BA report: COVID cycling boom will triple e-bike sales by 2023

Bicycle Association also reports £1 billion UK cycling market growth

21 April 2021: The Bicycle Association (BA), the national trade association for the UK cycle industry, has released a new impact report, Building On The Boom: The UK Cycling Market in 2020 and Beyond, covering cycling sales from January to December 2020, trends in the market and predictions for the next three years. 

The report was produced using data from the BA’s Market Data Service (MDS), powered by Sports Marketing Surveys (SMS), a massive UK wide, monthly collation of sales data direct from retailers across the country, covering over two thirds of the UK cycling market. 

Key findings include: 

• Cycling market valued at £2.31 billion in 2020, an increase of 45% vs 2019
• E-bike sales share to nearly triple by 2023
• Major online shift in cycling sales, from 60:40 to 40:60 (retail:online) over last 12 months
• Double digit growth maintained across all main cycling categories throughout 2020 and into early 2021
• Rising participation in cycling among adults and children
• A huge increase in indoor cycling, turbo trainers and home exercise bikes

Simon Irons, Bicycle Association MDS Director, said: 

This report shows in hard data just how far cycling was catapulted to the frontline of the UK’s pandemic response. There was incredible double-digit growth across almost every category. But the cycling boom of 2020 is not the story in itself. Covid revealed how essential cycling is in the UK. Our data suggests the UK consumer has rediscovered their love of cycling. The trajectory is set for long-term growth.

Building On The Boom: The UK Cycling Market in 2020 and Beyond is a 40-page report providing detailed analysis of cycling industry sales and growth during the calendar year 2020. It uniquely integrates the BA’s sales data with wider data sets, from weather patterns to the National Travel Survey, to provide the only credible, comprehensive analysis of the UK market available today. This report is one of only a few which the Bicycle Association makes available beyond its membership, and it is released to provide a definitive picture of what is happening in the UK market.

To purchase the report please contact Emma Catt emma@bicycleassociation.org.uk or +44 (0) 203 857 4411

MDS data is aggregated and anonymised by Sports Marketing Surveys, the BA’s data partner. The MDS provides the BA with monthly updates with over 800,000 products categorised for analysis and is a powerful tool to analyse the UK cycling market and its potential.