ネイティブが教える英会話のジェムスクール☆Teachers☆

My daughter turned 10 a few days ago. I thought I'd buy her a bicycle as a birthday present since she's outgrown her old one. (She's 152cm at 10 years old! Oh my gosh!)

Bicycles are super expensive right now! I was very surprised. I was expecting a decent bike to be around $100; I saw good used bikes for $60~$80 a few years ago. And I know that I haven't been shopping for bikes in a while and inflation is a thing that exists, so I was expecting it to be a bit more than I thought.



$150 was the lowest price I found for used bikes in bad condition.

$300 seemed to be the average price for the very simplest new bikes or 'okay' used bikes.

New bikes in the 'kind of nice' level of quality were $1000 to $6000. I have seen used cars with lower prices!

Wow.

I did a little research into why prices are so high. The short answer is COVID. At the beginning of the pandemic, demand for bikes dropped as people were confining themselves inside. So manufacturers slowed production, both because of reduced demand and because they had to reduce their staff during the pandemic. Then, toward the middle of the pandemic, people started going out to do solo outdoor activities, so the demand for new and used bikes went back up. And with the beginning of summer, demand has stayed high but the supply still hasn't caught up.

Thanks for reading!