New Cycling Industry News mag: iceBike*, big data, CUBE, saddles & politics
Surviving – and thriving – in 2025…
Is 2025 the year the industry starts its recovery? That’s one of the big topics circulating and gets some due consideration in the latest issue of Cycling Industry News, as well as a look at the UK’s political landscape and how that may affect cycling, as well as market insights from key players in the UK and overseas…
Features in this issue include:
- Big data – how has the road/MTB/commuter/gravel bike mix changed over the last six years or so? CIN delves into its market data to find out…
- CUBE and Oneway Bike: We speak with Europe’s largest manufacturer of bikes and electric bikes
- Labour scorecard: 6 months in, how is the new UK government rating for its proficiency in cycling and active travel?
- iceBike* 2025: A look ahead to the key industry show (and the rest of the year) with Madison and Sportline boss Dominic Langan
- Sustrans on the huge opportunity to do things differently and make it easier for residents of new estates to make active travel choices
- Bike stores abroad: We peek overseas to see how the rest of the world tackles bike retail
- How future demographics may impact on the next decade for the industry
- CIN correspondent heads to Selle Royal Group HQ in Pozzoleone, Northern Italy to talk saddles and sustainability
Read the magazine online here. Don’t subscribe but want a copy? Sign up online here. Any questions? Email the team at [email protected]
FROM THE EDITOR…
THRIVE (AND NOT JUST SURVIVE) IN 2025
In my first industry encounters since Christmas, the topic of what 2025 has in store for the bike trade has cropped up every time. Let’s face it, we’re all waiting for some solid positive signs for the coming 12 months.
Is 2025 realistically the year that it all changes? And time for the cycling industry to move on from being “put through the wringer” as Madison boss Dominic Langan (p28) puts it? By default, we’re closer to a return to form than we were this time last year, but
that is a faint endorsement of market prospects.
Looking at seismic company administrations, the number of these have noticeably decreased since their 2023 peak. But, that comes with the warning that they’ve not dried up altogether (US manufacturer Light & Motion is one of the names that have
ceased trading in the early days of ’25). But the hope and expectation is that there will be a trickle rather than a torrent of administrations in 2025.
The BBC’s Panorama on eBikes gave us all an early year wake up call that there’s still some way to go to clarify and educate Joe Public (and Johnny Journalist) about what a legal eBike actually is and isn’t, but maybe also a chink of light in a robust response
from the industry, with associations and retailers standing side-by-side to refute the inaccuracies. Nevertheless, 2025 promises more eBike-related PR battles, probably one of the few cast iron certainties ahead.
What else? Just the prospect of anti-dumping regs being thrown to the wind, which could pave the way for a bunch more bikes arriving in the market. We’ve discovered that growth in bike ownership (à la Covid lockdowns) hasn’t automatically resulted in a bike industry boom, so there’s some scepticism in the wisdom of such a move, should that be the option the UK government decides upon.
But there are opportunities where the industry has seen shifts with some players either humbled or out of the market all together. There’s still bags of potential with eBikes and cargo bikes. There’s some prospective political good will for active travel (p6) and less ‘war on motorist’ rhetoric from Number 10…
In the aforementioned podcast, with road.cc’s Jack Sexty and Ryan Mallon, we riffed on the ‘survive to 2025’ phrase with a more optimistic, ‘thrive (and not just survive) in 2025’. It seems as good a philosophy as any at this point. Here’s to thriving.
Jonathon Harker
[email protected]
