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news
KTM 2023“If you voted for Brexit, please realise this is 90% because of your decision”: UK cycle distributor FLi ceases trading
Brexit’s impact on the UK’s cycling industry is once again under the spotlight after FLi Distribution’s director blamed the “red tape and barriers to trade” currently affecting businesses as the Huddersfield-based distributor ceased trading with immediate effect.
FLi – which began life in 2008 as FLi Race Team Management, before transitioning to distribution – was known for supplying KTM bikes to the UK for over a decade, a relationship which ended in April this year.
The distributor notified dealers and suppliers of its decision to cease trading earlier this month, with director Colin Williams citing the impact of Brexit, the complexities and restrictions surrounding UK and EU trading, and the difficulties facing the bike industry in the post-Covid lockdown period as the main reasons behind FLi’s demise.
> The rising price of cycling — why are bikes more expensive and how is the industry coping?
Confirming the news, Williams posted on LinkedIn: “That’s it, FLi is done. Thank you to everyone who’s supported FLi over the past 15-plus years… it would not have been possible without all of you who’ve helped out in thousands of ways, making 99 percent of my time running FLi so much fun. So if you’ve helped in any way, thank you, it’s been a great ride.
“But if you voted for Brexit, please realise this is 90 percent because of your decision back in 2016. I have no idea what will be next, but as the people close to me know, whatever it is, it’ll be better than the last 18 months.
“I’m done fighting, I’m done with the red tape and the barriers to trade. It hadn’t been fun for some time, so the time was right to end it now, life is too short. The relief now the decision is made is amazing, but I am so sorry for any negative impacts it will have on anyone and I’m doing my best to resolve any and all of them where I can.”
Earlier this year, Williams told the road.cc Podcast that the bottom line of companies in the UK bike industry is being squeezed like never before, thanks to the supply chain and manufacturing disruption brought on by the pandemic, as well as the impact of Brexit on trade.
He explained that because many brands service the European market through distribution operations within the EU, this means that typically products will arrive in the UK from the bloc – adding on not just administrative burdens but also costs for distributors and retailers here.
> Bike industry turmoil continues as UK cycle distributor 2pure enters administration
Those additional costs have had a crippling effect on the UK’s cycling distributors, with FLi the latest in a growing line of distribution companies to cease trading this year alone.
In May, Livingston-based distributor 2pure entered administration, just months after the company announced that it was restructuring to focus solely on the cycling industry, following what it described as a “highly volatile” 2022 caused by macro-economic events in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
And in March, Moore Large, the leading UK distributor for well-known brands such as Tern Bicycles, Lake, Forme, ETC, Emmelle, and MeThree, entered liquidation, leading to its £35 million product inventory being auctioned off.
> Forme bikes and Lake cycling shoes distributor enters liquidation
Formed from the bike shop opened by John Moore in 1947, the Derby-based distributor was founded 30 years later and owned by the Moore family up until last year when, following growth since the pandemic, the board’s directors bought ownership from the family.
Dale Vanderplank, Adam Garner, Adam Biggs, and Andrew Walker acquired the business on 19 April 2022, with retiring chairman Nigel Moore at the time saying that the “last few years have been particularly successful and it is now the right time for me to hand over the company to the existing management team”.
However, four months ago the company confirmed its closure, adding to an increasingly bleak time for a UK cycle industry beset by inflation, changing consumer habits, overstock, and a challenging economic climate.
Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
Latest Comments
- ErnieC 41 min 29 sec ago
Why should he have done that? Easier for her with the step-through frame.
- ErnieC 48 min 5 sec ago
And all the people went Amen
- tony kappler 5 hours 57 min ago
Sorry guys, something should have been said about combativity, but I haven't been that involved or looking at forum posts. I think because the...
- dubwise 6 hours 48 sec ago
You do realise that Britain is not a country?
- David9694 6 hours 52 min ago
Finally got round to taking my Ultegra cranks into the Shimano dealer this week. The result of the inspection was "clear". There's nothing in...
- chrisonabike 7 hours 33 min ago
Also - I think at least as important are the more "touchy-feely" metrics - has this created nicer places? How have people's feelings about maybe...
- Freddy56 8 hours 20 min ago
They do look lovely. Would love to see a picture of them now after testing? How is the white wearing.
- mdavidford 9 hours 28 min ago
Agree with most of this: comfort, sound quality, noise cancelling, and battery life are all excellent; on the downside the controls are prone to...
- SteeveB 10 hours 51 min ago
This is such a shame for the Sportive HQ team and the riders. ...
- Rendel Harris 10 hours 59 min ago
Yep, probably just be ordered to undergo a programme of retrainering.
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153 comments
Inflation much?
The same demographic that voted Brexit would also vote for the death penalty -- do you believe in hanging innocent people? Stefan Kiszko, Barry George, Birmingham Six, Timothy Evans, George Kelly, Mahmood Hussein Mattan, Derek Bentley, George Thatcher, Andrew Evans, Liam Holden, Stephen Downing, Judith Ward, Guildford Four and Maguire Seven, Terry Pinfold, Harry MacKenney, Robert Brown, Paul Blackburn, Bridgewater Four, Sean Hodgson, Winston Silcott, Michael Shirley, Danny McNamee, Cardiff Newsagent Three, Cardiff Three, M25 Three, Christy Walsh, Eddie Gilfoyle, Sally Clark, Donna Anthony, Victor Nealon, Siôn Jenkins, Angela Cannings, Barri White, Suzanne Holdsworth, Sam Hallam, Ched Evans, Oval Four - all were wrongly convicted and some were hanged, despite being innocent
Kelly, Mattan and Bentley - of "Let Him Have It" fame - (as examples) were all hanged, but were later found to have been wrongly convicted and there have always been doubts raised about Hanratty hanged in 1960 for the "A6 murder".
It's a serious subject and your post could be clearer that most cases listed post-date hanging, effectively abolished in 1965 in this country.
Wrongly convicted is not the only reason to abhor state-sponsored / judicial execution, of course.
But as with all things Brexit, those baying for it don't mean for themselves, or anyone they know (see: corporal punishment in schools, farming, fishing).
You can tell you're getting desperate when you resort to that sort of nonsense.
'If you believe X then you must believe Y' and we all know Y is bad.
I think you might have peaked with the wing mirror stuff.
The same people who voted Brexit show why referenda are a bad idea.
A new poll by Omnisis has revealed that six in ten Brits back Tory Deputy Chairman Lee Anderson’s call to bring back the death penalty.
Mr Anderson said he would back the return of the death penalty during an interview with The Spectator magazine, saying “nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed”.
A majority of 58% of voters agreed with the controversial Ashfield MP, with only 28% saying it is not appropriate. Of those who supported the return of capital punishment, 71% were aged 55-64 years old whilst the 25-34-year-old bracket was least in favour on 51%
Still just as stupid a point as the first time you made it.
If you think improving democracy in the UK is a good thing then we could do worse than follow the Swiss example as they always rank much higher than us in lists of the most free, democratic countries. They have regular referendums, local goverment has considerable devolved decision-making power and of particular interest to us, vehicle registrations are searchable and can provide a name and address.
I've always found that a bit creepy to be honest, surely a stalker's charter?
I always assumed that drivers know they can be easily traced and drive accordingly.
Drivers can easily be traced in any system with numberplates by the appropriate authorities; I struggle to see a positive in the public being able to find one's name and address from one's numberplate. Do you want that big angry bloke who believes you cut him up or scratched his paintwork turning up on your doorstep for a discussion about it? My main concern would be for vulnerable people, particularly lone women: any bad actor who takes a fancy to a woman would simply have to follow her until she got into her car and they would have her name and home address, surely undesirable?
Switzerland does have an enviable road safety record, it's true, second only to Norway in Europe, I believe, but that's much more to do with excellent infrastructure and more rigorous policing than the numberplate regulations.
In no way sympathising with drivers, it's quite bad enough that DVLA makes information to any cowboy outfit calling itself a parking company - their business practices are pretty Wild West at times, and their information governance doesn't fill me with confidence either.
I've wondered the same things myself but somehow they seem to be happy with it and make it work. Maybe we are thinking how it would most likely be abused here in the UK and Swiss society is just more civil or law abiding or the authorities are incredibly strict when it is abused? I honestly don't know.
Ah, of course, mustn't let the plebs participate in a plebiscite.
We elect MPs to debate and decide major issues, not the great unwashed.
The same demographic that voted Brexit would also vote for the death penalty -- do you believe in hanging innocent people?
And finally, Adolf Hitler?
Well, that would depend on what they were innocent of. In some political schemes, it's a crime not to persecute and kill (often in an awful way) "the enemeis of the people". Those innocent of such a crime (e.g. those who worked in Adolf's camps to fulfill the requirements of Adolf-law) were later deemed worthy of hanging. Many were.
"Innocent" and "guilty" .... of what laws set by whom to demand what actions of those subject to those laws? The terms are relative.
Myself, I don't care for draconian punishments, not even our current prison system, which seems both cruel & ineffective, to say the least. But this is an emotional response from a lucky boomer. I can imagine being subject to various kinds of awful happening that would sweep away this emotion in favour of another in about 10 seconds.
********
The trick is to attempt to be "objective" and "rational" by asking what the full range of outcomes of a policy would be. As we are human, this is an impossible trick.
PS See how I pleased Mr (or perhaps Ms) Trike by bringing Herr Hitler into the matter!
PPS I hasten to add that I nivver voted for that mad Brexit, although I confess to voting not to join with Europe in the 70s referendum. But that was only because I'd been disappointed by a French girlfriend of the time. I was young(ish) and very emotional in them days!
As good a reason as many.
If we offend Alf and Doris and - like the bankers and car manufacturers - they leave for better opportunites elsewhere, where will we get our whelks? (I must admit I'm not tempted by them but the proverbial phrase "like a lioness robbed of her whelks" suggests some are fiercely attached to them. EDIT - perhaps that's what they're after in Berlin?).
Also - some selective categorisation there. Where is the breakdown by "number of squirrels owned" as a for-instance?
The Brexit vote map is a picture of isolation and deprivation - of boomers in bungalows whose local pub keeps closing down
Plenty of deprivation and isolation north of the border. Or indeed in London, parts of Wales... But the above could have been "colour in the UK, mostly blue, but make Scotland and London yellow".
Where are my Brexit benefits?
Didn't you get your blue passport yet?
What else do you want??
You can have a slightly more powerful vacuum cleaner. Yes, that was worth throwing away our political and economic strength for. Oh, and the mega rich can continue tax dodging.
PSA - just got back from the doctor's and the Dyson Ball Cleaner has a misleading name
At least this would appear to be an orderly winding down of a business compared to the others, which is a great credit to the management/ owners.
But we got our country back innit?
**** Brexit and **** every ignorant **** who voted for it!
Well done Legin. Possibly literacy standards should be looked at as well nationally. Lovely considerate annd socially minded reply. Reminds me of the selfish littel 10 year old who had a melt down today because his foot ball team lost. Despite being over manned with the supposed "stars" .
Realistically I doubt this will be any great loss. No idea when I last saw a KTM bike if ever. We have plenty of choice anyway.
*little
*football
*overmanned
*meltdown
*and
Agree with you on literacy standards.
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