{"id":43859,"date":"2021-11-08T14:11:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-08T21:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/supply-chain-woes-lead-to-pricy-outdoor-recreation-products-in-colorado\/"},"modified":"2021-11-08T21:11:00","modified_gmt":"2021-11-08T21:11:00","slug":"supply-chain-woes-lead-to-pricy-outdoor-recreation-products-in-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/supply-chain-woes-lead-to-pricy-outdoor-recreation-products-in-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"Supply chain woes lead to pricy outdoor recreation products in Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Greg
Greg Fisher scans inventory in Wheel Pros\u2019 supply warehouse on Oct. 27 in Greenwood Village. The company, which designs and manufacturers specialized wheels for off-road vehicles, is struggling like all businesses these days with the disrupted supply chain. (Kevin J. Beaty\/Colorado Public Radio via AP)<\/span>Kevin J. Beaty<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

DENVER (AP) \u2013 There are millions of dollars of camping equipment and apparel stuck on ships sitting in a harbor right now. That\u2019s a big part of the reason the company Kelty \u2013 known for its backpacks and sleeping bags \u2013 will be raising prices later this month.<\/p>\n

Problems in the global supply chain are creating big headaches for businesses \u2013 and for shoppers who are dealing with long waits and higher prices.<\/p>\n

No industry has been spared, and that includes the vast market for outdoor recreation equipment. Coloradans should be prepared to pay a little more for gear when heading to the mountains for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n

Russ Rowell oversees Kelty and a number of other outdoor brands for Broomfield-based Exxel Outdoors. He said retailers had to absorb some of the recent shockwaves in order to keep prices manageable.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we were to pass on the full breadth of the impact \u2026 I don\u2019t believe consumers would be camping anymore,\u201d Rowell said.<\/p>\n

Starting Nov. 15, the price of a Kelty camping chair will go from $109 to $139, he said.<\/p>\n

Supply chain traffic jam<\/div>\n

The logjam started with a surge in demand for goods from people stuck at home during the pandemic, said Randy White, the CEO of Wheel Pros, a Greenwood Village-based company that designs and manufactures specialized wheels, including those used on Jeeps and SUVs for driving off-road.<\/p>\n

Supply chain snags have only continued to get worse, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like once somebody steps on the brakes in traffic and all of a sudden you have hundreds of cars backed up on I-70 \u2026 It\u2019s a chain reaction all the way through the system,\u201d White said.<\/p>\n

\"Racks
Racks sit devoid of tires in the warehouse of Wheel Pros, a designer and manufacturer of specialzed wheels for off-road vehicles, because of supply-chain bottlenecks Oct. 27 in Greenwood Village. The outdoor recreation industry is struggling like all businesses with the headaches triggered by global supply chain problems. (Kevin J. Beaty\/Colorado Public Radio via AP)<\/span>Kevin J. Beaty<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The network that gets stuff from point A to point B is a global web of ports and highways, ships and trucks and planes. And, of course \u2013 people. There are countless ways for things to go wrong. But up until recently, things mostly got to where they needed to be, when they needed to be there.<\/p>\n

These days, there are hiccups every step of the way. For example, a COVID-19 case could shut down a port in Asia. Finally, it opens back up and ships leave, but when they get to the U.S., the ports are clogged. On top of that, there might not be enough workers to move the cargo after it\u2019s unloaded.<\/p>\n

It can start with simply getting goods aboard a ship, said Steve Hoogendoorn, cofounder at Yeti Cycles, a mountain bike manufacturer in Golden. His shop booked space on a ship that never materialized.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey call them ghost sailings, when they just don\u2019t actually show up,\u201d Hoogendoorn said.<\/p>\n

The time it takes to get a shipment from Asia to his workshop in Golden has quadrupled, and it can be as long as four months, he said.<\/p>\n

Shipping costs are skyrocketing because everybody is desperate to get their products, and forced to pay whatever it takes. Before the pandemic, it cost between $1,500 to $2,000 to get a container from Asia, White said. In September, it was $15,000, he said.<\/p>\n

Even products adapt<\/div>\n

The various hold-ups are even changing the products themselves.<\/p>\n

Dave Bombard owns Bishop, a two-person operation based in Edwards that handcrafts bindings for telemark skiing. It\u2019s an intricate process, involving about 60 parts, Bombard said. For one critical component, Bombard was using a particular thickness of sheet metal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the part that basically holds the boot in \u2026 it is kind of the key. This one part holds the heel of the boot to the binding,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He ended up having to redesign the binding when his supplier told him he wasn\u2019t going to get the material in time for winter. Bombard raised his prices by 10%.<\/p>\n

Bishop designs skis, too. In an ominous sign for how long the problems will drag on, Bombard recently received word that he\u2019ll need to cut next year\u2019s order for skis by 20% because of the potential for ongoing material shortages.<\/p>\n

Hoogendorn with Yeti says his company is thinking about ways they can source more of what they need domestically.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most basic way for it to get solved is for demand to drop off, for us to stop buying as much product \u2026 from Asia,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The kinks in the supply chain go way beyond outdoor equipment. Prices are going up everywhere \u2013 from the grocery store to the gas pump. The supply chain isn\u2019t the only thing driving inflation, but it\u2019s definitely making things worse.<\/p>\n

Rowell with Exxel said his company waited as long as they could to raise prices, especially because camping is seen as an affordable vacation option. With everything getting so expensive, some families have tough choices to make when it comes to money.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not going to spend it on camping goods when they have to buy milk,\u201d Rowell said.<\/p>\n

To read more stories by Colorado Public Radio, visit cpr.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greg Fisher scans inventory in Wheel Pros\u2019 supply warehouse on Oct. 27 in Greenwood Village. The company, which designs and manufacturers specialized wheels for off-road vehicles, is struggling like all businesses these days with the disrupted supply chain. (Kevin J. Beaty\/Colorado Public Radio via AP)Kevin J. Beaty DENVER (AP) \u2013 There are millions of dollars […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43860,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-43859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43859"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=43859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}