Corona, vacation at home, environmental awareness and fitness exercise are giving cycling a real boom. More and more people get into the saddle more and more often. Business in the bike shops is booming - and anyone who wants their bike repaired professionally needs a lot of patience.
District - Martin Fischbeck, owner of the bicycle shop of the same name in Fürstenfeldbruck, had sold over 80 percent more bikes than last year by the end of August. Many models are now completely out of stock. “And getting new bikes is a real problem,” explains the 39-year-old.
Just because Martin Fischbeck suspected a lot of additional bikes at the beginning of the corona crisis, there are still some for sale in the shop. In some cases, however, customers would already make a binding reservation for a bike for October. That is the time when the new models for the next season will be delivered to the specialist shops.
Dominikus Hefele, one of the owners of “Hart am Rad” (formerly Radsport Scholz) in Germering, also registered a large number of customers. “But I could have a lot more customers,” says the 34-year-old. But because his shop is small, he doesn't have that much storage space for bikes and is dependent on subsequent deliveries during the year. However, they are currently difficult or impossible to get. The manufacturing companies simply cannot ramp up their production as quickly as demand has increased.
This boom is not only related to classic bikes, e-bikes are also more popular than ever. Markus Blechinger has specialized in this. He is the owner of Markus' bike garage in Moorenweis. “The bicycles, which were intended for the whole year, were gone in June,” says the 54-year-old.
Problems with supplies
Markus Blechinger therefore also has great problems getting supplies. And it's not just new bikes that are hard to find. When it comes to service and repairs, all of the dealers surveyed in the Fürstenfeldbruck district also have sensitive bottlenecks due to the crowds. Because here, too, the shops cannot quickly carry out twice as many repairs overnight as they do in normal times. "If you want to do it cleverly, it just takes time," says Markus Blechinger. That is why there is currently a waiting time of around six weeks for a service appointment in the bike garage in Moorenweis.
The situation is no different for Alexander Altmann, owner of Radl Altmann in Olching. With all this pressure and all the work, he annoys the attitudes of some customers. They would buy cheap bikes on the Internet and then expect him to fix the deficits of these bikes in Altmann's workshop - immediately. "There are people who think they are alone in the world". In the Olching bike shop there are currently only bike inspections for customers who have bought their bikes in-house. This is the first time that his business has had to take this measure.
Cycling Fischbeck in Fürstenfeldbruck also differentiates between house customers and people who only come to the workshop. Own bikes have priority. But even for these there is currently a waiting time of about a week.
Repairs to third-party bikes must be postponed. Their owners currently have to wait around six weeks before they can get an appointment. "It's a shame not to be able to help the customer," says Martin Fischbeck. But his staff in the shop and workshop is simply overloaded. "After four months of constant stress, we are all exhausted," says the 39-year-old business owner.