After a two-year period that feels like it has been rougher on cycling distributors than anyone else in the industry, multiple sources have told us that another – i-ride.co.uk – has entered administration and all staff have been made redundant.
Based near Brighton in East Sussex and a distributor of a wide variety of brands, including De Rosa bikes, i-ride also owns the well-respected Orro bike brand, whose Terra model has become a bit of a benchmark in the UK gravel scene.
Cycling Weekly was told by one former member of staff that i-ride.co.uk was in administration and employees had been told to stop working for three weeks.
Another told us that all staff were made redundant on Monday morning, and that none of them had been paid their monthly salary, due on Friday.
Cycling Weekly understands that a buyer had been expected to save the business last week, but that the deal had fallen through.
Further sources, who did not wish to be named, backed up these reports.
Cycling Weekly has asked i-ride.co.uk for official confirmation, so far with no response; we will update this story should a comment become available.
The news comes not long after the company held a clearance sale that it titled 'OEM Overstock Clearance - Cheapest Prices Ever', which may hint at the problems that have seen i-ride call in the administrators.
The cycling industry's overstock problems were fomented during the Covid lockdowns when cycling became ultra-popular and bikes and components became near impossible to come by. Industry players up and down the supply chain put in big orders in anticipation of a years-long boom that never materialised.
i-ride.co.uk is owned by the Martlet Group – formerly Jim Walker, a longstanding player in cycling distribution that was first incorporated as far back as 1994.
The Group accounts are now showing as overdue on Companies House, the last full accounts available were made up to 31 December 2022.
i-ride's predicament mirrors those of a number of other distributors and major retailers over the past two years. Perhaps the most notable distributor to close was Moore Large last March, which had been in existence since the 1940s; it was joined by Fli and 2Pure. Retail giant WiggleCRC, which went into administration in October, was eventually bought by Mike Ashley's Frasers Group. The same group, which owns Sports Direct, also bought Probikekit after it had announced its closure.
The current industry slogan is 'survive to 25', in the hope that by next year much of the surplus stock will finally have been sold, and some sort of equilibrium can be restored.
2025 is just a few months away, but as we see with i-ride, we are not out of the overstock woods yet.
