The fall of Kona Bikes :(

[avalonracing]

Originally Posted by unterhausen

I'm curious if these sales are being funded by dealers who are carrying existing stock. I got the impression that the local Kona dealer wasn't too happy about the sale. The local spesh store is company-owned, so who cares?

Not sure, but it has made some damn expensive bikes seem less expensive. My buddy bought one which is usually close to $9000 for $5000 and he feels like he hit the purchase timing lottery.

[peanutgallery]

Classic whiplash effect

Lots of folks in the industry ordered way too much stuff. Kona is a mid packer on the "manufacturer" side of things. Wait until trek and Specialized flop

[5oakterrace]

I suspect Kona marks the beginning. BMC asks the swiss gov. for support. Seven down sizes. Meanwhile, Specialized, Pinarello, Bianchi and even Moots - are reduced by thousands of dollars. New disc frames from Lynsky are $850. Litespeed has big reductions as well. The key news was Trek reducing orders by 40 percent, which I think is 20 percent from pre- covid days. That says some thing about their perception of future demands in 2026. The sales now are pulling forward a lot of demand. Who will buy in 2026? In addition, Ebikes will eat into what might have been normal bike demand.

Used rim bike prices are reflecting reduced demand. Folks want disc. Who buys rim? Especially 10 speed? Old folks! But ebikes may be in their future. The advent of disc bikes effectively reduced the value of all these rim bikes. Yet sellers have a perceived value based on what they paid. Some hold out and those bikes sit on Pink bike for quite some time. We fear the loss selling at prices below what we want - more than we value the gain of whatever cash we can garner. Clancy's stainless steel made by Anderson was a watershed sale. Absolutely beautiful and offered at $1400 or so. So what are the other not so special 10 speed rim bikes worth? The Look and Time on barn finds are under $1k.

The pressure is on LBSes. The manufacturers want to survive all this. LBSes will suffer collateral damage via direct sales from the manufacturers. But LBSes will benefit from disc and ebike service as the industry becomes too complex for do it your selfers. At least there will be fewer do it your selfers.

After this spring - and no doubt a lot of folks are hoping for good business to give a boost to sales - we will see the next shoes drop in the industry.

My 2 cents.

[vespasianus]

Originally Posted by unterhausen

I'm curious if these sales are being funded by dealers who are carrying existing stock. I got the impression that the local Kona dealer wasn't too happy about the sale. The local spesh store is company-owned, so who cares?

I was under the impression that Specialized reduced prices on their on-line sales without talking with dealers and undercutting them.

[kiwisimon]

Originally Posted by Mark McM

Parlee Cycles went through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year. and was essentially "saved" when it was bought by a private investor:

Heard on Geek Warning they are selling made in Europe bikes now.
design input from Mr Parlee himself.
https://parleecycles.com/products/ouray
looks good.

[Hilltopperny]

Let's be honest...it's not just the bike business that is suffering and society as a whole has been used to over consumption for at least 20 years. Marketing has already begun circling back to trends from around 7-10 years ago, but now with integrated cockpits that most of us luddites don't really like.

Those of us who like analog bicycles will continue to ride them. Some folks from the analog bike world may dip their toe into the e-bikes market as they age or for other reasons, but that market is more for folks which gave up on analog bikes a long time ago and could use a little boost. The folks riding throttle equipped e-bikes were never going to ride an analog bike in the first place and they are by far the e-bike market here in upstate NY. The shop I help out at can't sell the pedal assist bikes that have now been sitting for two years. We have sold less than 10 with special orders in the past year.

The big companies over produced after the unlimited free money had already been spent. The average US household is in tremendous debt with no end in sight, so expendable income is a thing of the past when food, fuel, housing and utilities are around 30-50% higher than they were in 2019-2020. The average age of home ownership is well above 40 now which is indicative of the economic woes of younger folks and families.

If I were a company producing bikes I would be looking at possibly finding some other means to create revenue as eventually there just aren't enough folks that can afford to buy them outright and most aren't willing to finance a bicycle. Add to that all the bikes that are still around on the used market and there is and will be a surplus of bicycles for a very long time.

I have three brand new bicycles that I bought over the winter. They are all carbon with two being full suspension mtb's and one gravel with a combined retail price of over $15,000. I picked up all three shipped to my door for under $6,000 brand new with full warranties. That is less than the original retail of the Rocky Mountain Instinct. Things have only gotten worse since then.

Sent from my Pixel 6a using Tapatalk

[peanutgallery]

They wait until they fulfill their dealers preseason orders and then, seconds after dealers unbox their order, slash prices online. That was the old way

New way. Just have everything on sale...all the time and don't communicate it well to dealers. Plus, reserve all the good inventory for your website sales and don't fulfill special orders. Send your reps out to berate dealers for not committing to the brand. Put stuff on sale for even less. This is the Specialized experience these days. Lots of dealers have gotten off the express train to the crash site

Originally Posted by vespasianus

I was under the impression that Specialized reduced prices on their on-line sales without talking with dealers and undercutting them.

[benb]

Speaking of the e-bike effect. I just went to NYC for 4 days. I know people here have mentioned this but it doesn’t really hit you till you are there. NYC is probably the canary in the coal mine showing “analog” bikes are rapidly going extinct for all but the fitness/racing/enthusiast crowd.

It’s like 95%+ e-bike there, and none from any brand names we know from making regular bikes. If the e-bike only companies are completely decimating all the non enthusiast bike sales of the big brands that’s gotta really hurt because IIRC the casual bikes traditionally sold huge numbers compared to enthusiast bikes. And that might mean even higher prices for the bikes we like to buy.

[rothwem]

Originally Posted by benb

Speaking of the e-bike effect. I just went to NYC for 4 days. I know people here have mentioned this but it doesn’t really hit you till you are there. NYC is probably the canary in the coal mine showing “analog” bikes are rapidly going extinct for all but the fitness/racing/enthusiast crowd.

It’s like 95%+ e-bike there, and none from any brand names we know from making regular bikes. If the e-bike only companies are completely decimating all the non enthusiast bike sales of the big brands that’s gotta really hurt because IIRC the casual bikes traditionally sold huge numbers compared to enthusiast bikes. And that might mean even higher prices for the bikes we like to buy.

Maybe I'm crazy, but I don't really see that as a bad thing. There's no reason why Kona or anyone else can't make frames that will accept ebike motors, and if it gets more people out of cars by lowering the fitness threshold required to get on a bike, then that's a net positive.

I think recreational e-biking is a little pathetic, but I think that the "utility biking" space is a good one for e-bikes.

[buddybikes]

I think recreational e-biking is a little pathetic, but I think that the "utility biking" space is a good one for e-bikes.


Have to tell pathetic self as I ride with a little power, getting exercise, enjoying life, keeping my A1c down, that this isn't recreational.

[julian3141]

recreational e-biking is not my cup of tea. However, as a New Yorker I love to see people out and enjoying the tiny slices of nature we do have no matter how they do it. more people using the bike infrastructure is a net positive. Less driving fewer cars and more pressure on the city to build out and improve the existing bike lanes. on the other hand, E-bike delivery drivers are a whole different conversation.

[litcrazy]

So I’m curious how to think through the rise of bike prices versus inflation over the last 10-15 years.
After hearing about cutbacks at Seven, I was looking at their website. Buried deep within the site I found that they are now offering straight gauge, non custom frames for $5000.
When I see receipts for Seven’s on eBay, it see numbers like $2800 for a custom frame in 2012 . If I put that in an inflation calculator, it comes to $3800 (36%). I feel like I see similar numbers for Moots and other ti makers.

I have a Seven. I’ve had a Moots. I have tremendous respect for both brands. I bring up ti makers because I’ve followed them because carbon doesn’t excite me so I haven’t paid much attention. Am I mistaken, or has the cost of made in us ti bikes vastly exceeded inflation? If so, why? And is this typical of the market?

One question I do have, is how current prices of bikes compare to 2014 prices relative to inflation? I imagine comparing ultegra level to ultegra level, xt level to xt level. How much of those price increases came during the pandemic when there was a shortage? How much came before? If those increases exceeded inflation, when was the upturn?

It seems like when us ti became hot during the gravel boom, prices really spiked. But maybe I’m wrong. Was this due to a rise in popularity or due to other fixed costs such as an increase in the cost of ti itself? Or a correction from unsustainably low pricing previously?

What seems hard now is, based on listening to the escape collective podcast series on the boom, manufacturers have nearly double the supply they want, right after boom in purchases, with pricing that they adjusted to reflect that pandemic boom. If that’s correct, how should they readjust pricing for the survivors, post purging of this glut, if a way that works in the market, works for shops, works for manufacturers _and_ works for customers?

[benb]

Originally Posted by rothwem

Maybe I'm crazy, but I don't really see that as a bad thing. There's no reason why Kona or anyone else can't make frames that will accept ebike motors, and if it gets more people out of cars by lowering the fitness threshold required to get on a bike, then that's a net positive.

I think recreational e-biking is a little pathetic, but I think that the "utility biking" space is a good one for e-bikes.

But why would anyone buy a Kona eBike versus an Aventon or RAD or whatever?

These companies are already operating in a lower price point than any of the normal bike companies are OK with. They don't care about sponsoring athletes or doing any of the other things normal bike companies care about.

If Kona or Trek or whoever want to keep doing what they are doing but shift their casual line to eBikes they are going to keep failing because their prices will be too high due to all their extra costs + their quality standards.

It's gotta be 100:1 with eBikes I see in favor of the eBike only new companies versus eBikes from the traditional bike companies.

The big bike companies also do pesky things like ship eBikes you actually have to pedal and limit the watts on the motor.

[.RJ]

Originally Posted by litcrazy

So I’m curious how to think through the rise of bike prices versus inflation over the last 10-15 years.

So the top end stuff, or stuff with high labor cost like made in the US Ti frames probably outpaced inflation due to materials/labor/rent/etc costs. But if you go down a few levels you can get a much better bike for less money than you could before.

[buddybikes]

Sure the tiny real custom folks, like Firefly, glad they didn't go direction of seven and IF, boutique will stay in demand if they keep producing quality product (and beautiful looking) and service.