News
How’s Business? – May 2024
Welcome to How’s Business, brought to you by our sponsor Dirt Works Australia, where right now, you can get Sunringle wheelsets for HALF PRICE. As always, we spoke to a wide range of dealers across Australia and New Zealand, with a mix of city and country locations and a wide range of store types. With…
Bicycle Imports Showing First Signs of Normalising
Canberra, ACT After 18 months of dramatically lower monthly bicycle imports, the latest figures are showing early signs that import numbers might be beginning to return to more normal pre-covid levels. Since we last wrote about bicycle imports here we have received import data for January and February 2024. In January a total of 51,765…
Premium Subscription Options Coming Soon to The Latz Report
Wollongong, NSW We’ll soon introduce a new subscription model for The Latz Report monthly newsletter. There are some technical details we still need to finalise, but in the meantime, I’d like to share with you an overview, so that you have time to give any comments or feedback before the new system is implemented, possibly…
Industry Briefs – Lively E-Bike Forum Highlights Differing Viewpoints
Lively E-Bike Forum Highlights Differing Viewpoints Bicycle Industries Australia (BIA) hosted an online E-Bike Forum on Tuesday 23rd April to allow discussion amongst bike industry members across a range of sometimes contentious issues. Because this event was not pre-publicised as a public forum, this article will not name any of the attendees or quote any…
European Bike Industry Survey is Surprisingly Upbeat
Brussels, Belgium Each year since 2020 Cycling Industries Europe (CIE) has published an annual Business Impact Survey which takes a holistic look at the state of the industry, with respondents representing various segments of the cycling industry, including bikeshare services, bike and parts manufacturers, retailers, and cycling ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) providers. The respondents were…
Latest Bicycle Sales Data from Key Cycling Nations Shows Further e-Bike Growth
Germany and The Netherlands Two detailed reports from Germany and The Netherlands show that the bicycle market is solid there, and far larger on a per-capita basis than Australia’s. E-Bikes Now Outsell Analogue Bikes in Germany Germany has long been the largest national cycling market in Europe and due to the very high average unit…
World News Briefs – Stages Closes, Kona’s Future Uncertain
Stages Cycling Closes Well-known USA based power meter brand Stages Cycling has laid off its entire workforce and looks to have ceased operations. According to a report by Escape Collective, multiple sources close to the brand have also indicated that the company has stopped placing orders with suppliers and ceased shipping orders to customers. At…
How’s Business? – April 2024
Welcome to How’s Business brought to you by our new sponsor, Dirt Works, where right now if you buy an eeSILK stem you can get a free eeSILK seatpost (conditions apply). In summary, this month’s respondents painted an overall picture of a tough market for bike sales, but repairs still going fairly well, as many…
Taipei Cycle’s Smiling Face Hides a Tough Market
Taipei, Taiwan Sometimes people have to put on a brave face. If you walked through the bright halls of this year’s Taipei Cycle and didn’t stop to speak to anyone, you’d probably think that the Taiwanese and global bike industries were booming. But in reality, the opposite is true. I heard multiple stories about factories…
Spotto! Aussies at Taipei Cycle
Taipei, Taiwan I will admit to living six decades before learning of the game, ‘Spotto!’ But my four year old grandson is helping me make up for lost time by taking huge pleasure in spotting yellow cars and motorbikes before I do and enthusiastically telling me how much he’s winning by. I decided to take…