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Edited Date/Time
10/13/2025 9:35am
Time to kick off the silly season for 2026. Throw your best guesses, secrets or official news about mountain bike racers and their 2026 plans into the ring.
While I have no specific news at this moment, I'm extremely curious to see how things pan out for next year when it comes to racer values and the investment incentives into race teams for brands. 2025, at least at the World Cup level, has proven that an expensive roster of top talent (or formerly top talent) doesn't guarantee results or even a presence on race day.
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Silly might be the understatement of the year!!! I have a feeling the next few years are going be insane.
Between the state of the industry and ever changing landscape of the WC DH rules, there's a good chance of some good names not having a ride...
Interesting if you look at the team rankings for this year . Scott , Giant and Pivot jump out as teams who you would possibly expect to be a bit higher in the rankings if they want one of the guaranteed spots for next year . Having said that it's 15 teams plus 5 wildcards so I'd imagine every team that wants a space next year will get one .
Who will replace Nino at Scott? (sorry for the xc rumor...)
Back to the good ole Ream Tumors again, I love this time of the year!
Heh to pick up where someone left off in team rumors 2025 thread. My bet is PFR go full enduro next year.
Life makes sense again now that there’s a new rumors thread
Said it before, I’ll say it again - Dylan maples to Frameworks..
why? There was a race this year where neko seemed very excited about his run, more so than usual.
While we can speculate about that the truth is simple, there is no replacing Nino... Scott will have new good riders, but I doubt anyone will be able to dominate the scene for 15 years again! And even if one comes up he will most likely be snatched by road millions (like Pidcock and Van Der Poel).
Already not a rumor : Dylan Levesque will end his world cup carreer at the end of the season :
https://www.instagram.com/p/DNxU30wWIzu/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
This is like setting up your Christmas tree in October!
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That would be really cool. With Anna, Asa and Dylan racing Elite would it be the strongest US DH team ever?
Not to mention the army of smoking fast Juniors Neko has on the development team.
at the rate WB is selling off assets etc, there's a non-zero chance mtb coverage will be one of them.
bummer about levesque. he always seemed like he was so close to breaking that top barrier and he looked pinned and steezy in raws.
Pivot to take over Team High Country as a frame sponsor, bring Jenna and BK along and rely on a wildcard slot next year.
A thought I had teased out in a much longer form that I think is applicable to the Pivot situation (and I think we'll see it more often from other teams):
I think Pivot is going to leave elite-level racing and BK Sport will be the team that carries on. I think the BK Sport merch brand has been the long game slow rollout of Bernard knowing Pivot want to exit racing and knowing he'll need to be on a differently-named team.
Sort of similar to how FMD (a privately-owned racing team) is now partnered with Orbea. I didn't think of FMD as a Canyon team previously but as a team riding Canyon bikes. Now FMD is a team riding Orbea bikes. Pivot Factory Racing - as I understand it - is what BK called his privately-owned racing team. I think BK Sport is his start to transition from being associated with Pivot to being a visible racing team that isn't locked into a certain brand via the team name.
do you think there still will be a young talent team? Facing the financial issues maybe there will be no team next year
I think you have over thought it and the bk sport thing. I'm pretty sure it was just a merch opportunity off the back of his YouTube channel success and popularity. From the conversations going on in other threads on this site and others it seems like that may be on the decline so I doubt he could count on that.
I know for one I wouldn't walk about with a t-shirt with his name on it.
Interesting thoughts. Whatever people choose to think of BK as a person/rider, he seems pretty switched on from a business point of view.
I know he's not exactly Mr Popular, but I hadn't heard his business wasn't doing well, got any links?
I predict 2026 will be the start of more non-endemic deals. But that'll need more agents and sponsorship consultants as pitching a niche (albeit on mainstream media) sport to the big bucks brands as a cheaper alternative to soccer, motorsport etc is a more sophisticated sell.
I don't know anything about the prosperity of his business, i meant more his popularity seems to be on the decline.
A. Gwin is the strongest US DH team. Add anyone you like, if at all. AG number one!
Subb
If I was pivot, I’d be looking at rogue racing and thinking they might be interested in a frame manufacturer becoming a title sponsor for the team... But there’s probably a few manufacturers looking at Rogue.
This is maybe most applicable to pivot factory team though as they aren’t actually a factory team, it’s Bernard’s team with them as the title sponsor and frame provider.. if they don’t make the cut would pivot put the funding elsewhere?
This for me is probably the most interesting type of team change we might see this year.
Going from Bernard to daprela would be the worst look ever. Bernard’s stuff is a bit questionable but you kind of just got to wait and see and Jenna can make her own choices. But to go from someone with a large age gap relationship with questionable beginnings to a guy with sexual assault allegations would be wildly irresponsible in modern times.
I really doubt either Bernard or pivot would benefit from exiting the relationship at this time. I think the people on this forum have far stronger opinions on the subject than 95 percent of mtbers including women. And I doubt the majority of people on here who are not fans at the moment could care less whether bk is still managing their factory team when it comes to their decision to buy a bike. I’m priced out of ever seriously considering one at the moment but my lbs sells them so who knows about one day.
Super boost and short chain stays would stop me from buying a Pivot before anything Bernard did.. I wouldn't date anyone that young, but I'm a lot older than he is.. We assume things are questionable, but laws are different everywhere. Sexual assault is a whole different thing..
I think you’ve read into my post in a way it was never intended, in this instance disregard the people and the public’s opinion of their moral character. The saying goes win on Sunday sell on Monday.. pivot should want their bikes raced by people that are competitive and actually guaranteed an entry into the world cups.
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