Giant feels the chill from falling demand.

[chris667]

I think that's the way to go with e-bikes. If I were to take the plunge it what I'd do.

Definitely - I went for a rear wheel motor because it was recommended, and it struck me there was less to it. Simpler is always better.

 

[Cycleops]

Actually I was even thinking about buying some kits from China and converting second hand bikes and selling them. The problem is that there's a huge influx here of Honda CG125 clones from China and the cost is not much more.

 

[the_mikey]

It will be interesting to see how the Ribble situation pans out - personally I've never really liked the company (more badge-engineered eastern stuff pushed under some fluffy insinuations about being British) and I wonder if they've used the Covid boom to get a good price from whichever scummy PE company swallowed them up, and have now left them holding the bag in the inevitable post-Covid vacuum (fair play if so ).

Not sure that's particularly fair, making anything that's both competitive and able to provide product at any kind of scale in the UK these days is an expensive game, and unless you have been gifted a large warehouse by someone you'll be looking at a properly lease and bills that will soon put things into perspective, ie, you need to have cash rolling in just to exist, and the cheapest way to do it is to outsource as much as possible overseas. The only way the prospects of a UK based business can improve in the current climate is by the costs of running that business to go down, or sales to go up very dramatically, but given that property values aren't crashing yet, and wage increases for most people aren't forthcoming and energy bills and inflation are still high, I don't see the future looking particularly bright right now.

 

[Jameshow]

I don't think that you can build bikes in the UK apart from steel bikes.

The manufacturing base isn't there for alu or carbon fibre on the scale or economics needed for bike production. £30k one off olympic bike no probs £3k mid range carbon bike no way!!

 

[PaulSB]

@wafter - some great posts. Thanks.

 

[Moderators]

Thread closed pending Mod review.