MIDLAND, Texas — "Kind of like the mass panic with toilet paper, there’s a mass panic on attack in the bicycle supply," Jason Haislip, owner of Peyton's Bikes said.
You heard it.
Bikes are riding right off the racks.
They have been for the last 3 months and there’s no braking.
"The worldwide industry is up 300% and we’re definitely seeing that here," Haislip said.
Peyton’s Bikes, the oldest bike shop in Texas said they’ve been selling double their average amount of bikes since March – about 10 per day and often more than that.
Now that it’s June, they’re nearing the end of last year’s supply and bikes are dwindling.
In fact, their 4-page wait list is growing every day.
Adding to that load, Peyton’s Bikes is only one of two shops operating in our area, meaning they’re helping all of Midland and Odessa with purchases and repairs.
During this time of unprecedented bike demand, Peyton’s Bikes' number one product is entry-level adult mountain bikes and they’re selling faster than anything they can get.
"We’ve had to change the way that we go about doing business, we have to play a game of back-ordering and pre-ordering bikes and refresh our supply through different means," Haislip said.
This means they’ve picked up new brands with bikes in stock.
They’ve also had to change how they handle repairs, only taking serious repairs on Fridays because they’re running out of storage space in their shop.
"With gyms closing we’ve had a ton of people looking for another outlet for exercise and bicycles are the best low impact way to get a cardio workout," Haislip said.
Bike shop owners say they don’t expect the industry supply and demand to go back to normal until March of next year when the bike production cycle ends.
Until then, we’ll just have to be patient with our local bike stores and ride on.