Bike prices are likely to climb for at least one boutique assembly line

Tim "Masi Guy" Jackson has never gotten back to me about test-driving one of the new Masi uprights. I'm not going to hold a grudge, because he obviously has bigger problems than the bawling of some backwoods chump with a lame-ass blog read by tens of thousands of highly influential and filthy rich cyclists. Judging from this lukewarm prognosis for the bike business, and his prediction that bike prices are likely to increase 10 - 20 percent in the next year.

The short version is this: The dollar is weaker than a Tyler Hamilton excuse, steel and rubber prices are going up, Chinese factory wages are climbing, and the US bike industry has artificially suppressed prices and margins to gain market share.

With my vast reservoirs of consumer expertise, let me just say this: Dudes, position your market against cars. Most Americans in big cities hate driving, parking, fueling, and insuring their workaday automobiles, and the cost of urban car ownership is now becoming prohibitive for many folks. This is a perfect time for them to trade down, if they understand that trading down is actually trading up-- at a significant savings.

I'm not saying they'll be knocking Tim's door down looking for a Masi Soulville. I wouldn't know, because I haven't been able to test ride one. But generally this: The bike industry will be just fine if they adjust the recipe to Tim's Kool Aid just a little bit, to play to the market's weaknesses as well as its strengths.

Consider: Bike sales were up across the industry by about 5 percent last year. Shimano set a new sales and revenue record. The economy, frankly, started to tank in June last year, and bike sales stayed strong.

Chin up, Tim.

The Budweiser of bike brands sponsors a team

The new Canadian owners of Cannondale, Dorel, also happen to own Schwinn -- maybe one of the world's oldest and most abused bike brands. They bought them back in 2004.


Schwinn has always been more of a presence at bike shops and garage sales than at races or philanthropic events. (Right now, the Schwinn "team" consists of one BMX rider: TJ Lavin.)

But today, Schwinn signed up to be the first major bike sponsor of Team in Training, the Lymphoma and Leukemia Society's running and cycling program that about 40,000 people participate in each year. That complements another cool project they're already involved with, Tom Ritchey's Project Rwanda. Schwinn helped Ritchey design and build work bikes for Rwandan coffee farmers that are currently being rolled out with help from the Scallywags. (Neat how everything is connected thataway, huh?)

Now if they could step up to the plate and ask people to stop converting all those old Varsities and LeTours into fixies, that would pretty much guarantee Schwinn's place in Heaven. Of course, as everyone knows, travelers carrying a Canadian passport always get into Heaven without a hassle.

Get paid to ride your bike and travel (to Madison)!

If you're like me, you fantasize about getting paid to ride a bike and travel. Not racing professionally, silly! Something much less taxing, that doesn't require body shaving and mysterious veterinarian-grade drugs. You know, like being Stevil Knievel.

Well, the folks over at Trek have been pestering me for months now to be one of their Travel Consultants, working in their bike tours division. I guess they can see how customer-oriented I am.

Problem is, it's just too tough to walk away from the mid-sevens I'm making here at Pinch Flat through that corporate RSS feed that you don't know about because you don't have the password.

But in the goodness of my heart, I thought I'd pass along the details that the headhunters at Trek are constantly dangling in front of my nose like a carrot rubbed with anchovies and a light mint chutney. Wanna cut straight to the salary? Your “Find a Way to Say Yes" Customer Service aptitude will earn you "$27,000 to $34,000 per year, depending on experience." Not too shabby.

Oh and this: You get a discount on Trek Travel products -- the ones you're selling and operating and for which you're chasing all over Hell's half acre trying to locate clean linens.

We offer competitive pay based on experience, a generously-subsidized health plan as well as premium discounts on Trek Bicycle products and Trek Travel trips.

This strikes me as rather like a lawyer getting a discount on his own firm's legal pads. You can't live on prestige, of course, but it does make a fine light snack.

Oh, and that part about getting paid to ride your bike? I meant getting paid to sit at a desk and talk on the phone all day.

Cannondale: The final dollar drops

The sale of Cannondale and Sugoi is nearly complete. Who's buying them? Dorel, a Canadian furniture and stroller company. Would it be mean to say that Cannondale's mountain bikes are a perfect fit for Dorel's other offerings? Probably. I know at least one credible and authentically cool dood who swears by Hed-Shok forks. (Hiya, Hollywood! Where's my State CX schwag?)

Still, I couldn't help noticing this reference in a Canadian news story about the deal:

The deal fits with Dorel's goal of building its bicycle and juvenile segments while stabilizing its shakier furniture business, he said.

I read the words "stabilize" and "shaky," and all I can think about is the Cannondale Scalpel. That bike featured a really lame plastic rear triangle ( I kid not), which made the bike handle a bit like you'd expect: like a hook-and-ladder firetruck with steering wheels on both ends. Let's just say that a rear-end that loose belongs on the dance floor, not the singletrack.

Still, you gotta respect the history of the once-proud bike manufacturer. Before going into bankruptcy right around the time they introduced the Scalpel, Cannondale was publicly owned. Do you know what their stock ticker symbol was?

As usual, a fistful of PFN fender stickers for correct answers in the comments. Alternatively, convince me of one good thing -- anything -- about the Scalpel. (The Lefty? Don't waste your breath.)

P.S. Don't hassle me about the roadbikes, though. I know, I know, they're tight.

China: Bike manufacturing and sales through the roof

You know, on a Tuesday afternoon, there's nothing we like more than kicking back with a cup of tea and curling up with the latest copy of China Machinery Daily.

Today, we read that despite all the gloomy global economic news, Chinese exports of bicycles increased almost 15 percent last year.

According to statistics by the General Administration of Customs, China exported 59.23 million units of bicycles in 2007, valued at US$ 2.17bn...In 2007, China exported 18.17 million bicycles to the USA, up by 1.1%, while the exports to Japan and the ASEAN countries increased by 7.4% and 5.3% respectively to 8.41 million and 5.32 million units. The said three markets together accounted for 53.9% of China's total bicycle exports.

Presumably, most of those frame-sets were equipped with Shimano parts. (Those that weren't? They were equipped with Dynacrap-brand parts.)

Once you factor in Taiwan manufacturing, that gives you a pretty good idea why people say that roughly 9 out of ten bikes come from Asia.

So how can I buy stock on the Nikkei?

The economy here in the US may be going to heck in a handbasket, but one Japanese company is setting sales records. Can you guess which one?

Shimano posted a 44 percent increase in net income in 2007, on record sales of $1.9 billion last year.

I bring this up not for cheap, xenophobic reasons. On the contrary, this is awesome, and speaks to the global growth of bicycles as a serious alternative to the automobile.

Being an equal opportunity cheerleader, let me hereby offer a big BOO-YA to Campy, SRAM, FSA, Bontrager, Sugino, Ritchie, Fox, Chris King, Easton, Surly, Cane Creek, and all the other component makers that currently escape my sieve-like mind.

We give up already!

We said "unkle" months ago, but Mikael Colville-Andersen, better known as "Zakkaliciousness," continues to stir the pot of Anti-American sentiment over at Copenhagen Cycle Chic. His particular rant, which continues to skip unattended on the turntable, is that we Americans are just too precious and sensitive about bikes and bike gear; we're dillettantes, "commuters," "racers," "hobbyists."

Simply put, we lack the cool self-confidence to ride our bikes in normal clothes. Also, we are too pretentious for chain-guards.


By way of example, Z weaves a merry little prose narrative.

When she bought her bike at her local bike shop she didn't have a "fitting" at the "full service workshop and showroom". She probably walked into the shop and said, "I need a bike". The chap working there probably shrugged, glanced her up and down and said, "you'll be needing a 52cm".
"I like the black one, over there..."
"That's a 52cm"
"Great. How much?"

And off she went with her new bike. He didn't offer her any fancy, expensive "bike gear" or "accessories" and he didn't try to dazzle and confuse her with inaccessible, nerdy technerd babble in order to make more money. He doesn't even have "cycle clothes" in his shop. He assumes she has clothes in her closet at home. A wooly hat for winter. A summer dress for... well... summer. She needed a bike. He owned a bike shop. It was over in 20 minutes. Although he probably adjusted her seat for her.

The bike she chose was a black one. Probably a good, reliable Danish brand like Kildemoes or Taarnby. It certainly wasn't a "TerraTurbo Urban Warrior X9000". It was just a bike. What it is called isn't important to her. Just the fact that it works.

We were admiring how awesome it is that Denmark has such an embedded cycling culture, not to mention the fact that it tolerates strange men running around snapping photographs of unaware women on bikes, and posting them on the Internet. And so rarely without the distraction of a head or face!

But then we happened to notice an advertisement on Copenhagen Cycle Chic, for Velorbis bikes, apparently a major underwriter of the site.

"When design matters." Presumably that's never, to a Danish cyclist. Right?

It's the bicycle, stupid!

Sure, the economy sucks. It's sucked since last June, when something called "subprime" apparently exploded, and took a few shingles off of almost every home in the country.

But bike sales were actually up for 2007 -- a full 4 percent in revenue growth. As an industry, that's huge. And it would be the envy of Wall Street.. if there were a bike lane on Wall Street.

William F. Buckley Jr. would have wanted one there.

The big winners within the industry? I wouldn't want to read too much into these tea leaves, but it looks like dirt bags and commuters are on the rise, and roadies are sitting in.

• Full-suspension mountain bike sales soared to new levels in 2007. They were up 9 percent in unit sales and 20 percent in dollars.

• Road bikes saw about a 3 percent decline in unit sales and in wholesale dollars. But suppliers maintained their average wholesale unit selling price at $794, almost unchanged from $798 in 2006.

• Hybrid sales were a major bright spot—up 6 percent in units and 12 percent in average wholesale price from $229 to $241 per unit.

How many bikes do YOU own now, friend?

Interesting article in today's Wall Street Journal about the growing popularity of custom bikes: Even though the number of bike riders in the US declined almost 10 percent in the past 5 years to 35.6 million, bike manufacturers actually increased bike sales... 16 percent more bikes have sold in the same period, and the average price has gone up 26 percent. How'd the bike biz manage that trick? By selling fancy bikes to people who already own a bike or two. In other words, the cycling masses are thinning a little, but getting more acquisitive.

And where do the fixie hipsters fit into the picture? Since they are mostly rebuilding old Peugeots and Schwinns, they're not really adding anything to the economy (though sales of U-Locks, mess bags, and Drum tobacco are surely up). And since they insist on riding without brakes or helmets, they're not really adding to the ranks of cyclists either. You might call them a net zero to bikes and bike culcha.

In the coming year, watch for the big manufacturers to start muscling in on local indie bike builders by offering custom builds and paint jobs. Specialized has spearheaded this with their Langster city series, but Giant is doing it too -- and no one is bigger than Giant.