What Tariffs Mean for the Price of Cycling Gear

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Tariffs. You’ve heard nonstop about them, and you’re no doubt wondering how your life will be affected by them. Some folks might see this as a scare tactic to level the trade playing field against other countries. Based on our conversations with folks in the bike industry, however, there’s a bit more cause for concern.

Alright, let’s be frank: there’s a whole lot more cause for concern.

I’ve spent the last 24 hours talking to experts across the bike industry about how they feel regarding the White House’s choice to implement mass tariffs, and how those tariffs will affect prices and the future of cycling as a whole. Velo has agreed to allow sources to stay anonymous so that they can speak freely.

The overwhelming consensus is that if things continue as they are, bikes, components, and accessories will get more expensive. But there’s a whole lot more downstream effects to these tariffs as well, in places you might not expect.

What are these tariffs?

First, we need to talk about what a tariff exactly is.

A tariff is a tax a national government imposes on goods and services imported from another nation. The thinking here is fairly simple. By making imported goods more expensive, the thinking is that consumers will choose the less expensive — and likely domestically produced — goods. In theory, this encourages the consumption of goods and services from domestic industries.

How does that affect the bike industry? In a word: dramatically. Like most things in the world, a complete bicycle does not have one pure country of origin. Even if a bike frame is made in the US, the materials it is made from often are not. Drivetrains aren’t made in the US, nor are tires, chains, spokes… You get the idea. The bike industry is big enough to benefit from global trade, but not so big that it can source alternative components and accessories from the US, making the bikes and accessories you buy much more vulnerable to price hikes due to tariffs.

Why are these tariffs being implemented? Here’s what the White House has to say:

“Large and persistent annual US goods trade deficits have led to the hollowing out of our manufacturing base; resulted in a lack of incentive to increase advanced domestic manufacturing capacity; undermined critical supply chains; and rendered our defense-industrial base dependent on foreign adversaries.”

None of those look bad on the surface, but let’s dig into how they’ll affect the bike industry.

What countries are most impacted?

Bicycle Retailer & Industry News has done the legwork in breaking down the tariffs placed on the countries that produce the most bikes, components, and accessories in the US. Here’s the chart:

It’s worth mentioning that China has additional tariffs already implemented, including a 25% Section 301 tariff, 20% additional tariffs, and 25% steel and aluminum tariffs on some products. This means that after April 9, the total tariff on adult bicycles imported from China will be 90%, and the tariff on e-bikes will be 81%.

The fact of the matter, however, is that based on what folks in the bike industry tell us, there’s hardly anything at all that won’t be affected by these tariffs. That goes for bikes that are made in Asia and all the way down to that local bag maker who doesn’t source its materials domestically.

The bike industry is so globalized that it’s a challenge to say how much and what parts of the industry can be attributed to each country. Some reports, however, give us a rough estimate of what is likely to be hit hardest.

As one might expect, the hardest hit bikes in the industry come from mainland China. Some reports say that it exports as many as 27.1 percent of the world’s bikes. Taiwan is next with 14.4 percent of exports, and Germany is third with 9.9 percent worldwide. Together, that accounts for nearly $5 billion in value in just 2023 alone. Further, the United States imported $1.25 billion of that value alone: $523 million from Taipei, and $450 million from China. And for good measure, the US imports $83.8 million from Vietnam.

Together, that accounts for $1.06 billion in bicycle imports from three countries. Bicycle Retailer reports that 87 percent of bikes entering the US come from China, Taiwan, and Cambodia, meaning 88 percent of bikes coming to the US are subject to a minimum 43 percent tariff.

The problem is that each of these countries is among the highest tariffed countries on the list.

Does that mean your next bike is that percentage more expensive?

Whether your bike is going to become more expensive as a result depends on who you ask. Some folks believe this is a scare tactic by the White House to level the playing field against countries with whom the US has a trade deficit.

But by nearly all accounts, the answer is yes, prices will go up.

The two dozen people in and out of the industry we’ve talked to about this are highly skeptical of tariff rates going down to pre-2024 rates. And frankly, some brands are already acting preemptively to protect themselves.

A few small and medium-sized bike brands tell Velo that they have already withdrawn signup discount codes from their site. Others have quietly removed sale bikes and accessories from their sites in an effort to keep their inventory as long as possible, with those brands ensuring they ask top dollar for their wares. All of these brands are hesitant to raise prices immediately, but all of them say if tariffs continue at even a small percentage of where they are now, they will have no choice but to increase their prices.

“Prices must go up unless you change the sales channel,” said the CEO of a medium-sized premium e-bike brand. “This might be one of those moments that will reverse all efforts invested into getting more people to use bikes for transportation. At the end, only cheap Chinese bikes that are sold online directly will win since most US customers look at bikes as toys and are not willing to spend a lot for premium bikes.”

A bike brand could find ways to lower tariff costs. A bike produced in Vietnam (with a current 46 percent tariff) could be produced in the European Union, which has a current 20 percent tariff. Regardless, that type of movement takes time, money to source machinery and materials, and a skilled workforce to match the investments.

To be clear, these tariffs aren’t on resale prices, they’re on wholesale landed costs. If a company wants to maintain its margin percentage, a product’s price will go up by the tariff cost. But if a company wants to maintain the amount of money it makes per product produced, the product’s price to the consumer will go up by the landing cost.

For example, let’s say there’s a product that retails for $20, and the price it takes the company to produce the product and import it to the US is $10. If the product comes from China, as many bike-related products do, the new price to the company is $19 due to a 90 percent tariff. The new product price post tariff then becomes $29, or a 45 percent increase in price.

So, will your bike sourced from China become 90 percent more expensive due to an effective 90 percent tariff? Unlikely. But if the price of a product does go up, it won’t happen immediately.

The consensus amongst the industry seems to be that there are too many things happening, and not enough predictability, to reliably put resources into changing sales channels or moving things around. If these tariffs stick around, everyone — and I mean everyone — believes that prices everywhere must go up for a bike brand to continue in this current climate.

Just how much prices increase and when, however, remains to be seen. But based on the number of times I’ve heard the word “screwed” in the last 24 hours, it won’t be pretty.

What about buying American?

Moving production to the US appears to be the end goal for these tariffs, but it isn’t so easy in an industry that has benefited from globalization as much as the bicycle industry has.

Two US-based bike brands I spoke with did the work to move bicycle production to the US in an effort to hedge against any potential tariffs. It was a multi-year process, and one that required importing drivetrains from Taiwan, frames from Vietnam, and the rest of the components from China. They were able to withstand initial tariff increases and duty fees from China without having to increase the price of their budget-minded bikes, but it required careful planning, money, and building a US workforce that could build the bikes.

“There’s no way we won’t be able to keep prices as they are, even with the work we’ve done,” said one source. “The bikes are going to get more expensive, there’s no way around it.”

What about companies that produce in the US? They’re concerned too.

“We manufacture domestically, so tariffs have far less effect on us than on other businesses that produce overseas,” said the CEO of a US framebuilder. “My nervousness stems from component pricing, shipping costs, and the larger impacts this may have on brands we love and respect.”

Other sources from American manufacturers have a similar message. While they might be OK, there’s no way this won’t affect them. Most frame builders — regardless of whether they build steel, titanium, or carbon fiber frames – source their raw materials from outside the US, mainly from Taiwan, China, or Japan. If tariffs continue as they are, expect bike frame, component, and accessory prices to rise due to the cost of raw materials.

Beyond local impacts like creating jobs in the US, there are many social equity reasons to want domestic manufacturing to succeed. Nobody wants kids building our bikes, nobody wants anodizing materials to flow into drinking water, and nobody wants to see the carbon emissions that come from shipping across the world that we have currently. Achieving those goals, however, takes years of dedicated planning and resources.

“The margins aren’t there, and there simply won’t be the expertise here in the US to make our tubesets, build groupsets, or anything,” said one anonymous source from a medium-sized electric bike brand. “It might be here in five to 10 years to find a location and buy a ton of machines and find the expertise, but at that point, we won’t be able to make it. Neither will anyone else.”

“The worst part is the uncertainty”

There is no telling what is going to happen, but there’s no denying potential downstream effects. Several sources mentioned that brand sponsorships are likely the first to go away, whether it’s your favorite cycling influencer, a local race team, or even that group ride sponsored by a bike company. Product development is almost certainly going to be stifled as well, with bike shops, consumers, and bike companies all waiting for the next shoe to fall.

“There might only be one thing that’s worse than these tariffs,” one source said. “The worst part is the uncertainty. The bike industry — and nearly any industry — needs to forecast years in advance. There’s a chance we could make things work if there were a gradual ramp-up, or a guarantee that this will be the case.”

“But as it stands, we don’t know what to do, and that’s truly scary.”