When it comes to bike repairs, good advice is expensive: Because no bike can be repaired without spare parts.
“We have extremely high deficiencies, actually everywhere,” says Nico Rheude from Radsport Lang in Ebersberg.
District - Regardless of whether it is frames, brake discs, chains, gears or helmets: Everything that is produced in the Far East is hardly available.
Anyone who needs a new gear shift, for example, can expect a six-month waiting period, says Nico Rheude.
“What is gone is gone and won't keep up that quickly,” he explains.
Fred Brichta, boss of the Radlhaus Grafing, confirms this: “We used to order a chain on Monday, it was there on Tuesday,” he recalls.
Currently, the chain will come in 2022 at the earliest, and the market has been swept clean.
Two years waiting period for a specific model
It's not a bit better with new bikes: If you want a certain model, you often have to wait two years, says Rheude.
The situation is also at Zweirad Hofmann in Zorneding: “Bad, you can't say it any other way,” says managing director Michael Hofmann.
“Customers come to me who have been promised bikes for 2023 at the earliest in other shops,” he says.
Sometimes they would be lucky and happen to find something with him.
“Just like a dishwasher or a car, a bicycle consists of a good 2,000 parts that can come off,” he says.
If only one part is missing from the manufacturing companies in Asia, they wait until it is there at some point, he estimates.
And only when the bike is ready do the companies finally deliver it to his shop.
Dealer orders 180 bicycles and receives three
In Grafing, Brichta had ordered around 180 bikes for young people.
In the end he got three of them.
He has been waiting for other orders for a year and a half and does not expect delivery until November at the earliest.
"It's madness," he says, shaking his head.
And even with the few deliveries, completeness is not guaranteed: “Then the ordered e-bike will finally arrive, but the battery is missing,” he explains.
He then comes after two more weeks of waiting: “Explain that to the customer,” he complains.
At the same time, the demand for bicycles has risen sharply: "Since Corona, many more people have wanted to ride a bike or have come to this sport", says Rheude in Ebersberg.
Because of corona winners
"Everyone thinks we would be the winners, but I sold 80 fewer e-bikes this year than last year because they simply didn't come from the manufacturers," confirms the boss of the Grafinger Radlhaus.
His shop is getting emptier and emptier.
"The boom is still there, but nothing is happening," says Brichta.
An end to the shortage of bicycles and spare parts does not seem to be in sight either: “I estimate that it will be the same in 2022 and I don't think that demand will be met after that,” says Rheude.
Hofmann sees it similarly in Zorneding: "First Corona has to be completely over, only then does it stabilize again over the years," he estimates.
“Nothing will normalize before 2024,” agrees Brichta, colleague from Grafingen.
"First of all, we're going to see that we can somehow get through the winter and hope that we can start again in the spring."
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