Update, April 11, 2025: What about Co-Motion's pricing... is that something to worry about? Well, there's certainly a lot of unpredictability in the current state of affairs, and it's anybody's guess where all of us are headed from here. That said, one thing we can promise you today is what we have always honored: Our published pricing is the price we agree to when you make a purchase with us. When you make a down payment on a Co-Motion bike, we provide a quote to you with all the details of your order, and that is your final price, unless you decide to change your order in some way. As of today, we have not increased our pricing since January 1 2025, and we intend to keep those prices unchanged for as long as we can. We're not going to pull the rug out from under you.
-DWS
Update, April 9, 2025: Today the reciprocal tariffs were paused for 90 days for all countries but China. This is of course an enormous relief, yet still leaves us wondering what the future holds, as we question why any of this was necessary in the first place. Please read on if you're interested in the observations I posted on Monday, April 7.
-DWS
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Our president's tariffs and the "trade war" are dominating the news cycle since the latest reciprocal tariffs were announced on April 5th. As global markets reel, every one of us is struggling to determine what impact it will have on our own finances. There are far more questions than answers, that's certain. While I can't answer many of them, I can shed a little light on how tariffs will affect a small manufacturer of bicycles. I'm going to stick strictly to facts, since opinion is so fraught with political implications.
You may know that the bicycle industry is of a global nature. While Co-Motion Cycles is headquartered in Eugene, Oregon, USA, we depend on domestic and international suppliers to source the materials and components that our bicycles consist of. Many people do not realize that the name or brand on a bicycle is not the maker of every part of it; It is is generally the maker of the bicycle frame, or in some cases, the name of a brand which has paid for the manufacture of that frame. Many of the "American" bicycle brands you know and love come from Asia. One of the earliest instances of this outsourcing was the Schwinn Bicycle Company, which in the 1970's traded with a small company in Taiwan to construct some of their budget-priced models. This company grew to become the Giant Bicycle Co., now the largest producer in the world.
At Co-Motion Cycles, we have never outsourced the construction of our frames. Every bicycle ever made that bears our name was made here in our Eugene, Oregon facility. We know this fact is important to our clientele, and it is vital to our value, to our story, and our commitment to quality. A name is meaningless if it doesn't represent a solid set of values and a verifiable backstory.
For decades, the world's best bicycle components have come from Europe and Asia, from the likes of Campagnolo, Columbus and Selle Italia (Italy), Rohloff, Pinion and Continental (Germany), MAVIC (France), Reynolds and Brooks (UK) and DT Swiss (Switzerland). Japan's Shimano has dominated bicycle components and expanded its operations into other parts of Asia to meet the demand for everything from the derailleurs on the cheapest Wal-Mart bikes to the most technically advanced components on the bicycles of the world's most elite cycling athletes. There are some remarkable US-based component producers as well, such as Chris King, White Industries, Phil Wood and Rolf Prima, however these are specialty producers and it remains nearly impossible to find every part needed to construct a bicycle from US-only sources, unless for the most simple or most extravagant of bicycles.
Co-Motion Cycles not only produces its own frames, but we also produce many of the parts that a bicycle frame consists of on modern CNC equipment. We do this to make a better frame. Think for example of the size and shape of the bicycle's headtube, which is the vertical tube at the front of the bike that the fork pivots on, This makes it key to the bike's handling and its safety. For a tandem bike, you might imagine that its headtube needs to be bigger and stronger than you would find on a bike for just a single rider. Because we found so many of the parts of a tandem were insufficient, we began making our own specialty parts for our frames in our earliest days, and we continue that effort today. The majority of these parts are made from US produced cro-moly steel or stainless steel, and Canadian or US- sourced aluminum, some from Asian-sourced aluminum.
Bicycle tubing, which makes up the "bones" of a bike frame comes primarily from outside the US. Our sources are Columbus of Italy, Reynolds UK, and VeloSpec which is a joint US-Taiwan effort, from which US source material is further processed in Taiwan and then returned to the US, as well as Fairing Co., a Taiwan producer. It remains unresolved how VeloSpec will be affected by tariffs, but all EURO-based goods are currently at 20% and Taiwan-sourced goods are at 32%. This will have a significant impact if unchanged.
For now, Co-Motion will hold pricing at pre-tariff levels, while we await hopeful news about trade negotiations. We do have orders coming from Europe and Asia, and it's very likely that when these orders arrive, we will be paying those tariffs. It is unfortunate that our plans and projections did not include these added costs because there were no definitive notices. And yes, we as the importer of these good will pay any tariffs, meaning they absolutely add to our landed cost for each item.
We remain committed to providing you the very best quality and real value.
Yours truly,
Dwan Shepard and the entire Co-Motion crew
For a niche-oriented company like Co-Motion, we are constantly looking for ways to meet the needs of very discerning cyclists, who come to us primarily for bicycles that cannot be found at a typical bike shop. In some cases, it's a matter of fit - they may be very tall or very small, or perhaps a physical limitation requires them to have bike that's fitted differently in some way. That's often what defines a custom bike maker: their ability to fit a specific need. There's a long tradition of specialty bike builders who fill a specific niche, sometimes regionally, and sometimes globally. For example, Richard Sachs has a global reputation for superb cyclocross bikes, and he's made them beautifully for over 40 years.
At Co-Motion Cycles, we're best known for our tandems, and because there are few makers of tandems, we were able to establish ourselves on a national level not long after hanging a shingle on our door in 1988.
A revised summary of derailleur systems, updated 2/12/2025
