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Yeah, trying to understand ALSO as an entry into the recreational e-bike market is missing the entire picture. They’re working on the micro-mobility market and trying to do so without the baggage of the traditional recreational cycling product lens. The TM-B is entirely pedal-by-wire: the cranks don’t connect to the rear wheel mechanically, they connect to a generator/throttle. This means you’re probably pretty hosed if you run out of battery, but the given range estimate is 60-100mi because that design allows them to have regenerative braking w/ programmatic blending between the motor and the hydraulic brakes. It’ll do up to 180Nm of torque at the wheel, too. It has a bunch of anti-theft technology (motor and wheel immobilizers, motion alarm, GPS tracking, remote disabling, iPhone-style activation locking, etc.), turn-by-turn navigation, etc. etc. (Also, it’s not 12mm of travel. It’s 120mm of travel.)
Now, I have no idea if it’ll work as either a product or a business, but it’s really a very unique vehicle in the market and not just a catalog bike with some features glued on. It’s also the first thing they’re launching, with plans to expand into larger delivery vehicles. If they manage to scale up their vertically integrated manufacturing, they’ll also be able to make much cheaper versions.
They do look silly riding berms in the launch video, but I’d bet heavily on these being a blast to ride around town.
Good analysis. This is coming to an urban delivery service near you soon....
it's quite impressive how much tech they could implement by not using tradional suppliers
"Three weeks after Strava filed a patent-infringement case against Garmin, stating the latter's segments and heatmaps features violate an agreement between the two companies, Strava has officially dropped its lawsuit against Garmin."
The storm in the heatmap is over it seems.
Thredbo for the last couple of seasons now runs 3 chairlifts and 1 gondola.
17 gravity trails and a new black dh race track using the new gondola finishing in Friday Flat for a larger race hub.
If only they did all this before 4 sick free bike parks opened on the south coast.
Also you don't get charged $18 for a beer and get no change from a pineapple for a schnitzel.
I'd rather do a week of riding Kembla, Nowra, Narooma & Mogo now.
Chairlifts are pretty nice though, better then any shuttle service. Went twice last season, mid week trips and had no line ups.
BYO beers and only have a few happy hour beers and its not that bad.
Guess that’s it for the Canadian side of YT
How many bike companies have won a World Championship, a World Cup Overall, and then folded that same year?
Racing at a WC level tends to cost a lot of money.. Given the industry struggles as of late, this really isn't too shocking.
I was wondering how many have won an overall posthumously
one of those unique situations where... we are now all waiting for the THIRD shoe to drop. the other shoe wasnt enough.
ill continue to die on the hill that i want the funny situation of YT only surviving in the US going forward. or what we call the 'oppo-Scott'
Yeah, I just checked, their discount code works. 50% off all bikes. I tossed a $10500 decoy in the cart and tossed in the code and it switched to $5250 cad. Wild. Wish I had a spare 5k right now and wanted to take a risk on not breaking anything.
The only other brand that comes to mind was Iron Horse in 2008 but it was not even close. Remember, it was the era of prime Sam Hill and that year he was 2nd overall and 3rd in the world champs (legendary Val di Sole run when he crashed in the second to last corner)
Just heard that YT USA is done too.
That won't surprise me... The head got cut off...
Hard to be a distributor when there's nothing to distribute
Anyone in the UK who knows what's goin on at Bird Cycleworks?
For some wheeks now their FS frames have been on sale and as it seem they're about to start selling bikes from Forbidden, Forestal and Early rider.
Supposedly more info is coming but that has been said about a month ago for the first time.
It very much looks like they will become distributors and will be dropping their own frames (no confirmation about that, just the optics of it). I think it was about a year ago when the designer, Dan Hodge, left the company. Supposedly left them "in good hands" with a few upcoming bikes already designed, but yeah... Doesn't look all that good to be honest.
https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-rot-economy/
Came over this article at another site (---.cc) and found it quite interesting.
Not 100% related to this thread, but some good pointer about VC/PE and different types of valuations for companies.
There's substantial strawmanning here, though I want to be clear, I'm not criticizing you for sharing it. Some of his core points hold up: tech companies do prioritize growth over fundamentals, Google's search quality has in some way degraded (though they have bigger problems w search), Uber's profitability concerns (durability) are legitimate (something I've written about), and Meta's ad model faces real structural headwinds (been written about for eons).
But the piece paints a fundamentally incomplete picture. He relies on rhetorical extremism ("markets have fucking cataracts"), cherry-picks examples that fit his predetermined narrative, and ironically suffers from survivorship bias in reversem ignoring venture-backed companies that did build sustainable businesses (while ignoring the VC model as a whole). He also oversimplifies causality; Meta's stock didn't rise just because "the market loves layoffs," but because the layoffs signaled cost discipline, which is a legitimate market signal. Just look at meta's earnings growth since the layoffs, they've been rising.
The author conflates "markets are sometimes misaligned" with "markets are systematically broken," when the reality is far messier and more nuanced.
Anyway, if I go further I'll really derail this thread. The application to the bike industry is more that the ZIRP era KPIs of user growth above all else never really held weight, but it really doesn't hold weight in a higher interest rate environment in an industry like this one. Hence, the YTs of the world are going away. (Yes, that was a stretch, but I had to tie this all back to bikes~!)
Side note, I'm reading 1929, Sorkin's new book - its a good one if anyone is interested in historical finance.
So,
Back to the gigantic pachyderm in the room…
At least one prominent US military contractor is forecasting a war in the Taiwan straight in q1 2027.
Obviously a blockade of Taiwan would be disastrous for the bicycle industry.
Could any of the Big 4 survive even a year long blockade?
Woof! Not to be that guy as I mean no disrespect but cite your source on that one. And obviously the answer for the industry as a whole is nope.
Not excited to mention the name of the self-aggrandizing techbro that owns Andruil, but his whole schtick is “Project 2027”. Andruil isn’t the only company in the space that is hot for a drone war in the straight though…
More news in the wake of CSS shutting its doors:
An Update on Chris King Wheels and Future Warranty Claims
To Our Industry Friends, Partners and Riders,
You may be aware that our rim partner, CSS Composites, has recently gone out of business. CSS developed the FusionFiber rims we built into our own brand of road, gravel and mountain bike wheels. FusionFiber was a technology we were excited about and a company who shared our ideals for sustainable manufacturing. We are heartbroken for the people who lost their jobs and the vision that won’t now be realized. We never like seeing a US manufacturer closing their doors.
Unfortunately, we received no advance notice of CSS's struggles or subsequent closure.
The most important thing for our riders to know is that there is nothing wrong with the wheels they’re riding, quite the opposite. We expect every wheel we’ve built to give their rider years and years of riding. We also want to reassure them that, despite CSS no longer being able to supply us with FusionFiber rims, all lifetime warranties are still in effect. The good folks at NOBL Wheels are stepping in to manage rim replacement for any Chris King FusionFiber wheel in need of warranty service.
King-branded, FusionFiber rims (ARD44, GRD23, and MTN30) are discontinued for the foreseeable future.
For original owners making a claim under the King warranty agreement, we will replace any defective rim with an equivalent NOBL rim. The rim itself and the wheel rebuild will have no cost to the customer. A second, matching wheel will also be available at a deeply discounted cost, if the rider wants one, and it can be delivered with the warranty wheel.
What is most important to us is taking care of our customers the best we can in light of CSS going out of business. In a perfect world, we would have been able to plan for this situation in advance, but given the realities of CSS’s situation, we are grateful to NOBL for working through the logistics with us on an accelerated schedule. They have been fantastic to work with and being located here in the Pacific Northwest, we should be able to get replacement rims quickly when needed. We’re glad to be partnering with them. They already build wheels with our hubs, so it's a good fit. Customers should be confident with our solution to this industry surprise.
The NOBL rims available for replacement are the TR36 (mountain), HR25 (gravel), and HR45 (road), and the warranty process is simple. Customers with proof of original purchase will email info@chrisking.com for a Return Authorization (RA) number, then box and ship the damaged wheel back to us, where our wheel team will remove the broken rim and rebuild with the new rim (building a matching front or rear if requested), service the hubs, and then return to the customer. The rebuilt wheel will then be cared for under the NOBL warranty. International customers will work through the distributor for their market, which we understand may add some complications for shipping and return that we don’t yet know about.
We would like to thank everyone from our distribution partners to our shop friends to our legions of loyal riders for their patience with this unexpected situation. We’re confident that anyone who invested in Chris King Wheels will be happy with their riding experience going forward, and that’s what really matters.
Sincerely,
Kirby Bedsaul
President/General Manager
Chris King Precision Components
Interesting to see NOBL become the warranty carbon rim company...
It feels like how Rivian makes vans for Amazon, with a truck/SUV business on the side. Make money selling to corporations, use it to look good to consumers?
Here is what Palmer says - starts around 1:35. Make of it what you will, but my two thoughts are as follows...
First, If China invades Taiwan, your next bike purchase will quickly lose relevance. This won't be like a conflict in the Middle East or Eastern Europe. This will be completely ruinous for the financial system, the semiconductor supply chain, AI, and broadly the world economy. It also will also (likely) spur some variation of WWIII.
Second, I don't hear a lot of conviction out of Palmer when he's making this claim. More of an internal motivator than something backed by a ton of intelligence only he's privvy to. Not saying it couldn't happen, but I certainly wouldn't bet on it. On that note Polymarket currently has an invasion by China in 2026 at a 17% chance. No market is made for 2027 (yet).
Unfortunately, there are a lot of evidences that/how China prepares for the war. So far it’s been only a question of when, not if. In collaboration with russia they now have plenty of ways to test their tech and staff.
A year ago I raised a conversation around possible war in Taiwan with high-level managers in a MTB company which exists no more. Frankly speaking, nobody then believed in it. Overall, people who hadn’t experienced war tend to hope/believe it will never touch them. A painful discovery it will be.
Fortunately there are more reliable sources for geopolitical news than a steroid-addled former comedian and a mediocre electrical engineer
Sure thing. That said, I appreciate @mickey raising the broader implications. We all know there’s no crystal ball when it comes to geopolitics, even the most experienced and “in the know” get it wrong. I’m less interested in what Joe or Palmer specifically think and more interested in the overarching impact, which I believe was the real tie-in to this thread.
You could debate the “if” and “when” of this topic for days, citing Jeffrey Michaels, Bonnie Glaser, Oriana Skylar Mastro, and a dozen others... and still come to no meaningful conclusion.
Also, calling Palmer a “mediocre electrical engineer” is kind of laughable. You don’t have to like him, but he’s clearly talented when it comes to certain kinds of hardware. I’ll give him credit for that, even if I don’t agree with him on everything.
That brings me to a broader point I keep circling back to in my mind and see reflected here sometimes: you don’t have to agree with everything a person says to find value in hearing their ideas. I actually make an effort to seek out people I don’t agree with (within reason, they need to be grounded and intelligent) for exactly that reason. Palmer is smart. Joe is smart (both in their own way). Do they both step on landmines and look less-than-brilliant? Absolutely. So do all of us. Joe is an expert on fighting and comedy. if he brings up finance, maybe I'm not going to ascribe much weight to what he has to say, but I still find it interesting, because its a good illumination of how a layman might be perceiving something "in the market".
If you’re hanging on someone’s every word like they’re a prophet on a mountaintop, maybe don’t. I’ve never found a person who’s right across every topic. Once you recognize that, you also have to accept that you are probably wrong a good chunk of the time too, which, frankly, makes saying anything at all a little cringe-inducing. Including this post.
YMMV.
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