Brands will let people go or their employees will find better paying work outside the bicycle industry. Riders will lose sponsorships or get their modest salaries cut. New product introductions will slow down or seemingly stop until back inventory is sold. It will take a few years to straighten out. The industry is suffering the aftermath of the covid crisis. One thing I'm aware of is the bikes and parts now are far superior to what the had in the 80's or 90's so they simply last longer. In our day we had too much screen time but it was a television that we watched with our family members together. I agree parents now need to spend money on phones, iPads, computers for each kid and that takes up a lot of their income. If riders want to ride, they will no matter what brands do or don't do. Back in 89 when BMX died, we kept riding even though it was hard to find new parts. Riding itself is better than ever even if the industry is in a bind. The bike business and actual riding aren't correlated. Volunteer! Help at your track, jumps, skatepark, keep helping promote bmx to help it stay alive! Hang on to the RADNESS to keep bmx alive! RIDE your BIKES and have fun is all we can do, and try to keep ourselves and our kids riding and moving. The big thing is we gave every kid a an Ipad and on Facebook as that was the way to communicate when being home schooled, thus addicted them to these devices and buying online thru Amazon etc and not thru brick n mortar.so over all kids (who really drive bmx) are not into it and not buying.also for many, insurance is crazy $$$ and don't wanna get hurt.not saying bmx is going to die or go away, it's just we will see numerous brands, shops, pro level riders go away. Oh and then we add numerous bmx brands that had died in the 80's, adding to the mess. Thus bmx orders got pushed back, so for 2 years we had next to no bmx product. In the micro biz of bmx, small customers so low priority. Oh and adding to this is the whole bicycle industry just has way way too many brands and choices. During the boom, the big brands like Trek or even Huffy took priority at the factory level, leaving many under supplied. The supply chain couldn't have predicted what Covid was going to do (or end), so we all ran back to the factories in asia and over ordered, and we couldn't stop the boats fast enough. I'm in the bike biz as a rep, for over 30 years now. ![]() Unfortunately, it's going to be very tough for all. But please put it in terms that an old dumb bmx rider can understand, namely me □♂️ lol. Is that safe to assume? I'm not one of those industry guys and I'm certainly not an economist so if there's anyone out there with an educated guess please feel free to chime in. But this all seems to be a direct result of the effects that Covid caused around the world and not so much a popularity issue. So that along with the news that recent upstart Prospect Bicycles is now defunct after a promising start has me wondering, where do you see bmx headed in the next few years? Is this just a temporary setback within the industry? Do you see harsh ramifications where we could possibly see the shuttering of more bmx companies and online shops? Could any of this affect future bmx representation in the Olympics, X-Games etc? When I think about it I think back to the late 80's when sponsorships and contests declined and bmx/freestyle sort of went underground until the X-Games came about. I started a thread recently about the 2024 model releases and read some concerning responses regarding future offerings in the bmx world as far as new frame and parts production.
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