OPINION: Redressing an underserved corner of the bicycle market

It’s not been difficult to come across a discussion about bike prices in the past few years and readers of Cycling Industry News magazine and website will have seen a fair few articles chew over the topic. The reason I am trudging back down that particular path is because there are some clear signs that some brands are taking note. At COREbike this year, there were brands that were pointedly targeting the entry level with their accessories lines and launches because, as one rep put it: “We see this is a gap at the market which has been underserved”. By chance, the next distributor I spoke with said much the same thing. Two informal chats do not a trend make, but absolutely stand out when that entry level has very often been the overlooked and maligned corner of the market.

With an economic outlook where corporate and personal budgets are tightish (but not for those that can afford an £8,000 bike, they seem to continue merrily onwards) it seems a logical move to target the entry level. That has perhaps been borne out by Tandem Group which has, as a colleague notes in a feature elsewhere in CIN’s latest issue, seen a resurgence in sales with lines of bikes that resolutely are not pitched at the highfalutin’ top end of the market. For a particular kind of industry like the cycling market, there are myriad reasons why the entry level might not appear an attractive proposition; An existing heavy hitting player (Halfords), the curse of the enthusiast – of course you’re more inclined to focus on exciting premium kit…

The loss of two significant distributors that provided a wealth of options for the entry level – I’m thinking Moore Large and Raleigh (the latter withdrawing from P&A in favour of bikes only) – was profound for the UK trade. Following that industry rug pull, there was not – perhaps understandably – a sudden rush from competitors to fill that gap, who were busy dealing with their own headwinds and troublesome cash flows in a contracted market. To be blunt, it probably wasn’t the right time to take on a bunch of new lines. The ripples from the lockdown boom and bust continue to play out and sometimes not in expected ways. Is there still a good-sized space in the entry level available here in the first half of 2026? Almost certainly. But that space is contracting. That’s a good thing and indicates some further balance and indeed normalisation for the bicycle market.

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PIC CREDIT: Image by Benjamin Abara from Pixabay