For Local Bay Area Bike Shops, Raging Trade War Brings an Uncertain Future

For Bay Area bike shops, the recent drama of the Trump administration’s on-again, off-again tariffs has been nothing short of chaos.

These small businesses typically see an uptick in sales during spring, when the weather warms and people get outside, but, like many American businesses, they now face fears about a lack of supply, unpredictable prices and a broader economic downturn.

“It’s been a whirlwind,” said Brett Thurber, co-owner of The New Wheel Electric Bikes, which operates three shops in Larkspur, Oakland and San Francisco.

On April 2, the Trump administration announced a 10% minimum tariff on goods imported from all countries and sweeping “reciprocal tariffs” against some of the United States’ biggest trading partners, such as China and the European Union. This change basically shut down The New Wheel’s supply chain, Thurber said.

“Most of our suppliers stopped shipments to the United States,” said Thurber, whose company sells one bicycle that is made in China and imports most from the EU and Vietnam. “ The lack of product was the biggest concern.”

Then, a few days later, the Trump administration announced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs on countries, except for China, but kept the 10% baseline tariff on all imports in place.

For now, The New Wheel’s suppliers have resumed shipments, Thurber said.

“ The confusion was beyond belief,” he added.

The current tariff on imports from China is particularly worrisome for bike shops, as more than half of all bicycles imported to the U.S. come from China.

If the trade war persists, it could pose a serious threat to the viability of many neighborhood bike shops, according to Matt Moore, the policy counsel for People for Bikes, the trade association for the U.S. bicycle industry.

Moore said that 60% to 65% of all bicycles imported to the U.S. are made in China, and those bicycles are subject to a tariff as high as 181% because of a blanket 145% tariff on goods from China, plus additional pre-existing tariffs on bicycles.

With tariffs that high, many small to midsize shops simply won’t have the money to purchase their inventory, Moore said.

“I’m not sure what those companies are going to do,” he added. “They’re not going to have inventory to sell. They won’t be making any money, and that’s not good for business.”

For now, The New Wheel can mostly rely on sales of bikes that are already in the country, Thurber said, but once that supply is used up, the company will need to import bikes — and possibly pay more.

“Once that inventory is gone, then new prices might come into play,” Thurber said.

Still, the tariffs have led shoppers to try to snag pre-tariff prices. Thurber said business the first weekend after “Liberation Day,” when Trump announced the sweeping reciprocal tariffs, was 175% higher than the same weekend the year before — likely because prices for many of the shops’ bikes haven’t gone up yet.

Kalvin Corbett, a San Francisco resident who works at Marin General Hospital, had been on the fence about buying a new e-bike. He wants to commute to work by bike, but news of rising tariffs — and the potential for higher prices — moved up his decision to start shopping.

On a recent Thursday, he came to The New Wheel’s shop in Bernal Heights to test-ride e-bikes after the company sent out an email encouraging people to come in.

“ They sent an email that was like, ‘Hey, you know, [prices] are probably going to go up, so if you’re going to be thinking about getting one, you should get on board right now,” Corbett said.

He was looking at bikes priced between $5,000 and $10,000.

“ So if it goes up 10%, that’s a huge chunk of money,” Corbett said.

One of the stated reasons for Trump’s trade war is to return manufacturing to the U.S. — a move that the national bike industry has also called for.

Last year, then-Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) introduced the Domestic Bicycle Production Act, which would have created an initiative “to make loans to support domestic investment in the manufacturing of bicycles and electric bicycles.”

Moore said the bill “didn’t quite make it to the finish line” last year, but his group, People for Bikes, is looking to support the reintroduction of the bill this year.

“ We can see the handwriting on the wall,” Moore said. “That’s the direction the administration wants to go, and our industry is generally supportive of that.”