As another bike industry guy - I find myself very fortunate to still have a job and have work, but it has definitely been challenging - when we talk about the whole supply chain it goes all the way down to raw material. if your bolt supplier to make your component is late on delivery, your small parts is late, which means your frame is late, which may mean you missed your container ship you booked which means the distributor is late, which means we can't get it to the customer. So many things need to go right these days. You can't substitute parts from what you ordered at a factory level cause there are no parts available to substitute. I have heard of some parts suppliers being 400+ days out for delivery. The good news.. you will see more component manufacturers with OE spec. Microshift for sure is on a lot more bikes for next year, hopefully this bring some value and competition on the OE side of the buisness.
Jan. 11, 2021, 3:34 p.m. - bart
As another bike industry guy - I find myself very fortunate to still have a job and have work, but it has definitely been challenging - when we talk about the whole supply chain it goes all the way down to raw material. if your bolt supplier to make your component is late on delivery, your small parts is late, which means your frame is late, which may mean you missed your container ship you booked which means the distributor is late, which means we can't get it to the customer. So many things need to go right these days. You can't substitute parts from what you ordered at a factory level cause there are no parts available to substitute. I have heard of some parts suppliers being 400+ days out for delivery. The good news.. you will see more component manufacturers with OE spec. Microshift for sure is on a lot more bikes for next year, hopefully this bring some value and competition on the OE side of the buisness.