In a letter shared to an MTBR forum, Santa Cruz Bicycles informed their distributors that they will be increasing their prices by 10% on average across bikes for model years 2021 and 2022. Santa Cruz says that they have increased prices for a variety of reasons related to challenges created by coronavirus. The brand confirmed the letter in an email.
“The global demand for bikes and COVID are impacting Santa Cruz Bicycles in 4 ways:
- Increased transportation costs – Since we launched the MY21 line we have seen a significant increase in both the price of air and ocean freight.
- Increased component costs – As demand has continued to skyrocket, almost all component brands have forwarded their raw material, labor, and transportation increases to us. We are even seeing an increase in the cost of boxes as a result of the increase in online retail.
- Strengthening of the NTD – further driving up material cost.
- Tariffs and assembly costs – While there is a new administration in the USA, the continuing trade war means that the 25% import tariffs remain in place. We are also seeing significant increases in labor and factory costs associated with assembly in the USA and mitigating the impacts and risk of COVID.”
Santa Cruz notes that other large brands such as Trek and Cannondale are also facing price increases. “I do want to assure you that we have done all we can to absorb these price increases. We had hoped it would be a short-term issue, but as we look to MY22 we see it’s not and it’s at the point where we are no longer able to absorb the increases on our own.”
Prices are increasing March 1, and Santa Cruz said that all unshipped MY21 orders would need to be repriced for shops. They are not sure whether prices will roll back to normal after 2022.
“It seems everyone’s crystal balls aren’t functioning well these days,” said Brand Manager Seb Kemp. “We didn’t expect to be here so we’re not making any bets on whether suppliers are going to roll back their prices to us in the future.”
The newly launched Rocky Mountain Instinct is another example of a bike that saw significant price increases. A newly revised 2021 Instinct frameset alone is selling for about $650 more than the previous year and generation. Rocky Mountain confirmed that the pandemic has caused similar issues for them in raw material sourcing, labor costs, and tariffs and that they’ve had to raise prices. The build that we tested rose $800 compared to the previous generation.
In January, we wrote about how the “great bike boom” will likely extend through 2021 according to a few brands, and how it’s affected prices for Alchemy and Commencal, as well as challenged shops in getting enough bikes in stock to satisfy customers. Now though, we’re seeing how much these cost increases actually are.
Shipping costs alone have compounded things far beyond the bike industry, and it seems like the end of 2021 is the soonest we can expect things to straighten out.
“No one knows how long the upheaval will last, though some experts assume containers will remain scarce through the end of the year, as the factories that make them — nearly all of them in China — scramble to catch up with demand,” writes the New York Times. They note that shipping costs have nearly tripled for some companies.
The auto industry is sharing some of our pain as well. After several shortage-related shutdowns on the new Corvette, Chevy has had to increase the model’s price by $1,000 according to CNET, although that’s only 1/60th of the price.
For mountain bikers as a whole, it’s probably best to act fast if you’re in the market for a bike this year. With vaccinations on a steady rollout in the US thus far, we can at least be hopeful when it comes to events and maybe even racing this summer.
This story has been updated with comments from Santa Cruz.
Bought a Salsa Fargo Apex 1, they added the carbon fork and DROPPED the price $400.00 from last year. Bike pricing is a lot about good business management.
A poor value bike brand becomes an even worse value. Nice.
The cost of doing business in California itself has been going up due to regulations and wage laws, which was implied by Santa Cruz but not directly stated. A lot of companies have left there because of the burdens places on them. Hard to imagine SC leaving, though. Hollywood has mostly left already, they rarely film in-state compared to 25-30 years ago, too costly.
I expect *all* bikes to go up in price in the upcoming years. It’s just a matter of timing. China, Taiwan and Japan problems with trade, logistics, materials, and supplies, etc. are going to get worse based on current trajectories as related to China and it’s ambitions. Until US/Canada/Mexico manufacturing comes back to some degree the supply chain will be at risk.
I’m not going too blame anyone but bike companies. It’s been a year since the pandemic hit hard and though the U.S. companies had record sales they did nothing to increase production of bikes /components. They dropped the ball and now are asking their customers to wait longer and pay more for their product. I’m not aware of any efforts to develop other manufacturing sources on their part. Surely there is an abandoned warehouse in the United States that could be repurposed to build bikes if the companies would make the investment.
Not to be critical here and I hope they survive the pandemic-influenced markets.
I watched the video on YouTube. With the recent stories on their lead times, and now talking about tariffs… Santa Cruz likely needs manufacturing and logistics experts on staff. Some of the issues they are facing just are not happening everywhere else. I have a feeling that some other bike makers ate Santa Cruz’s lunch.
Compare this response to what the big automakers have done with component shortages. Experts make good things happen.
This is a Biden-Harris thing already. Where I live gasoline is up 80 cents a gallon.Killing the pipeline work and do the math on higher fuel costs to distribute product. This is what happens when inflation of the green new deal is a fail. This will kill USA made products. where I live in FL, only 1 bike shop and it went under after 18 years in 2020. Same holds with the $ 15/hour labor thing. The pandemic is another reason for higher prices. Life in America will be more unaffordable than ever before. And it’s not getting any better with more illegal immigrants that come. So Biden-Harris will be the contraction to the expansion of the last 11-12 years.
Sorry to have been political about it, it’s not intended to trigger anyone, there’s really no way to get around it without naming the names. The one’s clinging to a clean planet are the one’s making the most money to force others to go without. It’s really simple math, every human life unit needs a minimum of fresh water & has a minimum carbon footprint. A higher head count citizen or legal/illegal immigrant just means more urban & now rural sprawl. That costs money and the one’s that will end up paying for it are the end users as consumers.They’re building more duplexes, that means more renters. Traffic is getting worse and a lot of that has to do with the over utilization of a 2/2 dwelling. Crime is ever increasing, the growth pains of that are not a quality of life improvement. Just had neighbors evicted, & they were “essential” workers thru-out the pandemic.Those neighbors were Hispanic residential construction workers, lived in the 2/2, they had a dozen people living in that duplex.So the problems persist, low wages, overpopulation and the community just is a mess.
Another issue, the rat race turns into accusations of racism. That’s what we’ve seen ever since Bush-Obama transition. Hey, it was around a lot earlier too, but it’s gotten worse in the last decade and really this side of the new millenium. Back in 1997, I moved to Miami, was there until 2016. 2 decades and I saw Clinton => Bush => Obama, even beginning of the election year of Trump. It never improved for affordability there. I bought a condo there eventually (2014), when I bought it there was no county lien, I sold the place 2+ years later and somhow the government had attached a lien on the property for an unpaid water bill from a decade (2004) before I purchased the condo. So to sell it, I had to pay close to $ 750 more for a previous owner that didn’t pay their water bills & assessments. Wanna talk about being screwed & pissed off. And guess what ? Title insurance was worthless 2+ years later. I tried making a claim on that because, well that’s what title insurance is, insurance tha the property is a clear & clean title.I suspect a lot of properties are going to be dirty going forward, delinquent & deadbeat people that didn’t pay for something that pops up out of nowhere. That’s just the way life is & has always been, passimg of the buck & stick someone else with footing the bill. And that’s what we’ve become, a game of financial musical chairs of who gets caught standing when the music stops.
Presidents have little effect on short term gas price changes.
I’d like to think that, but from the inception of Biden striking down the pipeline, that’s when gas prices jumped. It wasn’t only the pipeline, it became the stimulus checks and border caravans that were on their way. Putting a stimulus in the hands of the masses signals inflation to happen every time for the corporations to facilitate a wealth transfer back into the profits. All we got was 80 cents more a gallon, the same infrastructure of fossil fuel and more people to consume. Keystone just isn’t East coast, the Texas pipline runs from Canada to the Gulf Coast of Texas, it’s more than oil, it’s natural gas too. I read an article earlier today, that by 2030 more EVs are on the way, that means more charging stations on the grid. That’s going to take oil & fossil fuel to make happen. Trump understood that, was trying to get it done without $ 3+/gallon gas. Biden doesn’t get it & neither does the Congressional Green New Deal types. They seem to lack the intelligence & expertise to understand that growth on the order of what Biden-Harris are signing us all up to is mismanaged poverty.
I was part of that bicycle everywhere around 2010 to save the planet. In retrospect, I went without, continue to go without. There were more that were more than happy to consume everything I conserved. Really pissed me off seeing those vagina hat protests. People booking flights & driving to protest something that was never going to improve the quality of my life ever. Wasting the precious fuel, the pollution I refrained from being a part of. There’s nothing more to go without on my end and I’m tired of hearing about how miserable my life has to become for future generations that don’t care about what life I have left on the planet. Sorry to sound so bitter about it, but until you’ve been so frugal that it hurts mentally to try to squeeze more out of nothing, I don’t want to be the What if you’re the only one saving the planet ? That I know is the only way this turns out from historically living thru that. nobody wants to hear a damn bicycle is going to cost them a few hundred dollars more to have to pedal the thing to save a planet that doesn’t need saving, when the solution is there needs to be fewer poverty & pandemic babies. Falls on deaf ears when neighbors have pandemic babies, yet claim they can’t pay for rent, food & utilities in a home they are over utilizing for occupancy. In short, f*ck those selfish a$$h*les. Force them to move elsewhere, not next to me. I didn’t sign on to the next round of their problems to go without over. Nobody’s child is worth that. Exhausted from the crime & traffic they’re creating, they need to discipline themselves to live within their own means. I don’t care if they are homeless & hungry, I have nothing more to extend to them. They are dragging the rest of us down in that regard.
Gas prices are affected mostly by crude oil prices and refining capacity. Crude oil prices now are about the same as they were in 2018 and 2019. Oil prices dropped significantly coincident with the pandemic, and stayed low for quite some time because, guess what, nobody was going anywhere. Demand for oil dropped. Oil prices stayed low until recently when the pandemic started easing and economies started opening up. Did you not know that multiple states in the U.S. have completely eliminated pandemic restrictions?
Meanwhile, you may have heard about the big weather-related power outages in Texas, a big oil producing state. During that time, refining capacity in the U.S. dropped 33%. That drop was comparing end of January to the end of February. I’m writing this on March 12th, so that refining capacity drop along with increased demand for oil is what’s behind the gas price hike. While the pipeline issue may effect prices in the future, that’s a long term issue. So prices won’t be affected immediately.
As far as slightly longer term trends, gas prices are as low as they are now because of a 2014 oil price drop from over $110 a barrel to around $65 a barrel. This occurred during the Obama administration, and is largely due to oil oversupply. The oversupply of oil was mostly due to increased oil production by the U.S. Were you quick to give Obama credit for this occurrence? I can’t say whether he played a role in it or not. But certainly supply and demand play a role in this, and while you erroneously blame Biden for the current gas price rise, you could just as easily blame Trump increasing demand by rolling back fuel efficiency standards for U.S. vehicles, which resulted in a shift of automakers from cars to SUVs and trucks, and will no doubt lead to increased demand.
I can understand supply & demand. The price increases we’re seeing are for parts/component availability ? Is that really the case ? Odd that gasoline wasn’t ever priced this high under Trump absent of the pandemic when demand was at full employment. Just bear in mind that one of the biggest power frauds occurred under the Bush administration, Enron claimed the grid was inadequate, they were ricocheting power across states and pricing the power for obscene profits. And notice how gasoline during the pandemic was never this high, only increased when a stimulus showed up as a direct deposit. Whether it’s AC or Heat, that energy requires oil & natural gas. The US Population continues to grow, more illegals and legal citizens having pandemic quarantine babies. Over the last year, my demand has not changed. Someone had to be making that energy for it to be available for consumption, remember that essential did not shut down. My take on the pandemic, and this is from FL DOH Data I’ve crunched in a SQL Server database, did you know that life expectancy for Covid in FL from March 2020-Feb 2021 reflects the same mortality life expectancy of the years prior to the pandemic. Covid in FL is so intelligent that the life expectancy hasn’t changed.
And watch your power companies, this is what they’re doing here. Don’t let these folks lie to you about supply & demand. They want to raise prices for greed & profit.
https://flaglerlive.com/161615/fpl-base-rates-hike/
The latest from Devinci. Unfortunately they are having to do the same: https://www.devinci.com/en/covid-update/