Broken supply chain a bump in the road for would-be cyclists | Scotland

Demand has never been higher but a shortage of new bikes and parts combined with a crime wave has put a spoke in the wheel for an ever-growing band of cyclists.

In any normal year, hundreds of specialist shops across the country would be only too happy to serve a steady stream of customers, providing a new bike, or taking in an old bone-shaker for repair.

This year, like the one before, is not a normal year. At precisely the moment when cycling boomed as a means to get fit in the pandemic, the supply chain broke and it has still to be fixed. Manufacturers of bikes and parts, predominantly based in the Far East, shut down for months as the first wave of the