The Great Bicycle Boom

Thankfully for me, I ventured from years of mountain biking and turned full circle to my younger days of road biking with the purchase of a new set of wheels in 2019, which arrived in June of that year. I say thankfully, as unbeknown to me (and the rest of the world) we would by spring the following year, be stricken by a deadly virus, a resulting pandemic,  lockdown and quite unexpectedly, a boom in cycling. Not only have people been buying new bikes at an unprecedented rate, older bikes have been dusted off, polished and oiled from sheds and garages. The result is that delivery lead times of newly ordered bikes have been consistently lengthy (running to months as compared to my weeks) and if the experience of Ribble owners is anything to go by, it is a situation which persists to this day. A secondary consequence is that bicycle spares have been hard to come by and in my case, nothing is quite literally stopping me as the brake pads have now worn down to their limits.

I'll need to keep a close eye on the internet and bike shops and hope... Thankfully we remain healthy, I must count my blessings!