Is the UK bike shop sector at risk as a result of the gig economy vehicle?

An emerging threat to the bike shop sector appears to be building, whereby shop insurance is becoming harder, or at least more vastly more expensive to obtain, all on account of the snowballing misrepresentation of what an electric bike is, and isn’t, in the media.

To rewind to the beginning of this story and bring you on the journey of how we got here, it’s first worth acknowledging the sheer volume of media headlines that use the term ‘E-bike’ in relation to either fires or in some cases where higher speeds than any electric bike can achieve are recorded.

Google e-bike fire and, at the time of writing, the top results showcase instances of fire where the cause has been traced back to modifications to bicycles, or e-bikes, that legally speaking mean they are no longer. The headlines, in the interests of fairness, should make the clear-cut difference between product categorisation, but in the vast majority of cases do not.

As revealed in a series of CyclingElectric.com stories, these press headlines have come to affect the mentality of both buildings managers nationwide, as well as earning advice columns against housing electric bikes in rented properties by landlord groups. Needless to say, both of these things represent a severe threat to eBike ownership and ridership, as well as how sellable products current on the shop floor may be to the public.

Fast forward a little and this has begun to have quite severe, albeit demonstrably unjust, effects on the price of insurance put against both buildings housing bike workshops and directly on bike shops servicing electric bikes; as the vast majority now do.

Ben Cooper at Kinetics in Glasgow told us “My usual broker quoted ten times the previous year’s insurance cost, and apparently only one insurer would even consider providing cover. After a lot of chasing around, I found a different insurer who was (only!) double my prior rate.”

Seconding this, Tony Sanger at Wortley Cycles gave us his account of trouble in the past few years, despite never having made a claim in the prior 24 years’ of trading.

He told CIN: “The renewal cost in 2023 for Cycle Repairs including eBikes was unbearable, so I had to find another insurance company for 2023/2024, which I managed to do, combining with the (co-owned) Post Office & Shop Insurance.

“This year the renewal came through for 2024/2025, I had a call from the company to inform me they would no longer cover the servicing/repairs of eBikes.

“After a lot of desperate e-mails and phone calls, and a day-long meeting, The NFU was able to cover the whole business under a combined policy. EBike servicing and Cycle Hire are not exuded, but I’m very wary of restarting either considering my recent experiences.”

He adds that each time he has been confronted with insurance policy changes they have come at “very short notice”.

Needless to say, these are not isolated instances; the insurance sector appears to be under new direction when it comes to e-mobility, but the facts informing these sharp policy changes do not seem to support such a sharp divergence in coverage policy.

As part of its ongoing work on the subject, CyclingElectric also published a deep investigation into what is causing the fires, getting the likes of the Giant Group, Tern Bicycles and numerous retailers large and small on record as saying they have never experienced a thermal incident.

Within its work, the e-bike specialist website also shared telling data from the Office for Product Standards and Safety, which is due to publish a 500-plus-page report on this subject early in 2025. A graphic within its investigation reveals that there is next to no instance where the kind of electric bike sold by 99% of UK bike shops is involved in a thermal runaway incident, as recorded by fire services in the UK. That’s not to say it does not happen, but the data seemingly conclusively puts your standard electric bicycle as no more likely to catch fire than any other piece of electric equipment and even less likely according to separate data to catch fire than internal combustion engine cars, for example.

Despite this data, the reaction of buildings managers and their insurers is pronounced with the Canary Wharf building and More London properties known to be two major facilities to totally ban eBikes. However, the snowball rolls further and is now affecting far smaller employer’s properties.

The Glasgow Fietser told Cycling Industry News: “My employer tells me I can’t bring my eBike into the building because our insurance doesn’t cover it. Nor can I put it in the bike rack, because the insurance requires a minimum distance between the bike rack/eBike and the building and ours is too close.”

Other comments put to us on social channels include ‘Both of my local bike shops have shut this year. One because of the hike in insurance.’

A recent meet of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling and Walking, focused on the subject of battery safety, drew on the insight of the Bicycle Association’s expert on standards relating to electric bikes and indeed all things bicycle and often beyond. Peter Eland addressed the room, which included listening MPs, commenting that the reality of this threat to the bike shop sector and thus by default the suppliers into it, was indeed “existential.”

So, the poorly regulated arrival of direct-market conversion kits and the knock-on effects of their sometimes sub-standard construction has become a true threat to the £1.6 billion-plus annual direct contribution to the economy that the cycle sector makes. It should be said, that sometimes fires are also attributable instead to mismatched charging equipment or equipment without battery management fail-safes built in.

Unfortunately, we are only just beginning to understand the scale of this problem and without intervention, bike shops will suffer in the meantime, through no fault of their own. We are aware already of numerous closures as a result of declination of cover, or steep rate hikes.

In speaking with a handful of other bike shops we have come to understand that some of the most reasonable insurance renewal rates are coming from long-standing partners to the bike shop sector, such as the Association of Cycle Traders (ACT)-recommended Bikmo. The ACT told us that Bikmo, underwritten by Hiscox, does cover eBike and lithium battery fires and has taken the time to understand the situation. 

Are you affected by this story? Let us know by emailing us.

Want to read more on this subject from Cycling Industry News? Read more on the impact of misinformation on the industry in this guest comment.