I feel that a heads up is in order for all of the folks getting enlivened about the first three days of 2025 being Wednesday, Thursday, Friday – or, WTF. It’s just that, if day-of-the-week acronyms are the new astrology, be aware that the next year, 2026, starts with TFS, as in Total F***ing Sh*t. Ha! Now onto the bike stuff…
This afternoon, I’d like to do some basic bicycle-buying math. We like our STEM properly short around here, so the methodology malfeasance will be obvious immediately. I’m not factoring in labour to build bikes, shipping, the spatial cost to store them in boxes, or the monthly rent for the part of the sales floor they consume. We’re just talking about straight-up invoices here.
Let’s say that in the time of endless Covid-boom optimism, a shop purchased a bike for $5000. Then demand evaporated into the odd oasis in a sales Sahara and now one of the shop groms semi-regularly pumps up the tires and gives it a little dust & polish. Whatever the store had one day hoped to sell the bike for, a combination of colour changes, the most minute geometry tweaks, a different behind-the-decimal digit on the damper decoder decal, and rumours of a pending replacement model have splintered those dreams like an LP Composites Kevlar-composite seat post.
The shop is holding fast on selling said 5K cost at the face value (zero profit), but the fact is they’re going into the second year of owning said bicycle outright and it just needs to leave. There is no more inventory-turn talk, it’s just a pile of cash thru-axled to a pair of 29″ wheels {*GASP* it’s not even a mullet?!} and a spot on the floor for the new-new.
{Drewitors note: Just be thankful that it’s not last-last year’s eeb we’re talking about here. In the immortal words of Sir Mix-E-Lot: “My BroPed ain’t no fun unless its got overrun, hun.” Or, you know, something like that.}
*Deep breath*
And then someone throws out the idea of average margin. You see, the manufacturer still has way too many of the old-and-basically-unrideable awesome mountain bicycles from last year and do they have a deal. Buy a minimum of two and they’re now $3500 a pop. So let’s say we’re ASS-u-ME-ing that the street price is five grand, now instead of selling one bike for no profit, we’re selling three bikes and making a g-note a pop. And yeah, $1000 profit a bike is better than $0.
The problem is that, still, no one is biting at 5K. Sure, a few folks sniffed around but it turns out they have the means to buy the latest and greatest when it comes out or a current rig that is all but unsellable on the used market. Either way, there are now three bikes being dusted and even the staffer who was going to pick one up has decided to wait for a deal on the next generation too because he thinks it will have better resale value (hahaha).
Now it gets really exciting because it turns out that most dealers didn’t have the chutzpah (or, possibly the cash or credit) to triple down on an unsellable somewhat-super-bike and the supplier still has more of them but now, they’re $2500 each. I mean, the suspension alone retails (SRP) for that much! (If people were buying last year’s forks and shocks for the full bill).
One bike at $2500 isn’t going to save the day, but what if we buy a trio and sell all six for $4000 each. That’s below (standard) dealer cost! Now we’ve spent $19,500 on six bikes, but we’re going to sell them for $24,000, and that means we’re making $750 a bike. That’s what, 1.23x average cost? At this time of year, the way the bike market has been, that’s liveable.
I mean we’re talking 4K for say a GX Eagle drivetrain (no, not electronic), almost-top-end Code brakes (no, not Mavens), RockShox Ultimate suspension (no, not Charger 3.1), Maxxis EXO+ tires (no, not the new 60TPI + butyl insert version), and so what if the dropper post is the same length they’re equipping on the new generation of 30lb+ ‘XC race’ bikes?
But still, there’s no interest. The tastiest bait doesn’t catch fish if there’s none around.
I’m sad, maybe sorry, to say that the only (only) good news here for the store is that next time you’re in a bicycle shop and notice a whole bunch of the same model, spec, size, and colour of the same rigs you don’t need to ask why. Knowledge is dour.
And yeah, maybe the shop is holding more inventory in a single model than they’ve moved in the entire sales history of the bike, or maybe it’s all going to be okay because the model mostly carries over for next year, in the winter it makes no difference.
The good news, for you, is that bikes have been unevolvingly rad for a few years now, and if you aren’t hung up on model years and marketing magnification there are incredible values to be had in terms of performance, longevity, and fun. Why not buy two?!
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