Drones, discussions, bikes - the IAA Mobility, says the organizer, presents the world with the mobility of the future. These include ideas from Michelin on how to make tires out of plastic, those from EnBW on how to turn electricity into electricity, and above all 70 brands from the bicycle industry, which raise the following questions: Is the IAA now a bicycle fair with an attached car exhibition? And if so many cyclists come here, what will happen to the Eurobike, which took place for the last time in Friedrichshafen and will be held in Frankfurt in the future? Friendly observers have identified a contemporary focus on micromobility in Munich, i.e. electric bikes. No question about it, the bike is rolling in the fast lane, at least in terms of mood.The vehicle for the little escapes from the everyday pandemic is popular and in demand like hardly ever before.
Under 3-G and AHA conditions, which could hardly be conducive to the real, slightly sweaty Eurobike feeling of the past, the industry finally met again from mask to mask at the traditional international leading trade fair on Lake Constance - 630 exhibitors from 42 countries . Clear announcement: "Only Bikes No Cars". In Munich, on the other hand, the respectable names from the cycling world that you have to show as an exhibitor resemble scalps. They seem like mere ornaments in the fight for the attention of the Greta generation, who you want to make plausible, no, that you intend to put big, bad SUV in the spotlight.
A rogue who thinks of motorcycles by names like Husqvarna or GasGas. After all, these brands roll cleanly electric, urban or off-road and just as well as the pack donkeys from Riese and Müller on the Blue Lane of the inner-city test course of the Isar metropolis. She's still dreaming of it, simply because it's so chic to become a cycling capital of European standing. It is as far removed from it as all the excitement of the two bicycle fairs about the innovations of this autumn from the reality in the bicycle shop on the corner.
“Do you have a hundred e-bikes for me? I'll take it from you without looking at it. ”The moody chatter of the bicycle dealer we trust illuminates the current situation: Contrary to some concerns in the past, a completely unbroken demand for - preferably electrified - bicycles is encountering delivery bottlenecks that are gradually becoming chronic. The two fairs fuel desires that can hardly find immediate satisfaction.
This is nothing new in and of itself. The industry has always known models and brands that were sold out quickly and that could only be delivered with difficulty if, for example, a test winner was not chosen until spring. Such punctual delays were and still are largely systemic in nature - due to a temporally and spatially overstretched production method that is therefore susceptible to any disruption. Difficult travel may have made people want to ride a bike. But the bicycle industry was simply not prepared for the gold rush either.
Until 2019 they warmed themselves to solid, but not intoxicating growth rates. And then: closed shops in China, in the Far East and on the Suez, jammed containers, vertically rising freight rates, missing chips, missing spare parts and queuing customers. There was a huge crunch in the system of designers based in the USA or Germany who come from the Far East and have them screwed together for the German market in Eastern Europe. A process that can take eighteen months or more from the conception of a new bike to the first example in the dealer's shop window cannot be adapted in an instant to a thirty percent increase in demand within a quarter of a year.
In this year 2 of the boom, a number of manufacturers have brought forward the dates for the pre-orders, the orders of the trade for the models of the following year, as a precaution. In some cases, however, immediately afterwards, in the early summer of 2021, the entire production projected for the 2022 season was reported as sold out. The dealers have more than abundant pre-orders. As a consequence, they now have to reckon with the fact that they will not only be supplied much later than expected, but that their pre-orders will not (can) be served in full.
Reorders on behalf of customers are no longer possible - in autumn 2021 no longer for a bike from model year 2022, which would not be available until next spring.
Customers willing to buy, who may have fallen in love with a bike in Friedrichshafen or Munich, if not in one of the colorful specialist magazines, can only wait to see whether the dealer, if he has pre-ordered what he wants, will get it in.
The only good news is that there are price increases everywhere;
but they are apparently not quite as drastic as originally predicted: instead of 10 to 20 percent, as was pointed out, it is often only around 5 percent.