The State of the State

We’ve had a num­ber of cus­tomers ask for an update on our orig­i­nal ​“Where the (*&^ is my bike?” let­ter we pub­lished in February. 

Dur­ing our last update, we talked about some of the big chal­lenges we’re fac­ing. To recap, there are sup­ply chain issues affect­ing every ven­dor at every lev­el of the man­u­fac­tur­ing process. This has caused ETAs to slip on some deliv­er­ies by over six months, which is why our deliv­ery dates some­times slip. 

At the same time, there’s a glob­al ship­ping cri­sis. There’s been a huge increase in imports, which has caused mas­sive port delays. There’s also a seri­ous con­tain­er short­age. These issues have been all over the news recent­ly, affect­ing many industries. 

So what can we do? In addi­tion to buy­ing key parts at retail to ship bikes, pay­ing exor­bi­tant amounts to air­freight parts and save time, we’ve also made key changes to our spec. 

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, we’ve offered a pletho­ra of options. Effec­tive May 1^st, we’re sim­pli­fy­ing in order to stream­line our ordering/​forecasting. We’ve tak­en the most pop­u­lar choic­es and used them across mul­ti­ple prod­ucts, which will enable us to make a deep­er com­mit­ment to few­er items. We’ve also shift­ed to ven­dors with short­er and more pre­dictable lead times. These changes will enable us to improve our fill rates and pro­vide you with more reli­able ETAs. 

Here are some of the notable changes:

• Car­bon bikes will come with Fox Fac­to­ry series suspension

• Rip­mo Car­bon is the one excep­tion. It is still avail­able with a DVO Jade Coil

• Rip­mo AFs will only be avail­able with a DVO shock and a DVO fork

• As of 8/8/2022 Rip­mo AFs will only be avail­able with a DVO shock and the Mar­zoc­chi Bomber Z1 coil fork

• Stem, crank, and drop­per seat post length will be matched to the frame size

• Han­dle­bar and drop­per seat post upgrades will no longer be pos­si­ble, nor will there be tire choices

• We’re bring­ing back the X01 mechan­i­cal build kit. Dri­ve­trains have been one of the most prob­lem­at­ic ele­ments in our abil­i­ty to deliv­er bikes and these addi­tions should increase the total num­ber of build kits avail­able and our abil­i­ty to ship bikes.

These changes will occur as prod­uct becomes avail­able. For now, you may see some car­bon bikes ship­ping with Per­for­mance forks, etc… As we receive new inven­to­ry, we’ll make a rolling change. If you’ve placed a deposit for a bike that’s sched­uled to be deliv­ered this Sum­mer or Fall, please check with your local bike shop. Your order may be sub­ject to a spec or price change. 

The ship­ping cri­sis has caused a spike in prices. We hoped it would be tem­po­rary and for the past year, we’ve been absorb­ing that cost, hop­ing the indus­try would sta­bi­lize. How­ev­er, the oppo­site has occurred. Prices con­tin­ue to increase.

In addi­tion to ship­ping prices, the cost of raw goods has gone up. This has caused our sus­pen­sion, dri­ve­train, and oth­er com­po­nent ven­dors to increase their prices. Anoth­er sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor is the exchange rate. The val­ue of the US dol­lar has fall­en sharply against oth­er cur­ren­cies, like the New Tai­wan Dol­lar. As our costs have gone up dra­mat­i­cal­ly, our retail prices will have to reflect those changes. 

Begin­ning May 1^st, we’ll be increas­ing our prices by 6% across the board. We kept the increase as low as pos­si­ble to com­pro­mise between our increased costs and want­i­ng to hon­or the prices on back­o­rdered bikes. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, we would have hon­ored any pre­vi­ous pric­ing, but the cur­rent extent of our back­log makes this impos­si­ble. Any orders invoiced after May 1^st will be sub­ject to this 6% surcharge. 

Despite the bleak news, things are start­ing to improve. We’ve made dra­mat­ic changes to our busi­ness which will rad­i­cal­ly improve our deliv­er­ies. We’ve invest­ed heav­i­ly in future prod­uct and staff and we expect to ship sig­nif­i­cant­ly more bikes this year. 

We look for­ward to get­ting you on your new bike!

Hans Heim,

CEO, Ibis Cycles