On top of that, any asset for which demand comes mostly from being an "inflation hedge" is a bad inflation hedge since prices will rise when people want more inflation hedging and drop when they want less hedging, meaning the majority of people inflation hedging will buy high and sell low.
Gold has had that dynamic for a long time, which is one reason it is not considered a good investment most of the time. Buy assets that are productive and you will be much less subject to that. Real inflation hedges look like stockpiles of goods, inventory or production capacity thereof.
Could that make such inflation hedges a good pre-inflation hedge? For example buying gold with the expectation that people will soon want more hedging than they do now, though this relies on getting in earlier than others.
Yes, but at that point, you should just borrow money, and do something useful with it, because being in debt is a simple, straightforward inflation hedge.
Gold has had that dynamic for a long time, which is one reason it is not considered a good investment most of the time. Buy assets that are productive and you will be much less subject to that. Real inflation hedges look like stockpiles of goods, inventory or production capacity thereof.