Have cyclists resorted to stealing cassettes and rear mechs due to component shortages?

It might be a little unkind but I'd point you to the Office of National Statistics (ONS). I'm afraid that sometimes news headlines are actually based on facts.

I was under the impression that a combination of COVID, stockpiling, brexit and a change in the way that trade was calculated had meant that it was near impossible to infer anything from just the headline figure.

If you actually read the ONS report rather than relying on the headlines you might have realised that for yourself.

"Trade has not been typical in recent months and, because of the practical challenges and temporary factors outlined in Section 3, we would encourage users to apply caution when making short-term comparisons of trade movements."

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/bullet...

A ringing endorsement of how Brexit is already benefitting the UK. 🤔

Mungecrundle may have wanted to imply that Rich_cb "wouldn't get it" because the latter was choosing not to rather than being incapable. Despite having opposing political stances, few who read this stuff much could think that Rich_cb lacks intelligence. It just draws him to different conclusions from me and some others.

one of the places the big ship from China calls is Holland, but another is Felixstowe, its in Suffolk, if youve never heard of the place, you might see it on the TV in October when the Womens Tour finishes a stage there and will do a loop of the actual shipping container port because Cosco (China Ocean Shipping Company Limited) is actually one of the main partner sponsors for the stage.

They actually did the PR launch for the stage on one of their container ships, which carries a mere 21,000 containers round the world but obviously if you say it dumps all the UK bound stuff in the EU to let all the lorry drivers deliver instead because Brits love form filling, it just pops across the North Sea to visit us for a cup of tea.

But ships have been avoiding Felixstowe because it has been massively congested, and they end up waiting weeks to dock.

when they avoid Felixstowe, which has been largely Covid related, less people to operate the machines to move things around, its not quite Singapore automated levels yet but maybe the governments new Freeport status will push it that way.

But the resulting time it took to shift containers off the dockside to alternate storage locations, which is the congestion issue, the container ships just head to the Thames gateway port instead, they still dock in the UK.

Not sure that Covid has much to do with the issues at Felixstowe. A combination of an owner in financial difficulty which won't invest in upgrades, the fact that they've upset all the haulage firms by running a system that leaves drivers waiting for days to drop off or collect containers is more to do with the problems. Brexit stockpiling probably hurt a bit in terms of efficiency but for small volume things like bike parts most of them won't be coming into the UK by container load. Reality is that most cycling companies had mainland EU distribution hubs which now aren't as easy to ship stuff to the UK from. Maybe we'll see more people setting up UK distributors, but they haven't had time to do it yet and when they do the smaller scale and various complexities will almost certainly add to prices over here. 

its covid impacted because its difficult to operate a dockside crane when you are forced to stay at home. They didnt have the workforce they needed on site due to social distancing rules, so it took longer to load/unload the ships which creates a backlog. Plus the increase of importing of covid related PPE and items that had been panic bought mean the dockside became a defacto storage site, which resulted in the daily container tetris game they play becoming increasingly difficult. The booking system I mentioned was the IT system problems theyd had but that was specifically Felixstowe related, shipping agents just rebook to dock at alternate UK ports instead if theres no space, so thats not a Brexit issue.

whilst cycling companies may have EU distribution hubs,and I never said they didnt, these are global companies with a worldwide presence in most countries and did have a UK distributor even during the UKs EU membership, who would ensure components were available because it impacts the companies bottom line profits if they dont.

ever since about 10 months ago there has been a shortage of bikes/bike components in the UK as the manufacturers were caught off guard, unsurprisingly, by the sudden spike in demand, which itself was brought about by the situation related to Covid19, and theyve been battling to to keep up ever since.

ha, ha, ha.. hey, stop ruining the anti-Brexit propoganda.

Sriracha wrote:

Quote:

due to a number of factors, including general issues such as disruption to production, supply chains and shipping capacity caused by the coronavirus crisis and in the case of the UK, the end of the Brexit transition area.

remind me how brexit affects the supply of parts from the Far East?

A major hold up has been at the Russian border with the Poland.  China transports vasts amounts of products via rail this route.  Because of the backlog at this border China is shipping via sea and air.  My bike was due to come via Russian rail, but now will be airfreighted to the UK - adding estimated 50% to my costs for transportation

It has nothing to do with Brexit but Covid issues.