PORTLAND, Maine — With the outdoors offering a pandemic escape a couple years ago, it became hard to find a bike.
Back then, Portland resident Ian Anderson got one in the nick of time.
"I think I got, maybe, one of the last full-suspension bikes at my size in town during the pandemic," he recalled.
On Thursday, he walked into Allspeed Cyclery & Snow on Brighton Avenue, bringing in two old bikes and paying it forward.
Technically, he would also be compensated for the bikes, as part of the shop's annual bike swap.
Allspeed's swap has existed for more than a decade. For 2023's event, owner Chris Carleton estimated they took in 250 bikes and sold around 170. He expected around the same amount of stock for Saturday's sale.
This is the backside of a COVID-19 boom.
Allspeed and crosstown peers Gorham Bike & Ski both reported experiencing a never-before-seen level of surge in purchases during the pandemic. Eric Schnare, who buys for Gorham, said manufacturer supply ran low. As those companies increased production, he explained, demand began to wane and they quickly worked to correct course, leaving a gap in supply at times.
Nevertheless, with warm weather settling into Maine, Allspeed's and Gorham's showrooms were filled with new bikes.
"Right now, we’re doing great," Schnare said. "We’ve got a lot of bikes. We’ve got bikes coming in every week."
Meanwhile, Allspeed had just hosted its swap the weekend prior, and Carleton prepared to make a lot of customers happy with less expensive, used rides.
"Unfortunately, on the other side of [the pandemic], there was quite a crash, which has, sort of flooded the used market," Carleton explained. "which is one of the reasons why we think we’re getting so many bikes this year and we did last year as well."
"Good time to be a buyer," he smirked.