The great bicycle boom of 2020
Contrary to what people might think, 2020 has not been a good year for bike dealers, especially small ones. The demand was huge, but due to side-effects of the corona pandemic, bike production in Asia was running on at most 80% capacity. Some assembly lines were stopped for several weeks, and distancing rules means reduced throughput. The problem: all orders with the big manufacturers are placed a year in advance. This means that if you were too late to place your orders in 2020, you will not get any inventory for 2021. Any by "too late" I mean "the same time as in 2019".<p>People want to buy, but stock is depleted and production reduced, and many small dealers won't survive 2021 for lack of inventory.