MTB REPORT – November 2025 – radical baseworks

on November 1, 2025

Spare Parts & Service Chaos – When Winter Tells the Truth

Published by Radical Life Studios and the MTB Report

Winter is when the industry sobers up.
Summer is for marketing.
Winter is for reality.

Riders drop their bikes off for service – and wait.
Eight weeks for a brake lever.
Ten weeks for a motor controller.
The truth is simple:
The service crisis isn’t a coincidence. It’s design.

The Market Recovers – But Service Doesn’t

According to ZIV data, 885 000 bikes and e-bikes were sold in Germany in Q1 2025 – up over 10 % from 2024.
Yet workshops are running out of parts, not orders.
OEMs rebuilt supply chains to favor new bike production, not repairs.
Result: warehouses full of bikes, workbenches full of waiting lists.

The Human Shortage

Shimano admits it bluntly: Europe faces a critical shortage of trained mechanics.
The company launched a program to fix it – but skills take years, not seminars.
An e-bike technician isn’t just a “trained” mechanic.
It’s someone who understands sensors, software, and failure patterns.
That can’t be rushed.
So yes – we’ll live with this workshop bottleneck for years.

Industry Under Pressure

Bosch promises six years of parts availability – “if suppliers cooperate.”
Fox and Marzocchi are opening new service hubs in Germany,
RockShox claims “48-hour in-house turnaround.”
In reality? Only off-season.
They know where the pain is – but they’re still playing catch-up.

The Price of Progress

Every firmware, every sensor, every integration adds comfort – and complexity.
Smart bikes are great until they need smart people to fix them.
The future isn’t digital.
It’s human.

Selling bikes is easy.
Keeping them rolling isn’t.
The industry doesn’t need more features – it needs more experience.

Winter tells no lies.