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CBP shut down Giant imports to the US due to predatory employment practices in Taiwan.
Yeah I had read those articles, and that's obviously a huge blow... but it does seem like there is something deeper going on over there as well. I wonder how much of that CBP action has impacted their sub-contracting and fabrication for other brands.
Fixed
I like how the dumpster is slightly smaller in 2024.
Shrinkflation hits us all
To be pedantic, the dumpster should be bigger in 2024. Less units sold = bigger dumpster fire
Or is it smaller as they aren't setting fire to excess stock that has been imported?
They made larger losses in 23 than 24 as inventory was shed and imports dropped to account for excess inventory.
I'd imagine that Giant makes considerably more building bikes for other companies than selling their own. Plus, with leadership changes and the passing of their founder, maybe they are restructuring how they market their own brand.
With everything they've put into the processes on the new Anthem and TCR Advanced, I'd expect to see that used for other brands at the top end.
Yeah, safely walkable and bikeable cities sound like great places to live to me. Regarding the backlash against the 15min cities, I think a big part of it had to do with the implication that people's ability to travel outside of that 15min radius would be restricted. Sort of a, "I'm sorry Comrade, but you have not earned sufficient social credits to receive a travel waiver" vibe.
I have never dug into the topic deeply enough to see if that was a total fabrication, or if it had some basis in fact that was then overblown by opponents. From seeing similar patterns play out repeatedly over the past 2 decades, there is often some sort of policy paper that is genuine, but written by a sort of fringe ideologue, who takes a sort of maximalist view of a given concept (like restricting travel beyond 15min). Other, more moderate advocates of the concept don't want to take it anywhere near that far, but then they find that their opponents are using the paper written by the ideologue to frame the whole concept and movement as dangerously extreme and thus poison the general public against it. Sometimes I get a little frustrated by the general unwillingness of the moderate folks who actually have a viable concept to call out the extremists on their own side. I guess everyone feels like there is "strength in numbers" and they don't want to jeopardize the "solidarity" of their "coalition" such as it is, but at some point factions who claim to be allies can actually become liabilities if they can be used to discredit the whole movement.🤷♂️
lol at owning a car for transport. you are a slaves :D
I believe that the idea behind 15 minute cities wasn't to restrict travel, but to lay out cities where you don't need to travel more than 15 minutes to get what you need. But, in most American cities, a 15 minute drive takes at least 30 minutes and a 15 minute walk is considered to be inhumane.
I'm at point where I want my car when I need it, but with the expenses that come with it, I would like to use it less often..
I worked on advocacy for the 15 minute city concept, and can tell you that literally no one has actually proposed restricting travel. That idea is a "bUt OuR fReEdUmB" talking point aimed at people who do their own "research".
our house is carved into the hill, with the car park 4 stories below. only accessible by a car lift, one spot costs 250 chf/month. i bike to work and use the swiss train network for everything else, and my transportation costs are still lower than that...
I love you all but can we please move the commuting talk to a different thread? Thanks!
To keep it relevant to bikenomics…with the conflict going on overseas and with gas prices hiking, I will say bike shops do see higher traffic during gas spikes as people look to bike to work. I wouldn’t call the biking industry recession proof but there are certainly interesting market factors that could help soften the blow.
My brother runs a shop in Eureka and this is definitely true there. A significant portion of the community relies on bikes for commuting and when money is tight people ditch their cars first.
I noticed in the past that there was a certain tipping point.. Usually once it got too far past 5/gallon the potential new bike commuters seem to taper off.. My guess is that the money that might have gone towards the bike ended up in the gas tank before they could make the purchase..
I did a quick search and didn’t see anything about this, but what’s the feeling about Spot’s lawsuit against Gates?
https://www.denverpost.com/2026/02/27/colorado-bike-builder-spot-lawsuit-gates-corporation-judge-ruling/
https://bikerumor.com/spot-sues-gates-over-years-of-unpaid-royalties/
Gates seems to be turning themselves inside out to try to win this case via stacking lawyer fees and having bigger pockets.
First they said the design they got from Spot wasn't any good so they had to fix it so they've already paid any royalties that would be owed. A federal judge dismissed that and sent it to a state court.
Then - at the state court - Gates said that their contract with Spot regarding royalties wasn't even valid in the first place. The state judge dismissed that.
Then Gates asked to delay the case and to move it from the state court back to a federal court...which has also been denied.
I don't know much about the specific details of the dropout design, but I'm always on the side of a small guy fighting against a big guy whose only defense is a big-guy-pocket-funded litigious death by a thousand cuts.
If I've misread this whole thing, I'm completely fine with being wrong...buuuuuuuuuut I'm always suspicious when one party's defense strategy seems to be guided by "rich kid at the playground" logic.
I agree, and I would love to See Spot Win.
I remember working on Christina Begy’s Spot right before the ‘99 Montezuma’s Revenge. I’ve always had a soft Spot in my heart for that company.
Not a good look for Gates. RemindS me of Some other bike companieS that have used Similar bully tacticS.
This is probably more relevant for the main tech rumors thread, which has evolved into pretty much just the stream of consciousness for us vitalers regardless of topic, but what if we had a bot that counted comments, and once a specific topic gets more than 5 comments in a 24 hour period it auot-comments and suggests a new topic for it?
The three big Taiwanese companies reported earnings this week.
Giant Group 2025 results
Revenue (15.5%) y/y, gross margin +0.8% to 19.8%, EPS down to NT1.84 from 3.322
Company approved a dividend of NT1.80. Q4 margin was improved "mainly due to the absence of inventory write-downs recorded in the fourth quarter of 2024 and reduced discounting pressure following new products rollouts in 2025."
Ideal Bike 2025 results
Revenue (17%) y/y, EPS down to (NT1.39) vs (NT0.74) y/y
Preliminary January revenue was off 53% compared to last year (EEK!)
Merida 2025 results
Revenue (9.7%) y/y; EPS was up NT4.01 compared to NT2.34 y/y
Preliminary January revenue was down 44.4% in January (DOUBLE EEK)
Big takeaway and theme I'm following right now is everyone is ordering far less than recent year thus far in Q1. Supply is officially tightening. At a point the pendulum has to swing back the other way, but I am guessing the OEMs are totally okay selling out of product this year and leaving demand on the table as opposed to having inventory they can't move.
The perfect number to build is one less than you have sold...
Or the Straight of Hormuz stays closed down for 9 months and there is a bike boom as people get frustrated with paying a fortune for gas. OEM's wish they didn't cut back and leave a huge chunk of demand on the table.
We will see. Unlike most people in this thread, I'm not as much of a believer that $100/bbl oil = more (specialty bike) sales. It may drive some mobility e bike sales, but I don't think its the needle mover everyone else thinks it is, especially when it comes to mountain biking.
Also, as a reminder, oil was over $100/bbl for most of the early 2010s and I don't remember it being a huge driver to the bicycle industry's success.
Energy costs eat into everything and generally leaves people feeling poorer. Its inflationary. So if anything I'm more a believer this hurts the already wounded consumer and won't be a boon for anything in the outdoor industry*
*unless you are an oil baron. If you are, it'll be high times!
Isn't it more likely to drive adjustments to fracking regulations than bicycle mobility?
9 months? But I thought the Supreme Leader said there was nothing left to target and he could end it any time he wanted. Maybe he's getting rich out of the higher oil prices? 🤔
Yeah, consumer gas demand seems to be shockingly inelastic in North America. I conceptually have no idea how expensive gas needs to get at the pump before it meaningfully changes our behaviour. Certainly more than we've ever seen and certainly more than whatever prices of the pumps are in Norway and other expensive European countries. We've set up our societies to rely on the car and we'll be damned before we make any significant changes, behavioural or legislative or infrastructure.
And besides, if we manage to hit the behaviour-modification price ($4CAD/litre? $5?), we're going to be so hurting with the cost of everything else that people will be looking at Amazon eebs or those crappy conversion kits to go on Canadian Tire or Walmart specials. At best, RAD sees some increased sales or maybe Trek sells that more affordable Electra. I don't think we'd see people roll into the bike store and walk out with a $15,000 Turbo Levo because gas got more expensive.
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