category. 

They also were one of the last to really start discounting bikes.  I was thinking about getting an older slash (non high pivot) and instead of discounting it they were selling it at full price and even made a “limited” build spec well after the new one came out.  Well after the covid boom was clearly fading.  

I know a lot of “premium” brands really try to avoid discounting.  Especially shortly after a big boom where they couldn’t keep product.  But had they been much quicker to act they would’ve sold a lot more bikes before the music stopped.

Some observations from the Australian market.  A lot of these seem to be in line with the industry's general problems right now, and specific problems publically acknowledged by some brands, but I wonder if there's more to it considering the small size of the ANZ market.

Norco was, until recently, carried by national chain 99 Bikes.  I'm interested to know which party ended that agreement.

Canyon appears to have dramatically cut back its presence here.  Its local "outlet" website no longer exists (I seem to recall either someone telling me or reading somewhere that this was going to happen), while the entire MTB range has been cut back to a only seven discrete combinations of model and spec.  There's one alloy Spectral, one carbon Spectral and one alloy Neuron, for instance.  The Strive and Lux are gone entirely.

Scott's model range has been significantly reduced and the cheaper models are being cleared out by whatever retailers remain (my LBS and numerous others abandoned Scott a few years ago because of poor sales of the current range).

Trek now lists only a single full suspension model in a spec lower than "8" (generally the top alloy spec); the Fuel EX 5.  Lower margin meat bikes are no longer worth the floorspace?

No obvious changes at Giant and Specialized.  Almost everything else that isn't D2C is considered "boutique" here and is probably relatively unaffected.

Edit (Feb '26): Rocky Mountain doesn't appear to be sending the Altitude (or its electric counterpart) to Australia any more either.  The relevant product pages on bikes.com/en-au come up "This collection is empty".

The Canyon range is a strange one, especially considering they ship the bikes from Germany so having a limited range is counter intuitive. The Australian team lost some of their Melbourne based staff so they weren't immune to the layoffs. Maybe they are looking at pulling out of the smaller markets for the time being.

Norco was distributed in Australia by Advanced Traders which is 99 Bikes sister company both subsidiaries of Pedal Group, which are backed by ASX-listed Flight Centre. In 2025 Norco took over the brand in Australia and are running it as a subsidiary with much the same team as when it was distributed by AT.

Side note, in mid 2025 the Pedal Group hired advisory firm Grant Samuel who is reviewing the sale of Pedal Group, which was closely followed by Pedal Group selling eight 99 Bikes store locations (staying on as tenant). 

 

Interesting, I can only imagine that the choice to manage Norco Aus themselves, and not continue being stocked at 99 was due to 99 bikes quality of customer service and mechanical knowledge being EXTREMELY hit or miss (mostly miss in my experience). I purchased a 2023 C2 shimano optic on runout for a great price ($4k AUD), which I absolutely love, and would definitely consider purchasing another Norco, but my experience buying it from 99 Bikes was anything but smooth.

Hoses being absurdly long, then when I get them to trim them, they cut them slightly too short (not deal-breakingly short, but certainly offensive to my eyeballs short) and performed what I can only describe as "the worst brake bleed of all time", again, no dramas I can bleed a brake myself, but they also covered the pads in oil. 

I can certainly imagine that as Norco tries to position themselves as a more premium brand, they want to place their bikes in places which have good reputations. Unfortunately, those shops appear to be all but gone. Nearly every local bike shop that I trust has disappeared in the last 3 years.

Maybe the fact you could trust them was their undoing? I.e. They cared too much and were not competitive wrenching wise, taking too much time to fix bikes given the prices they charged for the work. Did good work but work nobody would be prepared to pay for all of it on the market? 

(I'm just coming off doing a full overhaul of my lady's parents bikes and they needed a lot of love, love that I cannot imagine would be given in any bike shop - lots of loose bolts, dirty parts, etc. And even from before I can't imagine a bike shop cleaning out the pivot bore hole to remove all the old grease and crud, I imagine bikes have to be dealt with quickly to keep the billings up. I never worked in a bike shop though so I have no experience in that regard) 

I think as a result of that, at least around here, the good dedicated bike mechanics tend to work out of their own garages, and they can give each job the time and attention it deserves.  Edit: They are, of course, pretty expensive as a consequence.

You cannot make a living wrenching on bikes because it is so badly paid. You cannot afford bikes because they become so expensive. You cannot keep'em working in the long run because it makes very little economic sense.

It's pretty effed up really

Idk, people on the used market can hardly pay you to take their bike. It is not all over.

People don't wrench on their bikes anymore?

Good second hand bikes are awesome and (non ham-fisted) people wrenching in their own bikes even better! But we are talking the bike industry here I supposse.

This got published today by shimano europe: bike service as a hidden barrier to participation (among other things)

https://bike.shimano.com/stories/article/state-of-the-nation-2026.html

Shimano boasting about "Improving access to maintenance" while not offering spare parts for servicing their brakes or drivetrain is a quality chutzpah.
 

I think they're talking about increasing the number of countries in which Shimano has distribution - where access is improved by it now being possible to buy a replacement brake where even that may have been challenging before.

Access to small replacement parts is a first world problem by comparison.

As a mechanic, I often wonder about our survivorship bias in the store. We obviously meet customers who turn away when we quote how much is going to be involved with repairing their bike, but there's a whole fleet of people who never step foot in our door, either deciding based upon online quotes on labour and parts, or trying their hand at it themselves and not knowing what parts need to be replaced, and more or less giving up prior to actually knowing what's going on.

Around here bikes have more than a bit of a reputation for being toys. If your walmart ride needs labour, you just buy a new one and move on. Bikes are seen as a juvenile stepping stone that our youth uses prior to getting their first car, and is immediately ditched afterwards. We often get co-op kids in highschool applying and they have no desire to continue cycling the second they can afford their first car. It's been a struggle to appeal to actual cyclists. 

My point is; I wonder how much of this is just a lack of perspective of what things actually cost, how much labour costs, vs not seeing the value of a "toy" getting said investments, even if the payoff of good exercise and cheaper transport would eclipse the price of repair and maintenance. 

How do we go about convincing the public that your bike is worth doing $200 worth of work once every year or so? How do we convince people to purchase a bike that is both worth maintaining, and can be maintained with ease. I understand our woes in this area do not migrate to every area, but it's what I've seen. 

Also super agree with the Shimano not offering parts point. Look at Sram's ecosystem for the T-type stuff. You can really mix and match parts and keep your derailleur, for example, running. Shimano does not seem to offer anything similarly comprehensive in terms of repair parts. Will we see this eventually butt heads with right-to-repair regulations? 

Yeah, this is definitely something that I have thought about quite a bit lately. The fact that it often costs more to service a mountain bike than a car... Since realistically the major costs involved are labour costs, which are likely to be similar to that of a car workshop. For the average joe, who has either just gotten into riding, and doesn't want to know the first thing about fixing bikes, this is a major problem. It is very difficult to see the value in spending $1000 getting your $4000 bike serviced, when your $70,000 Ute costs you $350 for a service.

Now, obviously as someone who worked in the industry for a number of years, I understand the costs involved in performing a major service on a bike, and so I can see the value. (I also just do my own work for this reason though...) But for the layman, that is a hard sell. I'm quite unsure how the market for these things is in other countries, but I struggle to see why it would be any different. This tends to result in the average un-mechanically minded person not getting their bike serviced frequently enough, or at all, resulting in an absolutely clapped bike which rides like shit and is ready for the scrap heap after two years. Or they come back into a shop after two years, and are even more shocked when the price to fix all the issues is multiple thousands of dollars.

I'm rambling, and don't have a good solution for this problem, but I really do believe it is a problem that the bike industry needs to solve long term as it pushes the fringe market away from the sport. People who are in it, and get it, are not affected. But people who try the sport, maybe buy themselves a nice bike, they might not buy a second one, they might just find a new sport to fill their precious leisure time with, one that doesn't involve servicing costs greater than their cars.

Nails and heads or something.

Plus it's weird Shimano chose a picture that was so very obviously taken in Canada to feature in their European state of the nation post. 

What's funny is that in all my time as a mechanic, I have very rarely had people decline repairs after giving them the cost estimate, I honestly can't remember a specific time they've done that. The closest thing I can remember is people opting for less intensive services, like not having the damper in their fork serviced and bled but still getting the lowers done. It could just be our customer base is more willing to get the service done despite the cost, I'm not sure, but it's been surprising to me. 

I think you’ll find the ‘Canadian Tuxedo’ in Copenhagen, Paris and Milan just as often as on Canadian streets 

I wonder if that's a city vs. rural attitude and your customers are different in Laramie. My two cents is that people who live closer to the land seem to be more in the habit of repairing things as opposed to replacing, owning vs. renting, etc. I wonder if you're seeing customers who are more inclined to pay for necessary repairs, and who more fully appreciate the necessity of repairs in the first place.

Hello! I admit I have seen the ”Shimano Reports Bike Maintenance a Hidden Barrier to Participation” title on the home page and I got curious. I didn't read the entire thing, nor did I read all the comments here, as I don't have time right now (but I will make some time to read), so excuse me, but I feel the urge to say something.

From my understanding, Shimano is whining that in Europe people are cycling less, because bike maintenance is hindering them. Did I understand right? If yes, than I find Shimano to be at least a bit hypocritical. And it's not only Shimano in this discussion, but pretty much all the bigger companies in the industry, who are leading the way. You want to make maintenance more accessible to normal people, so they can cycle more? Then make the damn thing easier for everybody and offer proper tips on how to repair things; don't drive everything to obsolescence! Because bicycles that are easier fixed means that more people are riding bikes and less things get thrown away, ergo healthier people and less pressure on the environment. But you need to fucking WANT that to happen, not just release surveys and talk the talk. Walk it too!

It makes me honestly mad that all the damn aftermarket products come with an extensive brochure than nobody reads but still gets printed and with good quality cardboard in excessive size that could have been a children's book. Up yours only for that, Shimano!

But they (and every other company) could do another, more positive, thing: upload YouTube videos on how to fix your shit OFFICIALY. I don't care you're gonna MAYBE have some lawsuits out of this. If everybody who has a Shimano caliper is trying to find a broken one to retrieve some pistons that are still working, maybe there is a writing on the wall! Fox? How about you sell some parts and some tools, so that people can service their suspension at home. Yeah-yeah, I know, ”liability” and we can't do a proper job like a trained mechanic, but if RockShox can do it, I bet your ass, so do you! I won't even get to standards here, really, but I can't help thinking how Shimano 9 speed derailleurs and shifters had the same pull ratio as 8 and 7 speed ones, but 10 and 11 got another one and 12 is yet another one. This doesn't have anything to do with the present discussion? Think again! Oh, and SRAM is very guilty of this lacking compatibility too!

Main point: make shit MORE serviceable and more compatible.

I need to also tell you where I am coming from, both literally and as a mindset: I live in Romania, Transylvania. My city is one of the bigger ones and we have very good bike shops here. Actually, our best shop is probably better stocked than a lot of shops in the West. But the rest of the country is poor and even in the big cities things haven't always been good when it comes to bikes, parts and accessibility. I vividly remember how in the late 90's we had no proper shop here, so I had to go 200 km to another city, just to see some parts. Why is this lack of product relevant? You have to improvise. And when you have to improvise, compatibility and fixability helps a ton. 

One of the things that we do these last couple of years is fixing bikes for kids. People donate bikes to us, bikes that are broken or forgotten, we fix them and we give them away, mostly to kids in the rural area who could never ever afford bikes. Because bikes are game changers and the can really change one's life for the better. We try to give them basic tools and spare parts too and sometimes we find somebody who can fix them locally; it is up to the resources we have for the moment. In Romanian we have a saying that goes ”să faci din căcat bici și să mai și pocnească”, meaning literally ”to make a whip out of shit and to make it sound too”, meaning making something impossible work. You'd be amazed at what kind of bikes and in what sorry state we worked on and how we managed to fix them, a lot times with improvisation. And this is where things come full circle: if companies made their product more fixable and more compatible, everybody would be better off. I am not absurd, not everything needs to be compatible with everything, but damn do we need some common sense!

Hey, industry, please make your shit easier to fix and support your customers! Thanks!

Sorry not sorry for the rant and maybe too long post!

Love,
Mx

⬆️ This, just this!  

Of course, shimano is doing the usual shimano thing...

I remember how, for many years, in order to work with shimano in my country if you have a shop, they (hey, the distributor at that moment) force a huge annual purchase, and they didn't even let you choose at least the parts! They are the kings then, now they are loosing ground FAST. 

The low end/utilitarian market is still largely controlled by Shimano, so now they are concerned about repairability right? Yeah...

 The fundamental challenge of bikes is that they are a complex, relatively low cost  LUXURY toy. They are low cost in the luxury toy world. Because they are relatively low cost compare to other luxury toys, we ignore the fact they are luxury items and have associated luxury toy costs. The maintenance costs are nowhere near as expensive as comparative luxury toys. We can’t compare a 10k bike to a Toyota Camry, its comparison is a McLaren. Or at least a high end Audi. And every luxury car owner will tell you upfront cost of the car isn’t the main expense, maintenance is. We aren’t riding bikes that can go 5000 miles between oil changes and 60000 before the suspension gets replaced. We’re riding luxury items that need maintenance almost every time they get used.

So the guy who saves his coin and buys a $4000 bike thinks it shouldn’t be much to maintain. But if that bike was a car, it’d be a high end Mercedes. No one considers that. 

My main ride would probably have cost $8k at retail. I’ve never counted but I bet if I wasn’t doing 90% of the labor I’dspend $2k -3k a year on it. Yikes. 

If you take time to think about what goes into it all, our bikes and parts are a helluva bargain. That Madrone derailleur Iceman just reviewed is $300. It looks like high end aluminum jewelry. They managed to design, engineer, build and sell a low volume fancy item for a mere $300? Looking at that thing suggests it should cost a lot more. But in our world $300 is a large pill to swallow. 

I understand that as a business, bike shops make money primarily on labor, so they need to be able to sell service and maintenance to people. And I want to support local shops, but the problem in lies that doing your own work is part of the experience of mountain biking, and it saves money. Some of my friends' favorite memories are the times our buddy did a full dropper rebuild in the rain in a parking lot, or just drinking beers in the basement putting a new drivetrain on. I have literally done every bit of work on my own bike, except for a 200 hr fork service, and a starnut install when it pulled out in the middle of an enduro race and I didn't have a spare. 

This is inherently a mechanical sport, and as in any hobby, a lot of people get fully involved with every aspect of it, including service. People who don't want to wrench on their stuff as part of their hobby tend to gravitate towards less mechanical sports, like trail running, skateboarding, etc. For the people starting out, telling them they need to pay $100/hr for the smallest bit of maintenance will probably give pause and make all but the most financially sound people choose a cheaper sport. Biking is just straight up expensive, and even more so if you don't like working on your own bike. 

It also differs from working on a car in two distinct ways: 1) Bikes are simpler and you can easily tell what everything does, so it is easier to work on with just a few tools. 2) Bikes are a luxury for most people (excluding commuters and main method of transportation), whereas cars are a necessity. If you're low on money, you can wait to fix a bike. You can try fixing it yourself with low consequence, because if you strip a bolt, just buy a new one and the downtime doesn't threaten your livelihood like a broken car would. 

Bike shops are like restaurants. You only go there instead of doing it at home when you have extra money to spare, when you're traveling without the things you need to do it yourself, or when you want something complicated done that you lack the skills for. 

Bicycles only appear to be luxury toys because of the way high end bikes are marketed.

All bicycles are incredibly simple to work on(hence why bike mechanics get paid sub-living wages) and essentially last forever with the most basic maintenance(hence why the bike industry has shifted so heavily to rapid “obsolescence” in a effort to show growth on year over year P+L’s )

A 30 year old bicycle and a brand new bicycle use different interface standards and tools- but a 30 year old bike and a 50 year old bike are both absolutely fine transportation or recreation for 90% of users, which is what bicycles are predominantly used for- getting to work, shopping or occasionally getting some exercise.  

The bicycle industry is eating itself- and it will continue to eat itself-  but bikes aren’t super cars.   

Any child with 6th grade reading abilities can perform any conceivable service, as long as they have decent lighting, a workbench and the right tools.  Let’s not pretend that just because a bike costs $12,000 it’s fancy…  It’s still a bicycle, the simplest and most efficient form of transportation on the planet.

And yes, ebikes are certainly more complicated than real bicycles- but once again, if you teach a child how to use a multi-meter and read wiring diagrams… there’s nothing to it, except time.  Nobody values the labor of bicycle technicians in any way that the time aspect really matters though.

As the industry continues to collapse there will be more and more ebikes that are bricked and unusable as proprietary parts evaporate… that’s the only change I’ve seen in 36 years obsessed with product… packaging.    

I was building and selling ebikes and e-trikes full time 20 years ago.  Because we didn’t have an “ebike industry” yet, we built bikes out of parts from submarines and golf carts and cell tower backup batteries.  These bikes weren’t slick looking, but many of the bikes we built 20 years ago are still going, because we designed them to be serviceable and upgradeable…

Bikes ain’t premium consumer goods, even when they are priced like it!

Spending the better part of my last 15 years managing shops, here's my take on the maintenance situation. 

Some people don't think of bikes as machines that require regular maintenance. So, when that bike gets to the shop and it hasn't been touched by a mechanic since the day it was built,  they are going to get sticker shock by the huge bill.

Some people think maintenance cost are proportional to what they paid for the  bike. I had a guy who bought a used road bike with a Campy group that was completely worn out. We practically had to revive the guy when we gave him the estimate. All I could say at that point was that there was probably a reason why you got the bike so cheap.

The lever of commitment aslo comes into play..  They new guy buying a used bike to try and lower the cost of entry is different  from the hard core rider. I had another customer who needed a similar Campy drivetrain replacement. This guy had a custom built Moots Titanium road bike. He didn't flinch at that bill.

Finally, the level of mechanical ability differs amongst riders.. Some riders have no problem figuring out how to fix stuff on their own, others have no business touching a wrench. Some would rather let someone else handle it.

That being said, it would be nice to see more high end parts be repairable as opposed to remove and replace. But, I'm willing to bet the additional labor costs would be a turn off to most customers. However, it would be great for the DIY riders.