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I would say they are pretty boutique. They don't even have an e bike. I'd bet they're bottom 15% of units moved by brands not invited to MADE.
Not worth it. Not on a bicycle. Maybe on a cargo/commuter bike, for pleasure mountain bikes the problems are far greater than the benefits it would bring.
The 8-hour training actually makes perfect sense if you think about it. If you’re going to force a 12-year-old to commute electrically assisted/throttled in a 6-inch painted gutter next to 5,000lb distracted SUVs going 50mph, they probably need Stroad-warrior level tactical training.
Why build a protected bike path for $1M when you can just blame the kids for not having a Ebike Safety Certificate while they dodge F-150s?
You are not wrong.
If People For Bikes spent 1/4 as much advocating for safe routes to school as they did lobbying for Ebike access in skeptical communities, the shrinking American bicycle market might be expanding. Instead we seem laser focused on selling stuff to the same 10% of the population over and over again, each time with an extra battery or two.
Exactly... So, I would guess that the costs of setting up something here doesn't justify the benefits to the company.. Yes, I wouldn't mind a Madonna and a Yella if a DH bike was in the cards for me...
My point is even at that size they could likely make it worth their while expanding here as they are popular. Or at least that is my hypothesis and I want to hear what people familiar with distribution think.
This 1000%. I'm sure a lot of you know this, but a crucial piece of information is that "People for Bikes" is only "people" in the Mitt Romney sense of the word. It's a lobbying organization for bike companies, which explains a lot of the ebike legislation that has been passed in many states.
The other old grumpy people will get this reference, which is what that moniker for an industry lobbying group always makes me think of.
Earlier this year I went to People For Bikes’ Bicycle Leadership Conference. I’m not a PFB member, I don’t feel like a shill for them, but I have an in person experience which seems relevant to this:
I learned that they feel that e-motos pose an urgent threat to existing routes to schools, etc. They’re still supporting new routes, but are focused on supporting existing routes - because there’s a risk that reaction to reckless e-moto users could jeopardize all bicycle access to bike paths. Undoing PFB’s previous efforts.
PFB seemed eager to have e-motos regulated as motorcycles, and the motorcycle industry equivalent of PFB who were in attendance seemed eager to own that segment and to require (sell) insurance and DOT helmets.
A senator in attendance said there are federal, state and local bills under consideration already, apparently with bipartisan support.
All wanted e-motos to be seen as something other than a bicycle. They’re appealing to the Associated Press to encourage the term e-moto for anything that doesn’t comply 100% with class 1,2,3. And they’re working toward clarified federal definitions of the classes.
I’m sure PFB have much better info available on their website. I don’t have a dog in the fight so I might not have ingested every detail.
Edit: Recently, a few parents have been sued for reckless endangerment of their kids for allowing them e-motos. I’m not sure if it’s related, but I suspect that it might be.
Yt Canada back in action
Mother charged with Manslaughter
LAKE FOREST, Calif. (KABC) -- An Orange County mother is facing an additional charge of involuntary manslaughter after the death of an 81-year-old man, who had been hit by an electric motorcycle driven by her teen son.
Ed Ashman, an 81-year-old Vietnam War veteran and a beloved substitute teacher, died on Thursday, two weeks after being hit by an e-motorcycle while walking home from work at El Toro High School in Lake Forest.
Prosecutors say the woman, identified as 50-year-old Tommi Jo Mejer, was warned about letting her 14-year-old son illegally ride the e-motorcycle before the crash.
"An American hero who survived flying combat missions in Vietnam could not survive walking across the street in Lake Forest because of a 14-year-old child who was allowed to ride an E-Motorcycle that he should have never been riding," said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer in a statement. "This mother essentially handed her 14-year-old son a deadly weapon, and despite multiple warnings of the dangers, continued to let him illegally ride an E-Motorcycle until he finally killed someone."
The crash happened on April 16. Investigators say Mejer's son was riding a Surron e-motorcycle, "doing wheelies" outside of El Toro High School, when he crashed into Ashman.
Thank you all for the interest in our bikes and in our distribution / sales model. To give you a bit of context, we’re currently a team of 9 people at RAAW, based in Germany, and we ship worldwide directly from here.
The US has actually grown into our biggest market after Germany, which is pretty wild considering that every RAAW in the US has been shipped individually from Germany.
Our goal is, of course, to make the ordering process and ownership experience as easy as possible. Having stock in the US would be ideal, but that comes with a number of major steps that we’re not quite ready for yet. For now, we focus on making direct ordering as simple and transparent as possible.
When you order a RAAW, you pay for the product and shipping upfront. Taxes and duties are then paid upon arrival to the forwarding / shipping company, not to us. We include all the necessary documentation for US customs. It’s difficult to state the exact import costs, but we provide an estimate here: RaawmtbTaxes & Duties. Current tariffs are applied on top of that.
We try to be as proactive and transparent as possible, and for the majority of our US customers, this system works really well. We’re also able to supply spare parts at relatively low cost with quick shipping times.
Direct sales are our main channel, but we also have a growing network of bike shops participating in our “RAAW on Demand” program. This isn’t a traditional dealership model, but it allows shops to build a RAAW for a customer, earn a margin on the frame, and sell the complete bike.
We hope this helps clarify how we operate and how we serve customers in the US. Seeing the growing community of RAAW riders over there is incredibly exciting, and we’re definitely working toward a strong long-term solution.
I might have missed it in the thread, but apparently Lynskey has filed for Chapter 11. https://www.reddit.com/r/cycling/comments/1t4uqho/lynskey_bankruptcy/
I've only ridden one of their bikes, which had the crazy twisted downtube, but I do love some Ti and hate to see anyone in our world go down this path.
Lynskey has been a failure since day one. They have been regularly selling frames below the market price of raw materials for more than a decade. They really need to hang it up and leave making Ti bikes in Chattanooga to literally, everyone else in that town doing it better.
I ordered a RAAW Yalla a couple years ago. Super easy and cheap back then. I’m sure now it’s different game. Fed Ex actually sent me to collections because I got a surprise $1500 tariff bill on something else I ordered from Europe that I’m not gona pay. RAAW was great to deal with. I![]()
miss that bike.
sad to hear my Lynskey built Kona gravel bike is still great all these years later.
given how long / routinely their frames seemed to be on closeout prices, i'm surprised they didn't go bankrupt sooner
Shame, that. Into the bin with it I guess.
Specialized cuts ebike prices 6 to 27%. Article on Retailer - https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2026/05/07/specialized-un…
Woah.
Interesting (but likely needed) response. I wonder if it moves the needle for them. I feel inventory (having it) is their real weapon right now, not pricing.
If you can't compete on the motor... time to slash those prices.
Fox Factory just reported Q1 earnings. I'm waiting for the conference call transcript to do my normal substack post but the quick read throughs are as follows...
Revenue beat Wall St expectations and was at the high end of guidance
SSG (bikes+baseball) did not beat Wall St expectations and was a laggard
Margin progress did not show up with EBITDA margin matching Q4 @ 9.7%
Free cash flow was negative, which I didn't expect.
Debt went up marginally and debt convenance were modified from 5.0 from 4.5
No Marucci update
Guidance was kinda weak for Q2 but reaffirmed for FY26
TLDR not much changed, bikes weaker than expected, no big news to really talk about from Q4 and the management team has their work cut out for them if they are materially going to reshape the brand. The stock is up ~2.3% in post market trading (IE, not much)
https://investor.ridefox.com/press-releases/news-details/2026/Fox-Facto…
Thread was briefly illegal so I wasn't able to comment right under the specialized post.
I'd love to hear some expanded thoughts on this from you guys. It seems like Specialized is ready to wade right into the shit and it is so obviously in response to the Avinox releases. The next question is does Trek and others follow suit? The reality is that other than some top of the line/brand-spanking stuff, I don't think anybody was paying close to MSRP for Trek's EMTBs for some time. I'm fascinated to see Specialized try to compete on price with, in some cases dramatic, cuts. We already know Trek is a little bit on the ropes right now, and I can't imagine Specialized or any of these other major brands who were ordering years worth of bikes over COVID are doing much better. Aggressive move but maybe they realize it's what they had to do to extract cash out of some right-now product.
Will we see any of the mega brands move to Avinox mid-term?
With Specialized having their branded Brose motors, I would think Trek or Giant are looking.. Trek has a history of using different motor companies. Actually, if TQ is working on a full power motor, I would expect to see that debut on a Trek. Giant almost needs to do it. The Yamaha motors ride ok, but they seem to be a little long in the tooth. But, would using an Avinox motor be too outside of the box for Giant?
Re: "Will we see any of the mega brands move to Avinox mid-term?"
I agree that these price cuts are a direct consequence of Avinox eating everybody's lunch. But I don't think we'll see big brands starting to use Avinox, for compliance reasons. The one thing that draws consumers towards Avinox (- high power output) is basically also the reason why the big brands don't use them. If other electric motor OEMs like Bosch or Brose wanted to make, say, a 4.000 watt motor in an e-bike form factor, they absolutely could. I'm told there's nothing holding them back from a technological point of view. In engineering terms, apparently the Avinox product isn't really all that special. The reason why no other motor OEM makes a super powerful e-bike motor is because bike brands aren't actually asking for them - and that in turn is because the big bike brands can't just ignore legal regulations in the same way a chinese company like Avinox does. In a lot of places, it's technically illegal to ride an Avinox bike on cycling infrastructure. Legally speaking, the Avinox motors are a liability nightmare waiting to happen.
I'm hearing this sentiment often from many companies I'm talking to. However, "Mr. Market" is clearly saying something different. I literally cannot find one Avinox powered e-bike to buy right now, let alone get a brand to send me to test. They are out of stock across the board.
This is at the crux of the power-wars problem. I know in America when it comes to anything "go fast" numbers do in fact matter. Guys routinely go out and spend stupid money on a car because it has XXX more horsepower than the other car, despite the fact they can't even use it (or seldom can).
This strikes me as similar. Why buy the lesser powered thing with a worse UX when the other thing is often cheaper and a better experience? You can always detune it via the app...
Better to have more power than you need, than need it and not have it.
I find myself riding my Yeti MTe more often than my full power Propain. The full power is nice for riding to the trails, fire road climbs and 18 Rd nearby. But for the more technical trails in the area, I find myself riding in trail mode more often than full power regardless of bike. The Yeti rides more like a traditional bike. Having the full power bike is super nice for heading up to the mountains where there are times, I would not mind having more power.
Terrain and friend group will continue to dictate what riders go with. Riding slippery, rooty trails will limit how much power folks are riding. Fire roads climbs will open up the use of power. Having ridden my MTe with some guys on full powers, I am typically smoked by the end of the ride, so full power it is with those guys. They are all talking about new bikes with Avinox (when they can find a Pivot or Propain in stock) which will then put me at a disadvantage on my 'full' power.
I do think we are going to find a limit on what makes sense for power. Very few can ride a 450 moto on technical trails, too much power that does not come on appropriately. Most have settled on the 300 2 stroke as the right power and application. E-bikes continue to evolve like laptops or cell phones 20 years ago. You go buy one and get it home only to see an ad for the new, better one. That is getting better for consumers (and bike brands) but this is a leveling up.
My LBS has one Pivot Shuttle with the new Avinox motor. They’ve sold two already (at $12000, wtf?). Said they are the only brand that had them available, but can’t get anymore until at least October. Took it for a spin around the neighborhood and the power is wild. Like, really wild.
I fully expect brose to say this is a lost battle and start going higher power/torque. And likely asap.
There will simply be more modes likely including a way to lock it in a “trail complaint” mode. But for the market that’s crushing logging roads up or using the e-bike to replace the drive to the trailhead. There just isn’t anyway brose is currently offering can compete with what avinox is. Beyond that there have always been people using non compliant bikes. It’s nearly impossible to regulate most places people mountain bike and the bikes often look the same. We have had a guy riding a e-bike that lets him throttle to nearly 40 uphill on his ride home. He just turns it way down and doesn’t use the throttle vs pedaling on the trails.
is it that they are "sold out" or is it they "never had any to sell to begin with" yet?
I did see some bikes at local Pivot dealers right after launch. Last I looked Propain had their new bike in stock in a couple colors. We had one in our booth at Sea Otter, so they exist, but are apparently selling faster than expected or motor supply could keep up with.
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