https://cyclingindustry.news/cycle-to-work-needs-urgent-systemic-change/ I don't know who is at fault here but from the careful phrasing of the bosses of bicycle retail chains, trying hard not to offend the politicians, it looks like the rules were changed without consulting the operators of the scheme, the bicycle retail trade itself, making a situation that was already dire worse. That is a pretty common situation in all kinds of areas that governments meddle in: they genuinely try make things better but, because they don't understand how things work, they inevitably make them worse. Americans have a saying: "The nine most frightening words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government. I'm here to help you.'"
Even if you don't read the entire article, check down the page where it is stated that the bicycle retailers still open are now working on a profit margin of 3–7 percent. The publishing trade, which I know intimately, at the literary end where I operated as an artist, is in perpetual crisis and the big names are generally subsidised by textbook publishers. In a different capacity I was once named as an arbiter by a publisher in the process of selling his publishing house to a much bigger publisher. Afterwards, perhaps impressed with the multiple of his annual profit I negotiated as the price, he made me a consultant to his next venture. One evening over dinner I said to him, "You know, if you'd asked for a loan at the [private bank] when I was a director there, as soon as I discovered you made 2.5 per cent net profit for years on end, I'd have pushed you out of the door for fear that you would infect the rest of our clientele." It doesn't matter how the bicycle retail trade fell into the dire state explained in the article, except for lessons to be learned so that they don't make the same mistake again. What really matters is that with that kind of profitability visible in an entire economic sector – and very likely falling, they will be cut off from new investment because there isn't enough fat to invest from profits or pay interest and repay loans. That's a vicious downward spiral. It describes a whole failing industry, because the retail sector's failure will in time drag down the manufacturing end as well.
I once described in this forum how I saw an LBS owner, offensively smug in good times, abuse the Irish cycle to work scheme, and his customer, by selling her a totally unsuitable bike because the profit on it would be bigger than on the eminently suitable bike also standing on his floor; she would ride the unsuitable bike twice in rush hour traffic, be frightened out of her wits, and it would gather dust in the garage at her home. I'm not saying the British bicycle retail trade is not to blame for some part of what happened to them, or that the government committee is solely to blame; things are never that clearcut. But there's a definite failure in the understanding of consequences here. Not to mention a glaring failure of vision -- note for instance the complaint that those on the minimum wage are excluded from the cycling to work scheme: surely, the young and the poor should also be helped to independent transport, perhaps even be a priority?
Further cycle retail trade decline could be disturbing for cyclists, starting with irritating inconveniences and higher incidental costs in acquiring even routine replacement items like chains and tyres and tubes, or service items like chain lube. I'm assuming here that when all this settles down, some mail order cycle components suppliers* will survive and even grow when the LBS is only a memory, as we already heard in another thread. It's no skin off me, because I've decades since stopped buying the crud the local LBSs offer, and become accustomed to paying carriage charges from distant countries for quality gear. But that is no way to grow cycling, the prerequisite to retailer growth.
Cycling which depends solely or mainly on long-range distance selling, will inevitably become an elite activity. That probably doesn't bother people who ride on a Thorn equipped with a Rohloff and other expensive components. but once more, that is no way to achieve the presumably socially desirable end of increasing cycling.
Copyright © 2024 Andre Jute. Cycling and non-profit media may reprint this piece without charge as long as this copyright notice and permission accompanies it.
*EDIT I was horrified to learn by private mail that two of the three examples of mail-order businesses I mentioned as likely to survive had in fact gone belly-up in the last few months. Ouch! I've removed that entire sentence lest it be a curse on those also named and still open for business.
