LILLE, France - One of the best known Decathlon executives in the bicycle industry, Didier Morelle has announced his departure from the French retailer. In the past decades, he became a well known face in the international bicycle industry, holding various positions at Europe's largest bicycle retailer, lastly as bike procurement director.
BUDAPEST, Hungary - After securing the intellectual property of insolvent Hagen Bikes AS the Estonian Springdrive is relocating the cargobike production and sales to its wholly-owned Hungarian D2C e-bike manufacturer Blurby Kft.
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam - Schwalbe announced yesterday the strategic realigning of its production and will manufacture all tyres and tubes exclusively in Vietnam in the future. The background to the decision is the development and tense situation in the bicycle industry. Instead of long-term orders, orders are almost exclusively placed spontaneously. "As a result, it is currently no longer possible to plan ahead to meet demand at two parallel production sites," explains Frank Bohle, CEO of Schwalbe in a company statement.
LYNGE, Denmark - Since January 1st, 2023, all Argon 18 bikes destined for the European market have been assembled at the company's European headquarters in Denmark. The Canadian brand is also broadening its retail network by offering direct to retail sales in the UK. Other European markets are expected to follow.
DAUN, Germany - Despite naming its relatively young e-bike brand HoheAcht after the region in Germany where it is based, bike supplier Technibike GmbH has decided to abandon its production facility in Staßfurt, Germany and move to Eastern Europe - more precisely Bulgaria.
In recent years an increasing number of bicycle companies have opted for close to market production in Europe. Spurred on by the need for a consistent supply chain following issues during the pandemic, investments in European manufacturing continue to grow. As noted in this online magazine, Eastern Europe is becoming popular with Lithuania, Poland and Romania all enticing new investments from bicycle manufacturers. But not only here, Germany, France and Portugal are taking efforts to step up 'Made in Europe' bicycle production.
SHANGHAI, China - E-bike drive system manufacturer Ananda is currently stepping up its activities in Europe which will result in the opening of a fully automatic production facility in Hungary. "We want to improve the supply chain with production in Europe," Ananda president Daniel Zhuo told Bike Europe.
NEW YORK, USA - When the pandemic started in March 2020 the US bicycle business was fully import dependent. 95% of all bicycles sold in the country were primarily coming from China. In other words, the US bicycle business was completely dependent on globalisation and the global supply chain. But "the golden age of globalisation is ending," fears US market specialist Jay Townley.
Being able to respond even better and faster to the needs of the rapidly growing market was the main goal of the relocation of KMC Chain Europe to Heerenveen in the Netherlands. At the new location, which is more than twice as large, the originally Taiwanese company has made significant efficiency improvements.
MAASTRICHT, The Netherlands - Will globalisation come to an end because of the various supply crises? Professor Bart Vos doesn't believe so: "Reshoring is mainly geopolitical mood-making." Bike Europe spoke to him about the state of affairs and current developments in supply chain management.
