Under desk bikes are becoming increasingly popular as they offer a convenient way to stay active and track progress. These bikes are equipped with advanced technology, such as in-app integration, making it easy to monitor your fitness levels and set goals.
We've been waiting to call it since our humble beginnings in 2020. While it's harder than ever to make any sort of prediction these days, market conditions are finally converging on 2023 to potentially be the best year for smart bike adoption ever.
Under desk bikes have been around for a while, but never took off as much as standing desks have. Before the pandemic, most employers still weren't onboard with shelling out the money and space for providing smart bikes to their sedentary workers. And many still have liability misconceptions about bringing them on campus.
How Covid-19 Changed the Game
During the lockdowns, people began working from home more than for just an occasional hour here or there, and few ever thought about their home office from the perspective of "corporate wellness." When you aren't walking around the office to collaborate with coworkers or even just going out for lunch and meetings anymore, but just do everything from your chair at home, you are moving even less than you would if you still commuted every day.
And that got a lot of people to recognize that kitchen table ergonomics aren't sustainable and upgrading to an active workstation with a good ergonomic setup was paramount. Standing desk and ergonomic chair sales exploded, peaking in mid-2020, and have been seeing significant numbers ever since.
You'll also see a big plateau lift on standing desk searches every January 1st as more people adopt New Year's resolutions to move more and sit less, not to mention the refresh of corporate wellness budgets. But it's still lower today than during the peak demand month of August, 2020. Not so many people make getting a new ergonomic office chair a New Years resolution, in contrast, but there are still way more being sold today for home offices than during pre-pandemic times.
Indeed, the Google Trend chart for "desk bike" searches showed a similar increase in consumer interest during the height of lockdowns in mid-2020. And unfortunately, most of that interest wasn't satisfied over the next 18 months as manufacturers were severely backlogged due to supply chain challenges. The consequences of which included several smart bike manufacturers going bust, and prices increasing significantly. By the end of 2022 the smoke started to clear.
Searches for "under desk bike" on Google are rising rapidly.
What this shows is that even though gyms were open again, a lot of folks' habits changed and they didn't want to go to gyms anymore (and they didn't want to go into the office as much, either). Interest in smart bikes have been on a tear ever since, and still climbing. Most supply chain problems seem to have been resolved, albeit with higher transportation costs still fuelling significantly higher prices than before. But at least you can get one.
So what's the hold up? Your knowledge; that's what. And we will fix that. With all the changes in the industry and the additions in our reviews, you'll want to make sure you are informed before you click "add to cart."