Wow: this is huge news.

I hadn't bought a lot from Chain Reaction in the past, but it was good to know that this venue was available to bypass our domestic price-fixing cartels. North American pricing is higher simply because we have a greater ability to pay. I'm sure, as with OPEC and other cartels, that there are a legion of Harvard-trained economists working on the problem of regional pricing so as to maximize long-term profitability. Nash and Cournot equilibrium. Challenging problem is to fix prices at a certain level so as to maximize market penetration, and at the same time manage grey market leakage, and your monopoly being eaten away by small-fry competition.

So I just completed a huge order from CR for Shimano consumables such as cassettes, rings and chains. Biggest online order ever. A couple of years worth of stuff. Plus my riding pals, divided up into reasonably-sized parcels so as not to incur the attention of customs.

We may finally pull the plug on some Di2 gruppos for bike builds. All told, this announcement from Shimano may cost my little group 5-figures dollars worth of purchases from CR. Because January 1, no more Shimano; it's been swell.....

Which leads to the broader question as to why parts that are manufactured in Asia needlessly travel to the UK, to then travel to North America? It makes more sense for factory direct to cut out all of the middlemen, marketers, advertising, distributors etc. And my local shop who straight-faced swears that I need to buy a new bike because: "we cannot get 9-speed parts anymore", or "road bikes now only come with disks"....