State of the industry: a running thread

[Iwasgoodonce]

I don’t seem to have a local bike shop. Leisure Lakes (I think) upped and left Wolverhampton to somewhere less on fire or something. I used to go there for things mountain bike.
I used to go to Fred Williams for road stuff. They are still there but won’t let you walk in off the street. You need to make an online sales or workshop appointment in advance. I was in town on Saturday having bought 5Kg of fresh tomatoes from the market. I wanted to also get cable cutters, gloves, bottle cages and bottles but couldn’t as I didn’t have an appointment.
I really don’t know what point my post is trying to make but online is useful to me.
If I had a LBS that would allow the odd impulse purchase I would happily use them. Then I could have spent Saturday afternoon fettling rather than elbow deep in tomatoes and garlic.

 

[bikeworkshop]

It's my point too - you have to shop online if CRC killed your LBS.

The online sellers' business model was to trade at a loss until they had a monopoly -

they borrowed loads off the bank and racked up huge debts with suppliers on this quest.

Unfortunately for them it turned out that many cycle retailers are very stubborn, and many have great and loyal customers.

And they can fix your bike if you want, or offer advice to a novice if needed.

I don't get these appointment only places. Perhaps they act like the dentist because that's what all their customers are? (No offence intended to any dentists - i fully understand why i can't drop in saying its a five minute job to sort my teeth out)

And places like present day Evans, they have no good stock, don't place any value on retaining knowledgeable staff, and often don't do repairs. That's a lot like the Internet, so why bother?

 

[manwell]

We have a very good Evans cycles at St Helens in Merseyside with plenty of stock and a great bunch of lads.

 

[al-onestare]

I don't think we shared this before. From the ex VP for ops at Signa. Pick the bones out of it...

A Postmortem of the Collapse of SIGNA Sports United

An ex-employee's perspective on what happened behind a sudden insolvency.

www.linkedin.com

This is the best diagram I've seen of what the industry and almost every manufacturer (brand) did. Simply replace toilet paper with bikes.

 

[CassidyAce]

Most of this thread has focused on struggling businesses in the bike trade but this story is about a very different aspect of the industry: making it more environmentally friendly—something that's been eclipsed by the recent turmoil. In an interesting move, Cotic is ditching titanium for environmental reasons:

British brand Cotic ditches titanium – will others follow?

Cotic is a long-established and innovative mountain and gravel bike brand based in the UK’s Peak District. It hass a long and well-earned repute for slick and comfortable steel-built frames, although they have also long since made frames in other materials, with the brand’s titanium frames being...

off.road.cc

As the writer asks, will others follow?

 

[Splatter Paint]

Making it “almost as polluting as carbon fibre” erm no, I can’t see carbon frames going any time soon despite being making more CO2 emissions during manufacturing than ti or steel. It’s sad really. It’s going to be the next asbestos IMHO for people who work with it - including bike mechanics.

 

[Russell]

I’m somewhat sceptical of the environmental claims of any company whose business model is to manufacture in the Far East and ship to the UK.

 

[bikeworkshop]

Doesn't matter what that thing you didn't need was made of, it's still environmentally unfriendly.
Even if its good British steel.
But if we stopped buying crap we didn't need half the world would be out off a job and economies would collapse, followed by society.
It would be ugly.
But probably less ugly than global warming.

 

[Takingabreak]

No one ever mentions that global warming has a positive effect in that we need to burn less fossil fuel to heat our homes because the outside temperature is higher. That's a good thing, right?

I think we might need @al-onestare to get us back on track.

 

[CassidyAce]

I’m somewhat sceptical of the environmental claims of any company whose business model is to manufacture in the Far East and ship to the UK.

'Interestingly, they found the biggest contribution to their carbon footprint was having to airfreight tubes from Birmingham, UK, to vendors mostly in the Far East. With that in mind, we are aiming to onshore more of our manufacturing in order to reduce this element of our impact on the environment.' (https://www.cotic.co.uk/sustainability/) Getting there one step at a time, perhaps.

No one ever mentions that global warming has a positive effect in that we need to burn less fossil fuel to heat our homes because the outside temperature is higher. That's a good thing, right?

I think we might need @al-onestare to get us back on track.

Isn't there more to the state of an industry than just the profit and loss accounts? What doesn't appear in the accounts also counts.