The Industry Is Flying Blind and Calling It a Crisis

Two recent pieces arrived at serious conclusions about the state of the bicycle industry — BRAIN’s annual import report, which declared 2025 imports the lowest in at least a decade, and Mike Forte’s thoughtful essay on average selling prices, which asked whether rising IBD prices are pricing out the next generation of cyclists. Reader response to the import piece was pointed enough that a follow-up article was published two weeks later attempting to account for e-bike imports — a category that had been effectively missing from the original analysis. All three are worth reading. All three deserve scrutiny.

Not because the authors got it wrong. But because the data they were working with was incomplete in ways that matter. Reader response to the BRAIN import piece was pointed enough that a follow-up article was published two weeks later attempting to account for e-bike imports — a category that had been effectively missing from the original analysis. That's not a footnote. That's a foundation crack.

Here are four data gaps that change the picture significantly.

1.  E-Bikes Were Largely Invisible in the Import Data

E-bikes and traditional bikes share an import code. BRAIN's Tradewatch methodology — built over decades — was not designed to separate them. When BRAIN attempted to estimate e-bike imports after reader pushback, two research groups produced estimates 900,000 units apart. That's not a rounding error. When e-bikes are added back in, 2025 may not be a record low at all. The headline was built on an incomplete count.

2.  The IBD ASP Surge Was Driven by Supply and Mix — Not Strategy

Forte's data shows IBD average selling prices rose 40% from 2020 to 2025, against 26% cumulative inflation. His conclusion: IBDs are pricing out new riders. But three factors he didn't account for explain much of that gap. First, entry-level bikes — the first to sell during the COVID demand surge — disappeared from floors before higher-priced inventory. What remained skewed the average upward. Second, e-bikes grew from a footnote to 20% of IBD dollar sales at an average price of $3,055. Third, smaller IBDs with no e-commerce or POS reporting were underrepresented in the Circana dataset — and those shops disproportionately carried lower-priced bikes.

3.  Pre-COVID Pricing Was Artificially Suppressed — The Correction Was Overdue

The 2020 baseline Forte uses was already distorted. Two decades of Chinese manufacturing dominance held prices below true cost. From 2015 to 2019, inflation-adjusted industry revenue was essentially flat — the industry was not growing in real terms. When COVID hit, tariff exemptions expired, shipping costs spiked, and the supply shock compressed multiple years of deferred price correction into a single 24-month window. PeopleForBikes presented data at their SHIFT conference showing over 30% inflation on bike products from 2019 to 2023 — a figure consistent with what some retailers were seeing in their own store data at the time. Some of that increase was legitimate catch-up. But prices did not retreat when costs stabilized — and that momentum is the real concern.

“The price correction was overdue. The problem is it never stopped correcting.”

4.  The Reporting Infrastructure Has a Blind Spot Worth Acknowledging

Circana captures point-of-sale data from retailers who participate. During COVID, the retailers most likely to be reporting were large-format, DTC, and chain IBDs — the ones with e-commerce infrastructure and POS integration. Single-location shops selling $400–$800 bikes, often cash-and-carry, were largely absent from the dataset. It's reasonable to ask whether the average selling price the industry has been analyzing reflects who was counted as much as what was sold. This point is harder to quantify than the others — but it's not nothing. 

So What Is the Industry Actually Seeing?

The honest answer is: we don't fully know. And that's the point.

Forte's pipeline concern — that rising prices are closing the enthusiast funnel — may be entirely correct. The BRAIN import data may reflect a genuine contraction. But right now, the data infrastructure doesn't let us say so with confidence. E-bikes are misclassified at the import level. Smaller IBDs are underrepresented in sell-through data. Pre-COVID baselines were artificially suppressed. And a 900,000-unit gap between two credible research organizations on e-bike imports alone should give everyone pause.

Both Forte and BRAIN are asking the right questions. The industry needs to invest in the right data to answer them.

That means a consistent methodology that separates e-bikes from traditional bikes across import, sell-in, and sell-through datasets. It means broader IBD participation in POS reporting — including smaller, lower-ASP retailers. It means applying that methodology retroactively to 2019 to build a legitimate baseline. Without that foundation, the industry will keep drawing confident conclusions from an incomplete picture.

The good news: the data exists in pieces. PeopleForBikes, Circana, LEVA, and BMR each hold part of it. The missing piece is a unified methodology and the industry will to put it together. The conversations Forte and BRAIN have started are exactly the right ones. Let's make sure we're having them with complete information.

Retailers, you have a direct role in fixing this. Both organizations have active programs right now and they need your data to work. NBDA's Market Intelligence Program, launched in December 2025 and powered by TrackFly, connects directly to your existing POS system at no cost to NBDA members — giving you real-time benchmarking in return for contributing your data. PeopleForBikes' Bicycle Industry Data Exchange (BIDE) is building a unified platform covering retail sell-through, supplier sell-in, used bikes, and DTC — and retailers who contribute data get full platform access at no cost. Report to both. The programs serve different purposes, and the industry needs the complete picture both can provide.

But before you can report your data or use it to make strong business decisions, it has to be clean. Inconsistent categorization, missing transactions, and untracked service revenue don't just distort the industry picture — they distort yours. If your own numbers aren't reliable, you're flying as blind as the reports you just read.

Beyond the data organizations, talk to your suppliers and reps. Tell them what is selling, what is stalling, and what your customers are asking for that you can't get. That information shapes what gets ordered, what gets built, and what lands in your market next season. The supply chain runs on signals. If you're not sending them, someone else's data is making decisions for you.

Need help making sense of your own numbers? Before you can use your data to make strong business decisions — or contribute meaningfully to the industry picture — it has to be clean. If you're not sure where to start, or you have data but don't know what it's telling you, reach out. That's exactly the kind of work I do with retailers. Let’s talk: Schedule a Call

What's your read on the data?

If you're an IBD, supplier, or brand with a perspective on what the numbers are — or aren't — telling us, I'd like to hear it. The industry gets better data when more voices are in the conversation.