On the eve of Taiwan’s big Taipei Cycle show, we’re all wondering what exactly to expect. Between ongoing industry woes and a never-ending stream of press releases, it’s easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees.
So, until we get the full lowdown on all the new gear on display in Taiwan, we sat down today with Shift Active Media, who we usually work with as a PR intermediary for several international brands, but also conducts some interesting industry surveys and data analytics. With several years of industry turmoil following the unexpected COVID boom, the bicycle industry keeps trying to talk itself beyond simply recovering, and more about evolving into a more sustainable industry with resilient growth ambitions.
Taipei Cycle: What the Shift data says is next?
First, they surveyed the brands that attend the Taipei show for a sense of the bike industry’s own level of market confidence.
Generally speaking, confidence in the industry as a whole is on an upturn after a few years trending the other way. But Shift’s optimistic data still averages out at just 4.99/10. Not bad, but not great either.
A perfect example of how the market doesn’t quite feel out of the woods yet.
But more than half feel that things are stable or will return to growth, citing tariff uncertainty, price undercutting, and rising costs as their biggest concerns for the coming year.
At least something.
Consumer outlook?
With brands giving a look from inside the industry, Shift also surveyed a large cohort of consumer cyclists across 5 key international markets (US, UK, EU, China & Japan) to hear what consumers say they actually want. Hint: That last one isn’t exactly lined up with what we are seeing in product news these days.
Good news is that consumers are talking about buying again. Mostly, it seems like upgrading and maintaining what they already ride. But there’s still chatter about new bikes and buying into new disciplines, that latter being appealing to the industry that hopes to sell a bunch of add-ons & accessories to go with that new gravel bike.
But maybe more interesting for us as a website that tries to report on all the latest and greatest innovative tech that our readers are interested in… Shift asked that precise question in their survey….
And what their responses show is that you all want to learn most about is tech that will make you safer while you ride and keep you riding without destroying the planet. For example: helmets, protection, radar sensors, and improved lighting seem to hit the first point. Maybe some dedicated smart mobile apps to track bike wear, ebikes that log your rides & tell you when to lube or replace your chain, or even a ride tracking app like Strava to remind you to regularly service your suspension? And of course, products made without forever chemicals inside, manufactured from more recycled material, made closer to where you ride, or simply with less embodied energy or fresh water consumption.
Those are all great insights to us. And we’ll try to take some of these thoughts into account for our future reporting.
Interesting to us – and maybe not all that surprising – that last point on the Shift questionnaire… It seems consumers are skeptical of the value of adding another new bigger wheel size. And we totally get that. 32″ is all the buzz right now, but it doesn’t feel like there is any real concrete evidence that the bulk of cyclists (especially smaller riders) will benefit from having another new wheel size to deal with. But let’s see this through. I’ve only just hopped a 32″ bike. Not enough time to make any real statements yet, other than that it rolled, turned & stopped without issue. But we’ll give it a deeper look, and maybe there will be some merit to it. Maybe not?
Time will tell.
In the meantime, smaller wheels on the streets of Taipei.
