Bicycle sales are at their lowest level in 39 years, the latest statistics from Britain’s Bicycle Association reveal, and without warning from the government, the collapse will intensify, industry leaders warned at an exclusive members’ assembly on Thursday.
I saw the PowerPoint presentation projected at the meeting; This will have caused all industry leaders to believe the view that the worst of the post-pandemic crisis may be over.
The government has touted London’s Brompton as a global story of good fortune, but even sales of folding motorcycles are down, down 22% in 2023.
Brompton chief executive Will Butler-Adams said that 2023 had been a terrible year for motorcycle sales in the UK and EU, but that Brompton motorcycles were being sold all over the world and therefore the company was isolated to some extent.
One slide warned members that overall market volume would “remain well below 2019 degrees in 2026” and that a “continued long-term decline” is “likely government intervention. “
Bicycle use is also declining, according to Department of Transport (Dft) statistics, with the pandemic’s “bike boom” peaking in March 2021 and falling precipitously since then. Participation is now back to pre-pandemic levels, but the DfT’s cyclical index predicts a decline is most likely.
Sales of e-bikes, lately the most successful sector of the bicycle industry, are down 7% in volume and 5% in value. Only 150,000 e-bikes were sold in 2023.
Inventory levels remained incredibly high. In 2022, UK suppliers imported 257,270 electric motorcycles, but only 161,000 were sold at retail. Stockpiling those motorcycles and likely selling them at a loss is a hassle for suppliers.
The bike has had a tumultuous few months, with several high-profile business closures.
Recent missteps come with the demise of industry-leading player Moore Large, the management of market-leading store Wiggle/Chain Reaction, and last year, Nottingham Raleigh revealed it would be shutting down its long-standing portions and accessories business.
Isla Rowntree, founder of the children’s motorcycle logo Islamotorcycles, spoke of the difficulties of a declining market when she announced the planned closure of the company.
Cycling in Manchester.
Sales of cycling accessories and clothing have been hit hard, according to the Bicycle Association’s sales tracking service, with a year-on-year relief of 8% in volume and 11% in value.
The generation of bicycles, such as motorcycle computers, GPS navigation devices, and center-frequency monitors, is down 12% in volume and 31% in value.
A total of 1. 55 million motorcycles were sold in 2023, an annual low last recorded in 1985 after the BMX bubble burst. With the advent of mountain bikes, sales increased and the UK industry promoted more than 3 million motorcycles a year.
The Bicycle Association has been seeking governance for the bicycle industry for several years. In 2018, it commissioned a report outlining the “industry case” for government subsidies and the report on the price of the bicycle sector for the UK economy stated that the UK bicycle industry cost three times as much as the UK metals industry and employed twice as many people. Cycling-related businesses generated at least £5. 4 billion for the UK economy each year and created 64,000 jobs, according to the report.
Sales of e-bikes should be subsidized through the government, the Bicycle Association has long argued. The organisation also needs the abolition of VAT on sales of children’s bikes and investments to build the innovation capacity of the UK cycling industry.
What worries the industry is that sales of children’s motorcycles have been on a downward trend for some time and in 2023 were down 8% from last year.
People cycling on London’s Embankment cycle path.
Online studies on premium versus entry-level motorcycles showed that “the significant maximum drop in interest is in the access level,” members of the Bicycle Association learned.
With fewer cyclists, the crisis will continue to worsen, members of the Bicycle Association were told.
Sales of road and gravel motorcycles reversed the trend, expanding 8% and 11%, respectively, although all other categories declined. Triathlon motorcycle sales fell by 34% in 2023.
The Bicycle Association’s presentation revealed that sales from the pandemic-induced motorcycle boom may have been smart for motorcycle department stores that can simply stock up, but suppliers outdid themselves. Just under 3 million motorcycles were imported in 2022, but only 2. 13 million were sold in Retail. This excess stock has been reduced in 2023 as the source catches up with demand, but many more suppliers are at risk of going bankrupt in the coming months if the sales slump continues.
The UK government, which took a populist pro-car stance last year, is unlikely to support the bicycle industry.
Earlier this week, a report by the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank concluded that the lack of funding for physical activity over the past decade has negatively affected cycling and walking in the UK by making them unappealing, as modes of use of £35 per user per year are necessary, insists, in the near future, for infrastructure structure and other interventions, to achieve the economic, environmental and fitness benefits of activeArray.
Over the period between 2016 and 2021, an average of £148 per user per year spent on drivers, the IPPR calculates.
Last year, Active Travel England’s already low investment point was reduced by £233 million and the rhetoric around the new ‘Government Boosters Plan’ has shown that active sales are no longer seen as the precedent they were for former Prime Minister Boris Johnson who, at the height of the pandemic, promised a long-term “golden age of cycling”.