How Will Our Bicycle Industry Look in 10 Years’ Time?

Wollongong, NSW

With this being the last regular Latz Report newsletter, what better way to end an era than to play Nostradamus and make some predictions of how the future will look?

I’m choosing a time span of 10 years – specifically how will the world look on Sunday 31st December 2034. That’s long enough for things to have changed significantly but short enough that hopefully we’ll all still be alive (including me!) to review how accurate, or perhaps hopelessly inaccurate, some of my predictions end up being. It’s almost like burying an electronic time capsule to dig up in a decade’s time.

I’m breaking this article up into two sections. Firstly looking at the Australian bike trade more narrowly and secondly transport and our world more generally.

Part One: What Will Australia’s Bicycle Trade Look Like in 10 Years’ Time?

Prediction One: IBD’s will Still be Standing!

Notwithstanding the huge advancements I’m expecting to see in artificial intelligence, internet connectivity and other technologies, I still think that on 31st December 2034 there will be many ‘brick and mortar’ bike shops and a good proportion of these will still be owner/operated IBD’s (independent bicycle dealers.)

Why?

For several key reasons.

Firstly, I predict that bicycles in 2034 will be even more complex items than they are today and they’ll still need regular servicing. You still won’t be able to service a bike over the internet and although I think robots will be more commonplace by 2034, I don’t think that even the robots of 2034 will be up to the physically fiddly and always slightly different tasks required to fixing bikes. It will still be up to bicycle shop owners or in the case of medium to larger IBD’s, the mechanics they employ.

“…technology will allow for an even greater diversity of products, with more niches.”

Secondly, I predict that bicycles will still be relatively expensive purchasing decisions. I don’t think they’ll fall much in price over the next decade, unlike consumer electronics and other categories. Therefore, many customers will still prefer to see and feel in the flesh and even test ride before buying. Perhaps virtual reality might be at such a level that people can take realistic virtual test rides and then buy online, physical sight unseen, but I still think this would only apply to a minority of bicycle sales.

Thirdly, because no matter how much technology changes in the next decade, human nature won’t change much at all. Customers will still appreciate a face to face interaction with someone who has product knowledge and who cares about them. IBD’s will always do this better than mass merchants, purely online stories or chain stores, even though the competition will be tougher than ever. But the surviving IBD’s in 2034 will be the ones that are savvier with their websites and other online communications and there will be very few ‘pure’ brick and mortar stores left standing, with the vast majority selling both online and instore.

Prediction Two: There will Still be “Too Many Wholesalers and Retailers!”

For the past 35 years since I started in bicycle trade media, industry members have been telling me with great vigour and passion that there are either too many retailers or too many wholesalers in Australia, or both!

Even though technology will surely advance significantly during the next decade, I don’t think this will lead to any major reductions in either category.

If anything, technology will allow for an even greater diversity of products, with more niches. This in turn will provide opportunities for the smaller players in particular to embed themselves within a niche and keep on keeping on.

Prediction Three: There will Still be Very Little Australian Manufacturing

Advances in technology will make production location more flexible than today. Everything from improved 3D printing to cheaper electricity (which I predict will happen during the next decade due to wind, solar and batteries getting cheaper, not nuclear) will mean that you can make just about anything anywhere.

But just because you could manufacture in Australia, doesn’t mean that you would. Because economies of scale and logistical challenges still remain.

Therefore, the vast majority of our bikes and P&A will still be coming from the same parts of Asia as they do now – China and Taiwan in particular, provided the former does not invade the latter. That’s an event that I would love to be able to confidently predict won’t happen – but can’t. If it does happen, the Australian bicycle industry and Australia’s economy in general, will be in for a very rough economic season indeed.

The only exception to the Australian manufacturing drought will continue to be high end hand made bicycles and parts. I think that no amount of technology will usurp the niche demand for hand-built works of art – but only in small quantities at high prices.

Prediction Four: Many of the Same Bicycle Industry Brands Will Remain at the Top

If you asked 100 bicycle industry members to name the top ten global bicycle industry brands most of their lists would include names such as Trek, Giant, Specialized, Shimano, SRAM and Bosch.

I think it’s very likely that the top 10 list on 31st December 2034 will include most, if not all of these brands, even though just about every product that they’re selling by then will be either updated or completely new models compared to today.

Some second tier bicycle brands might come and go, but overall, I think the bicycle industry will be relatively stable compared to the car industry, in which I think the Chinese brands and manufacturing companies will have pretty much eaten everyone else’s lunch by 2034 – regardless of what certain countries may try to do in terms of tariffs and other trade restrictions.

Delving slightly further down that sideline, I expect that most of the major Japanese, European and American car manufacturers will either be bankrupt or only continuing to trade due to government bailouts and other government intervention, partial or complete take-overs by other companies, or a combination of these. The net result of this for us will be cheaper cars available in Australia – perhaps increasing competition for consumer dollars and road space which will put financial and physical squeezes upon cycling.

Part Two: What Will the Bigger Picture for Cycling in Australia Look Like?

Overall, I think the future of cycling is bright in Australia, but some sectors will do better than others.

Let’s start by looking at how many people there will be and where they’ll be living on 31st December 2034.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics our population will be 30.9 million people. That’s almost four million more that our current 27 million. All of this growth will come from migration. If there was no migration our birth rate is already so low that our population would decline over the next decade, as it’s already starting to do in countries without much immigration such as Japan, China and parts of Europe.

“With birth rates set to continue trending downwards towards 2034, parents will be even more protective of their one or two children.”

Most of these extra people will be living in our four largest cities. Sydney is predicted to grow from the current 5.4 million to 6,359,700. Melbourne will grow from 5.2 million to 6,499,000, Brisbane from 2.7 million to 3,192,000 and Perth from 2.3 million to 2,747,000.

That’s almost 3.2 million more people in our four largest cities alone, with the remaining extra 800,000 spread across the rest of Australia, while some rural areas will continue their slow decline in population. That means will be even more urbanised.

We’re also getting older and once again, without migration, that trend would be even stronger, as new migrants on average are younger than the median Australian resident age. They also have more children per family than do Australian-born citizens.

Now let’s look at various cycling sectors in isolation:

Mountain Biking

I’m very bullish about the future of mountain biking over the next 10 years. There are multiple factors boosting my optimism.

Firstly, no cycling sector has benefitted more from electrification than mountain biking. Especially in Australia where we have long, hot summers.

I don’t enjoy riding a mountain bike up a hill on even a slightly warm day – you don’t get the breeze cooling you down and can soon overheat. Sure, I’m old and unfit – but that describes a growing majority of Australians!

Riding an e-mtb is great fun, especially for non-athletes like me. It’s pretty obvious where e-MTB technology will be heading over the next decade – smaller, more energy dense batteries, lighter motors with more torque, better sensor and control systems to make power delivery and battery management ever more rider-friendly.

“I’m going to have a crack at accurate predictions, I can’t afford to be as optimistic as I would like to be.”

Secondly, there are still plenty of new or expanded mountain bike parks in the pipeline. These will give riders great new experiences and help grow Australian mountain biking overall.

There will also be ongoing improvement in other MTB technology including everything from radial tyres to better frames, suspension and brakes. Technology improvements are more important for mountain bikes than other categories because their use case is the most demanding.

Gravel Riding and Rail Trails

I think both of these categories will be significantly bigger in 2034 than today. I’m grouping them together because they share a couple of common features.

Most of us live in cities where the roads are crowded with dangerous motor vehicle traffic. Along with mountain biking, gravel riding and rail trails are perfect ways to escape the traffic and all of the noise, air pollution, stress and danger that goes with it.

We have a vast gravel road network already waiting to ride. Even by 2034 most of these roads will still be unpaved and still very lightly used by motor vehicles.

Meanwhile, there’s plenty of potential new routes and upgrades for rail trails across Australia, some of which are paved and some gravel. Funding for building these mainly comes from tourism budgets, which is easier to get approved than urban infrastructure funding, so I expect much more to come over the next decade.

Rail trails appeal to young families and older people – and as I’ve already mentioned, there will be more older people in 2034 than today.

Recreational and Sporting Road Cycling

I’d love to predict strong growth in this sector, but I think it might even shrink slightly from today’s levels by 2034. The key problems are busier roads and greater risk of injury from motor vehicle crashes.

Already today most parents won’t let their kids ride on the roads. With birth rates set to continue trending downwards towards 2034, parents will be even more protective of their one or two children.

Two things that could help prevent this potential decline are safety technology and better cycling infrastructure. I’ll talk about both of these in the utility cycling section, even though I well understand from personal experience that the needs of a recreational or racing road cyclist are very different from those of many utility cyclists.

Utility Cycling

I’m using the term utility cycling to cover everything from kids riding to school to people commuting to work, riding to the shops or just cruising around on bikes. It also includes carrying things on cargo bikes, whether commercially such as deliveries or carrying kids.

I think that from now until 2034 utility cycling will grow gradually, but not boom in Australia.

The bicycles available for this category will improve significantly as the global market scales up but growth will be very patchy in Australia, depending upon new uptake of various new technologies and upon key decisions made in each state, territory and local government area.

Several factors are encouraging me to make this prediction of at least some growth in urban cycling.

There will be increased residential density, particularly in our inner cities, which will continue to see far higher mode share of urban cycling than our sprawling middle and outer suburbs.

Electric cars will become predominant by 2034. They’re quieter, less smelly, and less harmful to cyclists’ lungs than ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles. So that will help make cycling on roads slightly more pleasant – albeit still too dangerous for many.

Autonomous and semi-autonomous driving, including real time internet enabled connectivity of vehicles, car to car and even car to bicycle, will become commonplace by 2034.

Robo taxis are at the “tipping point” right now. In some USA cities such as LA, Pheonix and San Francisco they’ve been growing at 20% per month during 2024. That’s several hundred percent per annum. It doesn’t take long for tech driven innovations to go from novel to mainstream – smartphones anyone?

Fortune Business Insights say robotaxis are going to grow at 80% CGAR for the next decade and be a US$118.61 billion industry by 2031.

They’re already proven to be safer. Industry leader Waymo has recorded their first 25 million miles (40 million km) with 81% fewer air bag deploying crashes 72% fewer injury causing crashes compared to the current crash data of human drivers.

“…I think that change will come slowly. More slowly than it needs to. But it will come.”

I know and appreciate the fears from many in the cycling community that bicycles will be banned from the roads to make room for autonomous vehicles (AV’s). I used to be more fearful of this than I am now. The technology has improved so much that pedestrians and cyclists are being recognised and safely avoided in the already millions of robotaxi trips happening every week right now.

The computers driving AV’s won’t shout abuse at cyclists, or deliberately pass too close, or rev their engines in a threatening manner (they’re all electric anyway), or throw beer cans and other items at cyclists. I’ve had all of these things, and worse, happen to me while riding and almost every other experienced road cyclist in Australia has their own abuse stories to tell. Life will be better for cyclists when there are more AV’s on the road.

Cargo bikes, both for transporting children, for food and other deliveries, and for freight and logistics, will be much more common in Australia in 2034 than today. Particularly in the inner cities.

Bike and Scooter Share

Bike and scooter share will be significantly bigger in 2034 than it is today. It will be legalised in all Australian jurisdictions.

Cheap non-compliant imports and battery fires will be a distant memory after governments finally get their acts together and take better control through regulation.
It’s not that hard. Governments just need to get serious!

All Other Categories

Most niche bike categories will stay niche – tandems, recumbents, track bikes, BMX, folding bikes, unicycles, cycle speedway, rickshaws… the list goes on.

Electric power assist beach cruiser style bikes will continue to grow in popularity. And the dividing line between motorcycles, mopeds and e-bikes will continue to get even more blurry.

Kid’s e-bikes of all styles, including those without pedals, will also become more popular as their prices in real terms, decline.

Conclusions

The bicycle industry and cycling scene will look quite different on Sunday 31st December 2034, but not unrecognisable from today’s scene.

I’d love to say that it will be booming. That governments of all levels will see the light and that we’ll be like Amsterdam or Copenhagen is today. But it took Amsterdam 50 years to “become Amsterdam”. Back in the early 1970’s they were prioritising their cities to make more room for cars, just like we still do in Australia today.

Therefore, if I’m going to have a crack at accurate predictions, I can’t afford to be as optimistic as I would like to be.

Cars will still be the dominant transport mode in Australia in 2034. But with more of those cars being electric and a growing proportion of them being either privately owned or shared autonomous vehicles, hopefully our cycling experience, particularly in our cities where even more of us will live, will be quieter, cleaner and safer than it is now.

Some inner cities will have reached a tipping point where cycling is commonplace and safer, both through better infrastructure, lower speed limits, better attitudes and “safety in numbers”. But the gap between the inner city and outer suburbs will be as wide as ever, with a many times higher mode share in the former compared to the latter.

People will become even more tribal and move to the areas that match their aspirations, views and values.

Speaking of tribal, I’ll finish with the elephant in the room, climate change.

It will be hotter by 31st December 2034. We will have been through a decade of climate influenced “natural” disasters that make what’s happened up until 2024 look like a picnic. But there will still be climate change deniers, as no doubt are some people reading this article right now. In a democracy, it’s our right to hold individual opinions and to express them.

Some might think that on climate grounds alone, all levels of Australia’s government would have bent over backwards in the decade from now until 31/12/2034 to do everything necessary to increase the prevalence of cycling, walking and public transport and reduce the prevalence of car use. Because even electric cars still cause far more environmental damage to make, maintain, provide roads, parking and a huge range of other climate damaging accommodations, compared to bicycles.

People don’t like change. They don’t like admitting they were wrong. They can see change at a macro level, but think their own lives can continue relatively unaffected. For all of these reasons, I think that change will come slowly. More slowly than it needs to. But it will come.