Gravel / Gravé / Gnarmac / Groad / ATB

The frame has routing but the complete bike wasn’t equipped with one

It did, cable entry on bottom of seat tube for it.

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Sure. Still think it’s silly to have a dropper anyway

@LeePaton Many thanks for the pointers. Both look great options

I preordered the new Arkose a while back and the arrival date has been pushed back.
I'd heard nothing from Evans even though I saw the date change on their website last week.
I rang to check the status and was told shipping had been delayed and it will be late March, maybe earlier.
Was given excuses as to why they haven't got in contact yet. I don't mind it being delayed but lack of communication is poor.

Sounds similar to the Ribble issues. Anyone know if it normal for bike companies to struggle to fulfil orders at this time of year?

It’s not unheard of, it’s almost always the case nowadays, like with Shimano components being on back order for months after announcements.

Could it also be that everyone now gets their c2w allowance and bangs an order in around the same time at the beginning of the year?

I'm no cycling industry expert, but the majority of people I know who work at a place that offers c2w buy a new bike every year, so the 500-1000 market must be fucking groaning under the weight of all those city boys buying unnecessary bikes.

We've somehow ended up in a scenario similar to car leasing.

What time of year do all the big brands start delivering new models?

Promote/advertise late summer/autumn, realease Jan/Feb, actually in stock in yer lbs late March/April.

So Ribble etc might be also caught in a factory queue

It does seem that since last year or so new bikes are trinkling through slowly rather than being available everywhere at the same more or less.
Maybe something to do with the shrinking market not quite as buyoant as it once was and manufacturers being cautious.
I think from a buyer's point of view it's a real annoyance that a bike that is announced in the autumn and put on sale in the autumn/winter will take take several months to be delivered.
Are those bike companies putting in weekly (smaller) orders based on sales rather than forecasts?
I wonder if the manufacturing capability has also been reduced making every company wait longer for their frames.
We all know that only a handful of factories make all the off the peg frames.

What are you talking about ..."unnecessary". Personally I'm happy to hoover up massively discounted prior year overstocks. I feel that I'm smoothing out the supply and demand graphs.

Last year it was a GT Grade Carbon for less than a bag.

Of course it's not actually unnecessary, I do the same because I like getting bikes.

The point I'm trying to make is that we all buy new bikes because we want one and it's become normal for £83 to be deducted from your gross salary every month, not because there's anything wrong with our current bikes.

This was not the norm even 10 years ago. Yes this should be a good thing for the bike industry because people are buying more new bikes, but I'm questioning whether the industry is actually able to keep up with the demand.

Flat bars on my arkose or sell the fucking thing and get a 90s MTB for dad singlespeed duties?

650b + flat bars

You know what, that's a rad idea.

It will be grand. And for hauling duties you can always get a steel for for it with a reducer crown race mounted.
Disc brakes will be cheaper than trying to get a new frame + brakes plus the hassle of making it fit your needs.

Edit: when I say flat bars I mean bull moose bars yes!

Which flat bar levers work with trp hylex?

None. But if you get TRP Spyres you can use Tektro levers.
Get some cheap Shimano deore instead if you want hydros.

I just paired these up with Spyres and it works great and looks stylish imo.

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This is interesting.
My cross bike has spyres.
If I swapped brakes over and did the di2 mod I've been dreaming of.....
I'm going to have a think.

Ping me if you want a breakdown of what you’ll need for the Di2 mod.

I’m changing mine this summer, going to have a climbers switch on each hood, one side for changing down, the other for changing up.

Big orders are put in with the factories, but those factories need to source all the parts necessary for a production run. If you put in an order for 50000 bikes all with new 105 which shimano also released for 2019 bikes, then Shimano has a small delay due to their factory setting on fire, it fucks up the whole chain. Meaning late bikes for everyone. I think it is happening more often as the component manufacturers are doing bigger, more frequent releases which every manufacturer wants on their new models.

I forgot about the Shimano factory fire actually. That probably put SRAM under pressure from increased demand (not something they would complain about).
Plus SRAM rule the 1x game and I reckon that trend keeps going upwards even skywards maybe (I'd be keen to see a graph showing sales of 1x bikes or gruppos).

RE delays, top end Arkoses caught out by this - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46746312
a load of Shimano either sank or is on a beach somewhere. No joke. Some of that Shimano was on its way to the assembly factory in Poland.