Portugal’s Bike Boom: How the Country Is Meeting the Demand

But RTE will also open another factory next year in Poland, to supply its main customer, the giant sports retailer Decathlon, a French company with stores worldwide.

Bruno Salgado, the executive director of RTE and scion of the family that owns the company, said the bicycle frenzy created opportunities for several countries to increase production. His factory in Portugal uses workers and automated machinery to churn out about 5,500 bicycles a day, but it would produce at least 7,000 to meet demand if it could receive parts faster, he said. A bicycle can have more than 100 parts.

Europe faces “big sourcing problems” that will take two to three years to resolve, leaving some customers facing lengthy waits, Mr. Salgado said. For some parts, he said, factory orders placed now are guaranteed to be delivered only in early 2023. Stocks have dried up after months of closures prompted by lockdowns, worldwide shipments are only slowly resuming, and it takes time to raise production in response to soaring demand from cyclists.

Still, it makes sense to invest in a factory in Poland, he said, a country better situated for many European markets and one where Decathlon has stores. “I believe we cannot sit back and relax just because Portugal is now making a lot of bikes,” Mr. Salgado said, “because all the other countries are learning and some also have better geographic positioning.”

Portugal’s example is inspiring others elsewhere. Arnold Kamler, the chairman of Kent International, an American bicycle company, said in a phone interview that he had discovered at RTE “the finest factory I have ever seen in my entire life.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/02/world/europe/portugal-bike-boom.html