After Orange who’s next ?

Despite the protestations this has more to do with the post covid recession/ inflation than Brexit. It has been affecting the industry globally – hence the cut price fire sale on so many e-bikes. E-bikes are now the casual market – nobody will buy mid priced manuals.

I’d be interested if anyone has any actual stats on this.

I wouldn’t like to predict who it will be, and I don’t want to see anyone out of a job, but I’m not surprised.

In terms of Orange, to my mind their offering is/was just too messy; I’ve looked at their website this morning and there are SO many options and similar looking bikes. I’m no economist or production expert, but surely they’d have been better off with less options on the table, holding less stock, offering less customisation and selling higher volume at a more reasonable price? The StageEVO on offer at £3,680 ish has low to middle end componentry and has been reduced by nearly a grand.

I think high end bikes (and components) have just got beyond most people now.

Someone suggested Canyon. From the article linked:

Canyon recorded a net loss of £1.7million (€2m, $2.2m) in the first nine months of 2023, according to the latest financial report published by its key stakeholder, GBL.

This is down from a net profit of £25million (€29m, $31.7m) in the same period in 2022.

This sounds to me like they’ve done a decent job of minimising losses in the worst year ever.

Perhaps they’ll do some belt-tightening but I would expect them to stay in business and get back in a strong position.

Brexit 😂

thisisnotaspoon

I’d be interested if anyone has any actual stats on this.

No stats, but very much what I hear anecdotally from folks in the bike business. hard to shift anything not E

No stats, but very much what I hear anecdotally from folks in the bike business. hard to shift anything not E

Can’t remember what biking podcast it was but I saw a clip from it last week that said ebike sales currently outnumber bike sales by 9 to 1

Niner or Jamis. Consistently a few years behind other brands and just don’t see any. Although obviously someone must buy them or the companies wouldn’t have lasted this long.

Are brands like Pivot really big in the US or something? Just don’t see them and they don’t make cheap bikes either.

Are brands like Pivot really big in the US or something?

Yeah. Am on the owners FB page (I had one, MrsTH still does) and it’s very US centric.

ebike sales currently outnumber bike sales by 9 to 1

Is everyone else a lot more cash rich than I am or just getting in to debt for the sake of a hobby?

Is everyone else a lot more cash rich than I am or just getting in to debt for the sake of a hobby

have you seen the number of Range Rovers driving around? Debt is just a number baby.

Can’t remember what biking podcast it was but I saw a clip from it last week that said ebike sales currently outnumber bike sales by 9 to 1

I thought that sounded mental so I googled it, couldn’t find a UK figure but in Germany where they love a bit of detailed number crunching it’s about 550,000:150,000, so definitely in the multiples rather than fractions.

Begs the question though where are they all? I guess like fat bikes and gravel they’re a big deal if you’re selling bikes, but don’t actually dilute the bikes in use all that much.

Agree with mrmoofoo.

Everything is now ebike. No mid range bread and butter bikes.

I’d love to see the spends at each price point as a ratio.

where are they all?

There are loads out there. Surrey Hills, Rogate, FoD all riddled with them. Maybe accentuated if you are on a regular bike as you see more going past up the hills since they are significantly quicker

Riddled. Great word. Tell me you don’t like ebikes without telling me you don’t like ebikes.

Almost everyone at Sherwood Pines seems to be on an ebike these days. Fair play to them, I’d have one if I could justify it.

“There are loads out there. Surrey Hills, Rogate, FoD all riddled with them. Maybe accentuated if you are on a regular bike as you see more going past up the hills since they are significantly quicker”

I had my first outing to the Surrey Hills in years at the weekend and although I saw plenty of e-bikes I saw loads of normal bikes too. And I can’t recall any e-bikes overtaking me (I wasn’t on my ebike!)

When my own ebike was new I remember taking it to Puddletown Forest and repeatedly passing the same people – hopefully they realised it was the same single electric assisted rider and not loads of separate ebikers!

ebike sales currently outnumber bike sales by 9 to 1

95% of these won’t be high end £5k+ e mountain bikes, they’ll be Decathlon specials with a rear motor hub and a 150 Wh battery under the rear rack.

The mass market for e bikes is people nipping to the shops for a loaf of bread and some milk.

I was out for a walk on Saturday morning around Ladybower and Win Hill area. Got passed by dozens of bikes and e-bikes were outnumbering normal bikes by 10:1 easily. And these are Spesh/Santa Cruz/Orbea, proper MTB’s not Decathlon specials or Deliveroo Mad Max missiles.

Is everyone else a lot more cash rich than I am …

I wonder this every day while I’m walking to work watching people razzing their Porche’s, Beemers and Range Rovers in heavy traffic. Not to mention the sheer amount of VW T6’s being used as family cars. Everyone is either vastly richer than me or debted up to the eyeballs.

Alot will be on pcp
Some will be owned outright
Some will be owned by people extending their mortgage when money was cheaper, to facilitate the purchase of a better car.

Surely most bike sales are kids bikes. I’m prepared to believe mountain bike sales are majority ebike. But what about road bikes and gravel bikes?

This says ebike sales, outside MTB, are falling

https://road.cc/content/news/uk-bike-sales-fall-even-further-20-year-low-303565

This older article has bikes as 30%

UK bike sales take pause, cargo movement powers on

So has anyone got a link to ebike sales stats in the uk

Riddled. Great word. Tell me you don’t like ebikes without telling me you don’t like ebikes.

@Mister-P I own a Rise and an E-161, I rather like them and am responsible for a little bit of the riddling.

epeatedly passing the same people – hopefully they realised it was the same single electric assisted rider and not loads of separate ebikers!

Good point, I may have to reduce my estimate on the numbers

The amount of companies out there offering 170mm bikes, 160mm bikes, 140mm bikes and 120mm bikes is mad.

the theory there is that is you don’t make a bike in a given travel category, then you loose a sale. a way to grow your sales is to widen the range that you offer. 

i can recall a company saying in reply to the question, “are you going to do a short travel version?”, that they had no plans to as the frame would be barely any lighter and the pedalling performance would be barely any better. they now make bikes in 3 of those suspension categories. 

(not going to mention the name as i don’t want to put it in a thread about companies closing down)

Are brands like Pivot really big in the US or something

in a similar vein, if you went for a ride in Bellingham, Washington you’d get the impression that Kona was a thriving company. 

TBF, if we want a homegrown bike industry, there needs to be protection for it. e.g. tariffs on imports or grants for companies like Orange.

On the flip side, does this mean we might see a resurgence in the local custom frame builder?

Isn’t the point that most People aren’t getting richer?

All the talk about people acquiring eebs and range rovers on credit is only half the story, they signed up for those deals a year or two back. There’s always a staggered effect with downturns isn’t there?

Businesses go to the wall in various sectors as spending reduces, unemployment rises, inflation spikes etc, and all of that ultimately means all of these big money, discretionary spends eventually dry up, as clearly evidenced by companies like Orange and chiggle going bust.

Give it another year and I’m sure the big brands will have rediscovered the way to sell a ‘value proposition’ again. Why do you think Shimano made a point of consolidating their bargain-mid ranges into ‘CUES’ last year?
The decisions being made (mostly by the big boys) today will manifest in the market 12-18 months later, just like the supply chain choices of 2021/22 ended up affected market in 2023/24.

Intense

Haven’t noticed one in the wild since I sold mine in 2020

Weird, they’re popping up everywhere here in Oz. We have a local race team that all ride them, sponsored, and that started in 2023. Local bike shop used to sell Spesh, Kona, Whyte, now it’s virtually all Intense with a bit of Spesh.

Niner or Jamis. Consistently a few years behind other brands and just don’t see any.

Niner are quite popular here in CO. I see more of them than Orange and Cotic on the trails. Not surprising as they are based in Fort Collins. But for perspective.

And they have an ebike.

Frog bikes blamed half a million losses on Brexit…

TBF, if we want a homegrown bike industry, there needs to be protection for it. e.g. tariffs on imports or grants for companies like Orange.

There is; both of those although it was better pre-brexit.

I’ve not read everything on the story yet, but does this mean Orange are done for good then? There’s still a chance that they could downsize and survive or perhaps be bought out?

They aren’t gone, but there isn’t any news on how they will be shaped going forward…

Something I missed when I skimmed the original STW story – they were losing money during the COVID boom

Accounts show that even during the pandemic boom, they filed a pre-tax loss of nearly half a million pounds.

That’s ominous – if they couldn’t make money during that period, when people were crying out for frames, then there’s not much hope – appreciate supply issues might have been a problem, but really not good for them

Think I mentioned it earlier but on another forum a bike shop owner has spoken to someone at Orange and they seem pretty optimistic that they will be okay.

Alot will be on pcp

Some will be owned outright

Some will be owned by people extending their mortgage when money was cheaper, to facilitate the purchase of a better car.

The vast majority on PCP / lease deals, no one in their right mind buys a top end car cash, unless it a tax write down to negate profit within your limited company set up.

Same again with the mortgage thing, why would you lump a quickly depreciating asset on your mortgage when you can use the equity to free up other credit liabilities allowing a PCP / lease deal on an expensive car.

But we’re getting away from the point here, the post 2012 Olympics boom is gone, brands and / or their owners seem to have across the board ballsed up stock levels based on what they were selling a few years ago and MTB’ing is a niche sport with a small market option / appeal, even more so when you’re trading on “made in Britain from actual metal” ideas.

if they couldn’t make money during that period, when people were crying out for frames, then there’s not much hope

I suspect being a UK business they got very behind on building frames when the UK shut down.

Think I mentioned it earlier but on another forum a bike shop owner has spoken to someone at Orange and they seem pretty optimistic that they will be okay.

Really glad to hear that, even if it’s only hearsay.

Businesses go to the wall in various sectors as spending reduces, unemployment rises, inflation spikes etc, and all of that ultimately means all of these big money, discretionary spends eventually dry up, as clearly evidenced by companies like Orange and chiggle going bust.

I think “Gradually then Suddenly” is the phrase.

“How did you go bankrupt?”
Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

― Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

From a riding group of about ten friends only one of them had an orange and that was bought second hand. It’s a shame it’s gone this way but doesn’t really surprise me. If they had bosch motors on their ebikes that might have helped too but it seems shimano ones are avoided by anyone who does a bit of research prior to a purchase.

Is everyone else a lot more cash rich than I am or just getting in to debt for the sake of a hobby?

Don’t forget people exist outside the ‘scene’! My non-cyclist aunt and uncle, 70, just bought ebikes to potter about on. A colleague got a cargo bike to get little Johnny to nursery, to replace a car. There are loads in the bike racks at work now. I see a lot of commuters round my way going past on Van Moofs and sensible looking ebikes with mudguards.

Ebikes have expanded the cycling market imo, rather than just eating into it.