Wolfgang Lonien

Oh my. I just read that the Dutch Accell group filed for bankruptcy after an already approved sellout to the Singaporean Dutech group (which btw also owns the makers of our bicycles, the Oldenburg-based vsf Fahrradmanufaktur). The reasons given are stagnating sales after the end of Corona, which didn’t seem to be expected in some management circles.

The sad thing about that is not only that we lose some big names of the bicycle industry like Raleigh, Lapierre, Haibike, GHOST, WINORA, Batavus, SPARTA, or KOGA, but also that now – after the damage done by a war to Iran started by Israel and the US, we face ever-rising oil prices, and as such, we could expect that more e-cars, but also more e- and manual bicycles *will* be sold in the not too distant future. After all, an e-bike is way more energy-efficient than even normal bicycles, or walking, or e-cars, according to a study from velotech.de (this article is in German, but the graphic should show you their results).

Sometimes banks, and “the market” just seem to have bad timing. Too bad for all of us.

In case you’d like to hear BikeRadar’s Simon & Warren discuss about this on Youtube, here’s a link. And yes, maybe these miscalculations did happen because they expected more e-bike (really called “Pedelec”) sales, and why might people not want them? Well, maybe because they’re all proprietary? So the battery of bike A wouldn’t fit into bike B and so on? Plus because they’re expensive? Plus because the more hightech you build into a bicycle, the more can fail? I just read about an increase of interest in human-powered bicycles, with integrated hubs, and/or less tech… also in most cases these are much lighter, like your typical road race bikes for instance… just think about possible power outages – what would you do with your heavyweight pedelec? All these things might be considered before people spend much of their money… and yes, maybe the (“new”) Chinese brands like XDS, Winspace & Co will win, because they simply offer more for peoples’ hard earned cash…

Anyway, and like always, thanks for reading.

A few days ago, I read this article from Mat Brett in road.cc, and I tended to agree. Mat’s analysis is quite good, and it was confirmed by the sales spokeperson of XDS lately who said that it was after COVID that sales went down (and with it, prices), and so XDS decided to come out with their own consumer brand called X-LABS, undercutting pretty much everyone else in the industry. They’ll probably lose some B2B customers – the same happened for Giant years ago when they did the same, and probably also for Merida, for whom it didn’t turn out too badly as it seems – at least, they own almost half of Specialized (and make their bicycle frames, apparently). And Giant is still a very big company, selling more than all German bike brands combined. So post-COVID had an impact.

I totally agree with Francis Cade’s analysis as well, as he lately ranked big bike brands according to value – see his Youtube video about this here. And although Francis correctly placed only one vendor in his “GOD tier” category, he forgot to mention how good the proposals of their RS7 (and also RS5) bicycles actually are – they even include power meters in their offerings, something you simply won’t find anywhere else for these prices.

So yes, a Canyon Endurace Allroad which used to be sold here in Germany for 999€ but now is 1.099€ is by far the cheapest and best offering around, an X-LAB RS5 (not yet available here, but sold for 1.399 US$ in the States) would kill it if would be offered for a 1:1 conversion into Euros. As does the RS7 for 2.099 US$ with pretty much everything else (you’ll get a carbon bike with 105 groupset for under 1700€ from Cube as well, but it doesn’t come with a power meter, and I think it also doesn’t come with carbon wheels).

Do you need all that? Not for me to decide; I probably wouldn’t – most of that stuff would be wasted on me I think. Read Warren’s article about that, highly recommended. And is it true that bicycles in general became cheaper? No. My steel frame VSF Fahrradmanufaktur T-300 isn’t available in the configuration that I have anymore, which is with a Shimano Nexus 8-speed hub and hydraulic Magura rim brakes as well as a fully incapsulated chain for about 800€, ca. 2010 or 11 or so – now the same bicycle is a bit updated with 8-speed Shimano Alfine, the same brakes, but a Gates belt driven setup for 1799,90€, see here. That is a price increase of about 125% in some 15 years, which is pretty bonkers. I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t have 125% more income today than I had 15 years ago…

What I also don’t really like is the fact that some things simply vanish from the market, like the mechanical Shimano Ultegra groupset which still should be a bit better than their 105 one on the mentioned XDS or Cube bicycles. Call me old-fashioned, but I think less batteries is a good thing, and I’d rather tighten a cable after a couple of 1000 kilometers than constantly having to think about charging a gear hub.

Anyway, thanks to the mentioned authors for their insights, which I found really helpful. And thanks to you for reading, like always.

P.S.: in case you might think about buying an aluminium vs a carbon bicycle, have a look at this video, and probably also at some of the comments on it. And although the price difference here is at roughly 1k€, the one on the aforementioned Cube is way less – 1400€ for the alu vs 1700€ for the carbon version. And also only a few 100 grams difference in weight; for that price we aren’t talking high grade carbon. Go figure, try, and make a wise decision.

First saw it here, then here – and I’m pretty sure that this product will sell like hotcakes!

A road bike including a Shimano 105 groupset, and even a power meter for under US$ 1,400? And from a company which even sponsors a UCI team at the Tour de France? Wow. Ideal bicycle for the rest of us normal mortals I’d say… it will definitely shake up the market.

Like always, thanks for reading / viewing.