PORTLAND — Three years of booming Oregon bicycle sales appear to be at an end, another sign of business returning to pre-pandemic conditions.

Oregon bicycle shops are on pace to sell roughly 46,000 bikes this year, according to state data. That’s almost the same number they sold in each of the two years before the pandemic but one-quarter fewer than sold in 2020 and 2021.

“We’ve seen a drop across the board in the state,” said Shannon Skerritt, operations manager for River City Bicycles in Portland.

Bike sales famously soared during the pandemic, when fear of COVID-19 and restrictions on indoor activities sent people scrambling for other kinds of recreation. People who hadn’t been on a bike in years hit the road and the demand for two-wheelers was more than manufacturers and retailers could meet.

“COVID was such a crazy time and everything just blew up,” Skerritt said. “Everything was off the chart in those years.”

Oregon bike sales jumped 33% when the pandemic hit in 2020 and remained elevated through last year.

We know this because of the state’s unique bicycle tax, adopted by the state Legislature in 2017. It levies a flat, $15 sales tax on the sale of new, adult-sized bicycles and electric bikes.

When bike shops sell a bike that costs at least $200 they must collect the tax and convey it to the state. As a result, Oregon has bicycle sales data beginning in 2018.

Lawmakers passed the bike tax as part of a broad, $5.3 billion plan to upgrade Oregon’s transportation infrastructure.

The bike money goes to the Oregon Community Paths Program. Supplemented with funding from other federal, state and local sources, the bike tax has helped build dedicated bike paths around the state, including completed projects in Madras and Washington County.

Tax collections grew from around $500,000 in 2018 to $1.2 million last year, reflecting both increased sales and — perhaps — an improved collections process. About 5% of the program’s revenue consists of penalties and interest on late payments from bike shops and the Department of Revenue spends about $40,000 annually to administer the program.

Even so, $1.2 million a year doesn’t buy a lot of new bicycle paths. So the Oregon Department of Transportation stopped spending the bike tax money last year and won’t resume until 2026. While the state is giving the fund time to build up, it’s drawing from other sources to pay for new projects.

When Oregon resumes spending the bike tax money, it will continue to prioritize multiuse paths that are not part of a roadway. The state is seeking “critical links” that connect schools and urban centers and “regional paths” connecting communities to one another.

Oregon doesn’t have a statewide sales tax but does levy taxes on a handful of other products and services. Those include the purchase of cars and trucks, marijuana, psilocybin, and the rental of heavy equipment and hotel rooms.

The bike tax confounded cycling advocates because it singled out a healthy, environmentally friendly means of transportation as one of the few Oregon products subject to sales tax.

Oregon’s bike tax is indeed a bit weird, said River City’s Skerritt. But he noted that the flat, $15 tax is a lot lower than the sales tax most other states charge and said Oregon’s tax is not deterring sales.

“It’s not great but we don’t get a whole lot of pushback from it,” Skerritt said. “So if it is truly going toward something good, something bike related, bike infrastructure, that’s fine.”