Port Washington Bike Shop Sees Coronavirus Boom — But Hazy Future

PORT WASHINGTON, NY — Stroll along Manorhaven Boulevard or Shore Road and it's clear people have seemingly discovered — or rediscovered — their love of biking. Young adults. Old adults. Teens. Kids. All are soaking up the sun and basking in the warm weather as the state takes a collective three-month pause from the office and classroom.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's statewide stay-home order due to coronavirus spelled doom for thousands of small businesses, especially those that can't deal with customers remotely, such as restaurants, bars, hair and nail salons, and massage therapists. The state expects up to 100,000 of these businesses may close forever, Cuomo said.

But unlike those industries, bike shops in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic thrived as people embraced the opportunity to work up a sweat in the sun while socially distancing from others.

In a phone interview Wednesday with Patch, John Pappas, owner of Bicycle Playground of Port Washington on Manorhaven Boulevard, described a chaotic situation unfolding at Long Island bike shops. As sales soared at local bike shops, international supply chain issues clipped their wings. And what lies ahead is anyone's guess.

In the days and weeks following the stay-home order, Bicycle Playground's two workers were inundated with calls, some from as far away as Massachusetts, with people eager to drive several hours to get their hands on a new bike.

"It's crazy," Pappas said, noting new bikes flew out of warehouses at an "unprecedented rate "— four times higher than normal for this time.

"I've been doing this for 24 years, I have never, ever seen sales in March and April the way they were this year," he added. "But then everybody ran out of bikes."

The market research company N.P.D. Group said cycling sales increased 31 percent to $1.3 billion over the first quarter of the year, and more than half of those sales dollars came in March alone.

Sales that month were driven by children's/BMX and adult leisure, which saw sales increase 56 percent and 121 percent, respectively. Independent bike shops, which were deemed essential businesses in many states, including New York, saw a 20 percent increase in bike service and repair sales.

But the same shutdown that led to the spike also led to a massive shortage. Manufacturers in Taiwan, which make many of the bikes sold in the United States, couldn't ramp up production fast enough to meet the new demand.

"Everybody's scrambling to try to get bikes back into the country," Pappas said. "It looks like that won't really start to seriously happen until July and August."

The delay has only exacerbated the problem. What started as a run on new bicycles evolved over the last week into a nationwide shortage for repair parts. People realized they weren't getting a new bike anytime soon, so they dusted off their old ones. Many discovered flat tires, punctured tubes and jumping gears.

"Since nobody can get new bikes, everybody is now repairing their old bikes, pretty much whether it's financially worth it or not," he said.

Pappas can't find tubes anymore, one of the most common repair parts. Even after two hours of scouring the internet Tuesday night, he came up empty.

"If you said you'd pay triple for a 26-inch wheel tube for the average mountain bike, I can't get that stuff," he said.

With bikes piling up on the main floor in need of fixes, Bicycle Playground is no longer taking new repair requests. The shop sold out of adult bikes and now has just 10 bikes for sale. All are meant for kids ages 6 and 7, and all of which are the same color: green, with red accents.

"Our whole showroom is now filled with repairs, never mind our back lot and our back room," he said.

The typical bike store on Long Island has been telling customers that routine tune-ups, which typically take just few days to turn around, will take at least three weeks because of the volume.

The backlog forced Bicycle Playground over the last two weeks to close its doors on weekdays, though that hasn't stopped the most persistent of customers from marching up to the front door and squinting through the glass with eyes that obviously say "Help me." The phone rings off the hook day in and day out, nearly all of which have to go to voicemail to allow Pappas and his staffer to focus on repairs.

"I could spend the whole day just picking up phones telling people from all over the state, other states, 'No, we don't have bikes, just like the 75 other places you just called,'" he said.

Pappas is already thinking about what to tell the dozens of cyclists who will show up over the weekend in need new tires and tubes. Some will have to pay at least double the normal rate for a certain part. If they'd rather wait for normal prices, they may have to take their bike home and go on a weeks-long wait list.

In the bike shop industry, shops like to have a healthy mix of both repair work and sales. But for the foreseeable future, the shop expects to have too many repairs, too few staffers to handle the requests, and far too little in the way of sales. Pappas is wrestling with the possibly shutting down completely until July, when more parts may become available.

He also wonders what the long-term future will look like.

With everyone buying and repairing bikes, Pappas doesn't know how that will affect the biking industry overall.

"There always going to be some kind of repairs, but my question is what's going to happen next year?" he said.

It could be a boon for business, with people finding a long-term love for biking. But it could just as easily be a fleeting fad, with folks returning to old habits once things society creeps back to normal.

One signal that change could be on the horizon: Pappas is seeing new, younger faces at old stomping grounds.

"I'm an avid mountain-biker and when I go to the Syosset or Port [Washington] mountain bike trails, it used to be 90-95 percent adults out there riding those trails," he said. "In the last four to five weeks, I've seen it where almost 40 percent of the people are kids under 16, and it used to be one or two."

This article originally appeared on the Port Washington Patch