This.
There’s also zero percent chance of kid in college dropping 5k on a bike, especially in these times.
Bike industry failing?
- Thread starter rick81721
- Start date
This.
There’s also zero percent chance of kid in college dropping 5k on a bike, especially in these times.
johnbryanpeters
Well-Known Member
I can't even guess.
SmooveP
Well-Known Member
Right. I don't inflict my musical taste on others unless you're in my car. This also allows me to turn up the volume so I can't hear you complain.👍
johnbryanpeters
Well-Known Member
Primus is in my library.
The Brown Album is one of my all time favorites. I watched an interview with Les where he talks about how much everyone hates it but it’s phenomenal.
johnbryanpeters
Well-Known Member
I went to their concert in Burlington, Vermont, in 2012 when I was 67 years old. Happily got into a mosh pit for the first time in my life.
Went down a few times until I got the hang of it. Lost and recovered a shoe, broke glasses, had a great time, went in for more during the second set.
Like he's done touring the country? I guess this is how he tried to make a living? I imagine he's still going to ride a bike.
Last year was a down year for MTB riding for me, and a lot of people I talked to said the same. Personally, I felt like it rained 48 of 52 weekends last year. The weather was just garbage. We hiked CR this morning. That place isn't going to be rideable for weeks at this pace. It is a total ice rink right now.
You also sort of tap out your personal market on "doing things" in a sense. How many times can we all drive to White Clay to ride trails that are pretty good. But maybe not worth a 2 hour drive more than once in a blue moon. This also applies to Wawayanda, etc. It's a 1:10 drive that ends up being a 5 hour day of you want to go ride up there...as an example.
Every time I get on my MTB I enjoy it. But sometimes it's hard to scrape myself into the car to drive to get there. Now...pardon me while I Zwift shortly.
There’s been a lot of talk about how YouTube made it much harder to be profitable or just break even for a lot of bike industry influencers. I’m pretty sure it’s impacting all similar industries.
Yup, so true. This applies to just about any outdoor activity. Skiing, climbing, hiking, whatever.
Pretty much. But with skiing, you may have an 8-10 week window in any given year so it tends to "tap out" a bit harder than some of the other things. In theory we have like 52 weeks a year to ride MTBs here. In reality, we get about 15 perfect weather days in NJ...at least it feels like.
I think you can apply the "this got old" theory to cyclocross to explain why that fizzled. We once drove to Nowhere, MA for a 2-day cross race. I cannot fathom doing such a thing today.
It's really hard to stay with it if you have a rough/wet summer and then that moves into a wet or icy winter. Depending on where you live the after-work riding if you aren't near a good park can be really hard as traffic is a major issue so in some ways you're really relying on good weather on the weekends.
How many people actually go riding outside in NJ Monday-Friday at night in the dark and cold through the whole winter? So many things need to align for that to be feasible.
Funny - going to school in upstate NY, then living in NJ, night skiing/snowboarding was always a thing. Tuesday or Wednesday had reduced rates.
Ticket good 6-9 (or 10) - probably went weekly while in kollege, then a couple times a month. It was horrible, but I didn't know better.
We went when we could, we didn't chase the pow.
Then I went out west with my soon-to-be spouse, to Summit County, and Vail. The east coast has never been the same.
Sure, there were some good powder days - but out west, get into the hard stuff, and you aren't dealing with anyone else.
The lifts at the bottom of black and double black are basically walk-up service.
And when they say ice, you laugh.
I went east coast night boarding as part of a friend's 40th or 50th birthday weekend - Pat's Peak of all places. luckily it is cold there so they can blow snow 24/7.
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We had a couple epic group winter night rides at 6MR. But coordination, motivation, and availability are tough to bring together.
so yes - it is hard to get on that bike at night (er, in the dark) in the winter.
maybe we need an Indoor velodrome ?
zmartene
Well-Known Member
I get out of work at 7PM so I'm not gonna ride Mon-Fri regardless. Someone earlier said it rained every weekend in 2025 - that's actually accurate, we went something like 15 straight weeks without a dry weekend.
My limiting factor isn't desire to do it but rather available time - even aside from work, kid, and household projects. I'm lucky to get trainer time before work if I can get my ass out of bed in time - outdoor time just isn't in the cards, regardless of weather.
I keep telling myself she won't be 6 forever - when I'm 52 and she's grown I'll have a bit more free time. I also need to figure out how to shut down my wife's tik tok account - always "fun" to see what new project an influencer tells her we have to do to the house every week!
Actually this reminds me that we went to Vermont in the summer and several people up there said they had gone 22 or 24 weekends straight with rain (or snow). It rained the Saturday we were there.
Ian F
Well-Known Member
From what I gather as someone who watches too much YouTube, revenue is a spiral based on what videos advertisers want to put ads on. For a spell, mtn biking was "hot" and advertisers wanted to get their ads in front of those eyeballs. Similar for the vanlife and RV crowd. But everything is cyclical. Another mtb channel - BCPOV - stopped a year or so ago after he split up with his wife and went into a completely different direction - basically doing his own take on the Itchy Boots adventure moto channel. I've noticed "retirement planning" channels are somewhat popular right now - or maybe it's just me since I'm hoping to be on the tail end of my working career over the next few years.
Berm Peak (Seth Bike Hacks) videos still seem to get a decent number of views. And the Singletrack Sampler still does ok.
I was still doing after work night rides at Neshaminy until the weather made it less fun. I actually do more rides there after work now than the after-work road rides I used to do.
Johnny Utah
Well-Known Member
Very solid points here.
I love to ride, but the idea of loading anything into a car and then dealing with NJ traffic puts a damper on things. This would put me on the gravel bike, but the added traffic and distractions drivers face makes that a bit of a fight depending on the local streets you ride.
Bike shops really got beat up with demand during COVID - we have all discussed this before. I am not sure the brands/shops all dealt with it that well - leaving some consumers with a bad taste in their mouth and other options to choose from outside of the bicycle.
Then there is the e-bike with speaker thing. That is like the final kick to the crotch or additional fluids in the Cheerios beyond milk once you get past the previously mentioned problems.
This summer I rode fairly consistently, but live in the Pine Barrens and have ample drained sandy roads. Once fall hit, I was reminded of a discussion @Norm had in his blog about gardening, because that tied up the last three months for me (bed prep, pruning, leaf removal, tree removal etc) - it is pretty fun and kept me in shape.
In a world where we are constantly being sold something, hiking has been fairly awesome as well. It seems anytime I get back into the bicycle and go to a store/website, I am pushed to buy a $7k e-bike I am not interested in. Even the industry Is pushing me away from the bicycle, so I just don’t shop it anymore and have accepted that I may be the guy who rides vintage junk all the time.
I have included a picture of my e-bike leaning up against a bicycle speaker storage unit
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JPark
Well-Known Member
Killington likes to hype up their 100 Day Club.
But in reality, if you made the 100 Day Club you're also in the Skied 70 Shitty Days Club.
You get a T-Shirt though...