eyedochughes wrote:
I just looked and the CF DI2 is now pushed back to August 8th! Good grief. Wonder how/why they could be so far off on their projected availability. Seems like a major misstep considering most of the North America race season will be over by the time the bike would ship out. I called canyon to ask why the delay and the guy just said "I don't know". Solid explanation lol.
if you go over to the other forum, you'll see some guy giving anthony fauci a ration of shit because he "lied" about the vaccine rollout. he said it will be "open season" on getting your vaccine in april just a week or so ago, and he just amended that to late may. regardless of what you think of fauci (not going to get into the politics of it) the answers this person got were: fauci just got an update on vaccine availability, and the projections made by the manufacturer(s) were altered, which altered fauci's timeline. this is what happens in a pandemic.
this is precisely what happens in a pandemic with bikes, too. it might be shimano. it might be carbon suppliers. it might be wheel makers, tire makers. but let me tell you what it probably is. i spoke to a large industry player day before yesterday, and it is
bidding right now with shippers to get its
already packed containers onto a ship, and it's paying double the normal shipping rates. once the extortion is paid and the container gets onto the ship, that ship becomes one of the dozens of ships sitting outside the port of long beach, in the queue, awaiting its unload time (some weeks later).
now, if you're on our mailing list, you'll get an email later this morning with an offer from canyon to our readers exclusively, for $1,000
off this bike. it is not the bike you want. but it did win the last several men's kona races, so it's not that bad!
i will also note that some parts suppliers are
flying the parts to american OEs, like ABG (quintana roo), and this is notable because ABG does its assembly stateside. for almost all other bikes, no can do, because assembly is not done in the US; it's done in europe or in asia. it would be cost prohibitive to air freight complete bikes. i was about as frantic as i could be about the upcoming tri bike shortage when i wrote about this last fall and again in the winter. i will help as much as i can, but, this is the reality. get used to this. as a former bike maker myself, this is the ultimate "for want of a nail" industry. once a container filled with 6 months worth of wetsuit rubber
fell off the container ship and into the pacific ocean. and so goes the life of a manufacturer.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman