MORE BAD NEWS FOR THE BIKE INDUSTRY
November 11, 2008 @ 6:58 PM - Brian
Tomorrow might not be the best day for the BMX industry. New regulations go into effect, requiring that bicycle manufacturers now have a third-party, independent laboratory certify that all consumer products intended for children 12 and younger, including bikes, meet CPSC requirements for things like lead paint levels and the presence of phthalates.
Until now, manufacturers had performed much of its testing in-house. But The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, which goes into effect as of November 12, changes all that.
Basically, this means that bicycle manufacturers have to pay a third-party laboratory to test their products for the presence of lead and phthalates. If the products do in fact pass, then they will be allowed to clear US Customs. And if the products fail testing, then they won’t be allowed to enter the US.
Economically, this hits a lot of people pretty hard, including the manufacturer, the distributor, the retailer, and ultimately down the line, the customer. The end result being, prices are going up yet again.
But there’s a lot of ambiguity to this new regulation that I can’t find an answer to. Since the regulation specifies “products intended for children 12 and under,” does that effect all BMX bikes? Could there be a legal loophole where a BMX company could label their products as “Not Recommended For Children 12 and Under”? And are we now going to see a sudden jump in third-party lead and phthalates testing facilities throughout Taiwan and China, or will products get stuck in limbo waiting to be tested by the few labs accredited to do the testing? And because it’s again popular, what about clear coating? (That last one is a joke...)
The solution? I have no idea. Bikes are simply getting more expensive by the day. Maybe US manufacturing isn’t such a bad idea after all? Maybe Barack Obama will spark a second industrial revolution in the US, with the bike industry moving back onto US soil, employing Tom from Empire to build wheels and Big Dave from FBM to weld frames…
