I think the biggest change we will see in bikes is the de-centralisation of manufacturing. There’s little financial benefit to building bikes en-masse in the far east now, rising wages there and high import duties erase pretty much all the direct benefits of bulk assembly. Instead I predict over 3-5 years that assembly will move to regional hubs, which will allow for the custom speccing of mid-high bikes.
If you couple this with the pressures on shops caused by low price grey imports which make parts swap outs a financial PITA then we might find a lot of companies take this route. The process will be pretty similar to cars;
You will go into a shop and try a ‘base spec’ model. Once you’ve roughly decided what you want, whether in the shop or online (and delivered direct or via the shop) you will customise the bike to suit your needs.
The assembly plant will build that exact bike (right down to shock tunes to suit your weight etc.) and package and ship the bike to your chosen destination. Probably 7-14 days later.
This has some big benefits:
1) The need for model years goes. The model year doesn’t work for manufacturers as it allows for little flexibility in the supply chain, puts huge dependency on marketing to ‘drive’ sales, and generally means supply is limited at launch, and overstocked at close out, leading to huge discounting at the end of the year. All in all a bad state.
2) The shops are increasingly workshop dependent. Moving to this semi-custom model allows retailers to focus back on the sales of bikes without carrying huge stocks, and frees up valuable shop space for demo bikes etc. It also makes the little guy competitive again as they have the advantage of custom options without carrying insane levels of stock.
3) appreciation for fit and spec is ever increasing in the customer world. We want things just the way we like them. The rise of CRC and Wiggle shows our desire for changing everything is latent. Companies addressing this will do well. Those that persist in stock models will find their market ever more competitive.
4) companies like Canyon/Halfords/Decathlon/Go outdoors are eroding the market for mid price bikes from your LBS. LBS’es need something to ‘justify’ their existence (in the nicest possible sense). The ability to touch and feel something but still get a bike of your spec at a good price will be a huge driver to re-invent the role of the LBS.
5) JIT manufacturing techniques are well established now, and lead to lower supply chain costs, less capital requirements and overall efficiency in delivering the end product. Bike assembly will be able to take advantage of the lessons learnt from car assembly to produce a streamlined custom assembly model that actually saves money overall for the manufacturer.
Like I said, its the way car manufacturers have been doing it for years (except the regional hub bit – but thats an advantage bikes have as they don’t need mahoosive and very expensive robots), its only a matter of time before that model trickles down to bikes, and when it does, buying a bike will become a very different experience.
Oh and I agree on wider tyres. We’re stocking 2.4 on some lines as standard and will be offering 2.75 real soon 😯
