INDIANAPOLIS — Have you tried to buy a bike lately? New or used? Chances are you were spinning your wheels.
Right now, bicycles are hard to come by, whether you're shopping for a high-end road bike, one for recreational rides or a new bike your grandchild.
As Bill Rowe with Freewheeling Community Bikes said, "there's none to be had right now. Our suppliers are telling us maybe August mostly likely November."
What if you just want to get your old bike fixed? Chances are good you'll have to get in line for that, too.
"Right now most shops are out five weeks, six weeks," Rowe said. "We're experiencing just abnormally huge amounts of service coming in and we just can't keep up with demand."
So much so, that they're now closed two days a week just to do repairs.
And Freewheeling Bikes is far from alone. Chris Modglin was back at the Bicycle Hospital Wednesday.
"I've been in this shop probably 5-6 times with a family of five looking for new bikes and new old bikes...and it's been pretty difficult," he said.
Jennifer DeVries with the Bicycle Hospital agreed.
"It's been crazy busy in here. We've been going a million miles an hour since the beginning of April," she said.
DeVries said they're almost out of bikes and have "tons and tons of repair work. We're doing as much as we can as fast as we can."
Customer Maria Flake said, "I think everybody had the same idea. We're all stuck and home so we're looking for things to do outside."
And top of the list for many? Getting on a bike and hitting the trails. But that's only part of it. As DeVries said, it's not just an issue for bike shops in Indiana but all over. That's because it's a supply chain issue.
She explained most of the inventory comes from Asia, which was the first to be hit hard by COVID-19.
"Production was shut down early and then the shipping lanes have been closed, too," she said, "so we can't even get product right now. It's been insane."
That includes bicycle parts.
Jimmy Revard, who co-owns the Bike Line, said, "There are certain tires, certain shifters or cables and housing, things like that, which are getting harder and harder to find, so we have a running list of things we're running out of or just can't get for several weeks."
Revard, who's family opened the Bike Line in 1979, said, "I've been seen anything like this in 41 years...Nobody saw it coming. None of our distributors saw it coming, we didn't see it coming."
In fact, when the pandemic hit Revard said, "we were really nervous, had very high anxiety about what would happen next."
He and others love to see the surge in bicycle ridership.
Modglin for one said, "I've kind of found a new passion for it. I'm commuting to work now three days a week and I love it. It's good to be back on my bike."
If he could only find another bike or two for his family. Bike shop owners hope that becomes considerably easier in the coming weeks and months.