Mother's Day

My mum did not want us to celebrate Mother's Day, she said it should be every day of the year that we honour women, mothers. This first Mother's Day since she passed, I honour her in the blogpost of Juniper. READ MORE
 

BE's hive 

You know how Facebook reminds you of things that happened 1, 2 or 5 years ago? That happened yesterday, and it hit me. Just 5 years ago, we launched our crowdfunding campaign that launched the Alinker to North America. It is only 4,5 years ago that the first container with Alinkers rolled into the harbour of Seattle. I cannot even imagine, it seems like a lifetime ago!!!



I have been building the Alinker company since 2012, but we have only been 'in the market' 4,5 years!  The first years were hard, because I had a vision. When you need money to invest, investors are not interested in a vision, they want you to sell, so they get returns.  

Only 5 years after we launched in North America, we run the company with an amazing team, half of us are Alinker users, we are a SHEEO venture, a certified BCorp, are more than carbon neutral, pay living wages to all team members, we completed 173 campaigns, and built our company to create ACCESS to mobility, community and healthy food. We have the online Alinker Academy, and Alinker Family Farm and launched our cradle2cradle buy back program and there are a few thousand Alinkers out there in the world, changing lives and perceptions.  

My vision was of a world in which the dismissed people of today, were our leaders into tomorrow, and that is happening now... 
 

And then there is the pandemic

While building the Alinker company, I continued to develop Alinkers for more users, and the first focus was smaller people. The prototypes went out and were tested, but then the effects of the pandemic reached us. 

The demand for bicycles has increased since the first lockdown (link) and you hear things in the news about bike shops running out of product (link), biggest bike shortage in 100 years (link), shortage of containers for shipping (link), kinked supply chains (link). If you are interested in more background, I added links to articles, click on yellow (link)

How does that affect the Alinker? Well, we produce in Taiwan, and what happened when the bicycle demand went up, is that the large bicycle brands doubled their orders. Manufacturers in Taiwan prioritize large mass production orders, pushing smaller orders and new products back. 

Changes for us
The minimum order quantity was 150 Alinkers before the pandemic. Now we need to place orders of at least 1000 units. 
The time from placing our order to having Alinkers in our warehouses, was 4 months, now it is more than 18 months.
When we place an order, today we pay 30% down for Alinkers that we receive in our warehouses in 2023!  

You can imagine how this affects our cashflow, the requirements for 30% down-payments of multiple orders for the next 2 years with increased quantities. It is a challenging time! But we have amazing partners and investors who make it possible to stay on top of it all, with a commitment to having Alinkers for everybody who wants one. 

Effects for you
With these extreme changes it becomes harder to give accurate times for availability. Just last month, we expected a shipment in Vancouver to arrive. It left 4 weeks later due to lack of containers, then when it arrived in Vancouver harbour, we got a notification that it arrived, then days laster we found out the vessel was waiting in the harbour, all offloading was 4 weeks backed up. Then we got a notice that customs decided to do a random inspection. End result was that Canadians who purchased an Alinker, had to wait a lot longer. 

Alinker pipeline
For the current Small and the Medium Alinkers, we have production in the pipeline to well into 2023 so we won't run out. Sometimes people might have to wait a few weeks longer, for which our apologies and hopefully by sharing some insights here about the covid effects on the industry, we have your understanding. 
In Canada we have new stock so all is available. order now
In the USA we are nearly sold out.  order now or wait 8-10 weeks

HS and XS
The current situation also means that new models like the HS and XS will not happening for some time to come and we have no estimates yet. 

Price increase
Another effect of this time of scarcity is that the prices go up by around 15%. Prices of raw materials, production, parts, assembly and shipping. We are doing everything possible to keep our price the same, but we are anticipating that, congruent with the whole bike world, we will have to go through a price increase as well. We will keep you posted when we see the need to do that. (link)

Here is a video with a very nice summary of what is happening in the world. 

Assumptions are hurting people

Just last week we mobilized after Abby got refused entrance to a museum on her Alinker. We have wheelchairs for disabled people, is what she was told. On an Alinker you do not "look disabled" but maybe there is just something wrong with all assumptions about disability. The same day the museum apologized, saying Alinkers are welcome now. 

When Heather shared this article with us, about her participation in the Boston Marathon on her Alinker, and how people are saying the coveted Boston Marathon medal should only be for "serious runners". This article sets the score right about who is serious. Article

Carlo Calcagni lives with the consequences of exposure to heavy metals,
and he is only alive because he is treated in Breakspear hospital, but it is
an ongoing battle for life. He was just disqualified from participating in the Paracycling world cup race, because (quote) he is "too strong to be disabled".  Seriously?!   Instagram post