How the great cycling boom collapsed

When Donna Wright shelled out £1,500 for a stationary Peloton bike in 2021 as the pandemic raged on, she was following in the slipstream of a global sporting phenomenon.

Taking her place alongside Joe Biden and A-listers such as Venus Williams and Alicia Keys, the Ipswich-based businesswoman took to Instagram to extol the virtues of sweating at home while the world locked down.

The pandemic helped drive a cycling revolution, both in our bedrooms and garages and on conventional bicycles on deserted roads, and led to a preponderance of pudgy middle-aged men in Lycra (MAMILs).

“The Peloton bikes were great in the pandemic because everybody was struggling to do their exercise classes with the gyms closed down,” says Wright, 45. “But I wasn’t. I felt I had something that other people didn’t have.

“I was definitely showing off online – that I was still at home exercising when most other people couldn’t.”

With its internet influencers, perma-tanned instructors, sense of community and passive-aggressive competition, the Peloton craze swept through British homes in 2020.

But Wright dismounted from her Peloton for the final time earlier this year, and now it gathers dust at her daughter’s nearby home. She has also abandoned her road bike, and she is not alone.

The numbers show that the peak of Britain’s cycling boom is well and truly in the rear-view mirror.

Cycling had increased by nearly 63 per cent between 2013 and March 2021, according to the Department for Transport’s cycling traffic index, which is based on data from automatic traffic counters in England.

But by June this year, it had decreased by 33 per cent from its Covid-era peak and, remarkably, was 2.9 per cent lower than pre-pandemic levels in 2019.

Those looking for a silver lining will point to figures being up 8 per cent from 2013, but this represents an abysmal rate of return when you consider all the investment into cycling.

The precipitous fall in cycling participation – both on and off the road – is reflected in the vertigo-inducing losses racked up by those in the vanguard of Britain’s cycling industry.

None more so than the achingly trendy clothing company Rapha, whose gear was worn by Chris Froome in 2013, when the Briton careered up the Champs-Élysées in Paris to claim his first Tour de France win.

In the wake of Sir Bradley Wiggins’ Tour de France victory the previous year, and Britain’s astonishing cycling medal haul at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, it seemed like cycling had the nation at its feet.

However, accounts published by Rapha last month revealed pre-tax losses of £22 million, almost double the £12 million loss recorded in 2022-23. The brand, which is owned by the heirs to the Walmart fortune, also said the number of members in its cycling club fell from 22,000 to 18,000. It cited “the backdrop of an ongoing turbulent and competitive post-pandemic cycling sector, as well as decreased consumer confidence in several key markets” by way of explanation.

Even Britain’s largest cycling retailer, Evans Cycles, announced a £23 million loss for 2023, increasing from £5 million the year before. But the most remarkable financial roller coaster has been experienced by Peloton, whose former CEO and founder John Foley revealed in August that he had “lost all [his] money”. “I’ve had to sell almost everything in my life,” he said. The company was valued at £32 billion in January 2021, but this has plummeted to £2.2 billion.

Wright, who runs a health and beauty business, says: “I’d always been interested in spin classes at the gym, and then I thought it might be easier if I got my own spin bike and just do it from home.

“So it was a Black Friday weekend after a couple of glasses of wine – I’d had an email come through with a Black Friday offer on Peloton and that was it. Click the button. The next thing, it is being delivered.

“I went on it all the time. I was massively into it. That was 2021… the pandemic definitely had an impact on my choice.”

But as gyms started to reopen, the mother-of-four’s commitment began to wane.

“I think I just got busy with my life, and I am a bit of an all-or-nothing person. It was like a sliding thing. I stopped doing it every single morning, then it was just a couple of mornings, and then before you know it, it was just in the spare room doing nothing. I finally gave up completely this year.

“It is currently at my daughter’s house – I think it’s being used as a clothes horse. It’s exactly the same with my friends. When I got it, I was so excited, then my sister-in-law ordered one, and then that Christmas my whole family chipped in and bought my sister one as well.

“We are all the same. None of us [is] using them now.”

Wright has also turned her back on her road bike now that the streets are back to full capacity. “I do have a bike, but I probably phased that out at the same time as the indoor bike. It was just down to safety, really. I’ve not had any accidents but people overtaking you at speed puts you off,” she says.

Luke Scheybeler, the British marketing executive who co-founded Rapha in 2004, believes the pandemic had a “whiplash effect” on UK cycling. “There was a huge boom during the pandemic, and lots and lots of people bought cycling equipment, and across the board, the story is that the pandemic years were fantastic and then things dropped off a cliff afterwards,” he says.

“There was a massive increase in demand and a bunch of new people came into the sport because cycling was a way of getting fit without being around a bunch of other people.”

He believes people took advantage of a massive cash injection into the economy during the pandemic to buy bikes and equipment, but that companies have since been left with a glut of products.

But Scheybeler, who remains fundamentally optimistic about the long-term future of the industry, believes cycling in the UK has suffered because of a “lot of hostility towards cyclists”.

Although most drivers are “aware of cyclists and nice to them”, he says there is a “1 per cent that will try and kill them…and that’s unsustainable.” He adds that it gives “cyclists a disproportionately negative view of motorists as well. Some cyclists are idiots, some car drivers are idiots. There are no perfect solutions”.

Scheybeler is still critical of an industry that focused on the elite end of the spectrum for too long rather than looking to cater to all categories. “I think the product isn’t any different, but it is 50 to 100 per cent more expensive than it was a few years ago,” he says.

A spokesman for Frasers Group, which owns Evans Cycling, says: “The surge in cycling demand witnessed during the pandemic may have slowed down, but [we] remain committed to the long-term growth of its cycling business.”

A Rapha spokesman says cycling “holds the key” to improving mental and physical health, as well as creating cleaner and safer cities, and that Rapha is strengthening its business.

Peloton declined to comment but told investors that they believe they are “making [the] business sustainable and profitable in the long-term”, and that globally subscribers remain consistent.

Wright has maintained her £40-a-month Peloton subscription in the hope that she will eventually return to the saddle, even if she isn’t entirely convinced that it’s going to happen.

“Now I just go for a run,” she says.

It would appear that, for now, the wheels have well and truly come off Britain’s cycling revolution.