Placed an order for a domane slr7 etap earlier this month, ETA end of January 2022. Located in Australia.
This is a priority 1 build, they had one in-stock I could have walked out with but want it to my spec.
More sobering news re: the availibility of components, freight costs (and delays) and likely price increases to come…
Specialized recently told my LBS they wouldn’t deliver any of the 120+ bikes they had on order…which nixes any hope of getting the Epic EVO I’ve had on order for a year. Also, in an interview with CT, the head of Factor said that lead times with Shimano are completely unknown right now, and SRAM is ~400 days. Although he thinks there’s a lot of ghost orders in the system that will clear up towards the end of the year.
My local bike shop seems to have good stock now, and has had their showroom consistently at least about half full for months. Likely all mid-range and higher bikes, but stock here doesn’t seem as constrained as general reporting on bike availability seems to be. From conversations with them 6+ months ago, it seems they have been very pro-active on orders from before/early in the pandemic, so maybe they are just at the front of the ordering line…
I don’t know how to reconcile the local situation with that above of a 120+ bike order being not delivered.
Bought my Tarmac SL7 Comp Rival AXS in early July for $4800, and about 4 weeks later the price went up to $5000.
I noted earlier in the thread that a buddy of mine at a mid-size bike supplier said their lead times for a “major component supplier” was ~700 days.
And there are absolutely a lot of ghost orders…suppliers and customers are placing huge orders in the hopes of getting anything.
The question is to what extent factories are producing to those orders…because it could lead to a glut of inventory at some point. See Non-Contact Forehead thermometers for a perfect example of what I am talking about.
I think there is a very good possibility that this will end quicker than many people expect at this point. I’ll take the 700 day lead time at face value - that likely is actually when the supplier can commit to a delivery - all prior production is already contracted to other customers. I suspect that those 700 days of orders that are going to other customers are for significantly more parts than those customers actually expect to use in that timeframe. What happens to all those extra parts and how quickly they re-enter the supply chain remains to be seen.
I don’t think it will be like hand sanitizer and other pandemic related items where manufacturing spiked to meet the huge demand, then the demand fell, leaving a huge surplus. By most accounts the bike industry manufacturers (at least components) can’t feasibly quickly expand production, and are unlikely to invest much in that as they don’t expect the increased demand to be long term.
Sure, and as I said, no one in the industry believes this is a sales surge, just a bubble. But that doesn’t mean that production hasn’t been increased (relatively simple to add extra shifts across the board) and capacity hasn’t increased to some degree.
I do think there will be a overstock issue at some point in the next 12 months. Will it be to an extent like thermometers? No….but that was just a quick easy example for reference.
Have you tried to schedule extra production shifts lately?
Yes, we just added a third shift at our Shenzhen facility.
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Specialized is what I ended up buying after my LBS, a Trek dealer, couldn’t commit to anything before Winter/Spring 2022 (about 9 months lead time!).
That increased production, even if just for a few months will have an effect on component availability for the rest of us. Makes more sense for Shimano/Sram to focus supply on a big manufacturer where there’s a reliable demand than the fickle consumer market.
I had an expensive workout this afternoon. I knew the big ring (Ultegra 6800) was on its way out and was due its second life as a Ninja death star but today was its last outing. Standing up to punch up a short rise the chain skipped and I nearly went over the bars! I spent the rest of the workout mostly in the small chainring.
Went to the local bike mechanic and we had a look for replacements - via official importer the 50T chainring is, wait for it, wait for it, £130 
That’s $178! Then he looked at the rest of the drivetrain. 
I ended up needing both chainrings (we found a non-Shimano one for £90), the chain and cassette. Grand total of £191 or $262.
He’s really struggling to source parts to do his job and is having to turn customers away, not because he doesn’t want their trade or the job is too hard but he can’t get the bits to do what’s needed. He’d a Sram Eagle cassette stashed away for a customer, it had taken four months to get to him. Madison, the UK importer for Shimano have lead times ranging from three to six months. How accurate those timings are may be open to question but they certainly aren’t next week or the week after that.
It’s interesting that Canyon have just announced the Lux Trail, and whilst it may not be accurate, the website says delivery September. Impressive if so.
My guess is that they knew they would have a shipment coming in around then, no matter how small it might be, so they decided to announce it.
Specialized have just increased their prices again, the tarmac pro is now £8500 for the 2022 model which for same outlay would have bought you a S Works in 2018.
The world has gone mad.
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How much of the cost of a bike from Specialized, Trek etc goes towards furnishing World Tour teams with hundreds of free bike frames?
Probably bugger all compared to their overall marketing budget.
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