2026 MTB Tech Rumors and Innovation - Longer and Slacker

Check the number on the back of yours. Different kits for rev 0-3, 4, and 5. 05 and 04 kits are out of stock everywhere but SRAM will have 05 kits next month. I didn't ask about 04 or before but someone else who did told me they got offered a discount on a new one since new kits weren't planned, I would definitely verify this before getting too bummed out though

B1 kits all had ETAs for later this month. 

I'm curious on the SC change to a four bar . Is it a weight thing or are some of the kinematic changes that have come out on the mixed wheel VPP bikes isn't working for the 29ers? 

I thought it was coming with an Mx option? That’ll probably knock out the 5010. 

Branding, demand and money. I dont think suspension kinematics play any role in that. Its just about to find where they can drop vpp for more profit without tanking overall brand that is built around vpp. Question might be if that brand is strong enough to survive with such change.

I'm sure they will be just fine as they seemingly have had plenty of people ride and enjoy their non-vpp ebikes. They also still are using vpp on their long travel non-ebikes. 

I tried the Bullit, I liked it, well balanced bike

I was thinking part of it might be getting a longer stroke shock, lower leverage rate, and less progression for the Tallboy genre of bike.  But it doesn't look like that's going to be the case.

As to the 5010, I've got the MX version and for anything less than full-blown enduro bike territory, it's the most fun bike I've ever owned.  I'm not trying maximize mileage or overall speed.  If you're riding a bike for fun (and you're not in the big mountains), I'll never understand why more people didn't choose MX trail bikes.  Now they are disappearing.  Maybe we should blame Strava.

If I had to pick one bike to rider for the rest of my life, it's a 5010.  Zero hesitation.  It makes me hate the integrated headset even more.  I ain't ever selling that frame, and that's about the only way that frame doesn't last twenty years. Bearings in the links and threaded BB.

you can see why GT had to go, there would be no real point having two brands making near identical designs. 

Probably with an element of "why would I buy this Horst link PON bike when that Horst link PON bike is much cheaper?"

Didn’t VPP only exist to get around the FSR patent?

This is one of the more boring, small-brained conspiracies in a while. 

Never fool yourself with complex conspiracies when trying to explain private equity bro. 

99.5% of people looking for a GT or SC would have absolutely no fucking clue what Pon is lol.

GT disappeared because all they had was their heritage, and that's not enough to carry a brand indefinitely as they pumped out mostly unappealing bikes year after year. I personally don't know anyone that considered buying one in recent memory. I had a GT bmx in 2006 and really liked it, so when I got properly into mountain biking I always looked at GT. Other options were always better. I stopped looking at them years ago.

If GT was successful then Pon would be very happy owning both even if they sold similar products. It's all about owning a larger section of the market and appealing to more customers by having brands with different images. SC and GT were at different places in the market and they were selling, for the most part, to slightly different customers. Pon couldn't give a shit if the products they were selling were similar.

That 5010 frame doesn't last 20 years because of one rock flipped up off your front tire into the DT. It's a plastic bike, designed to be light and disposable. And, if a point impact scenario doesn't (likely) kill it, it will be unable to be updated because of "standards" or SC will no longer have a front or rear triangle to match and you will have to start over. Ask me how I know. I wish SC continued with their metal version bikes. 

I'd much rather fix a carbon bike with a damaged downtube than an aluminium bike with a crack. Between the two, my money would be on the carbon bike having the longer lifespan. Aluminium fatigue is a bitch.

@AgrAde your comment disagrees with itself - and private equity is more interested in margin and stability than pure market share.

If you cannibalise your own market (schwinn, focus, mongoose, GT, Cannondale, Santa Cruz) while also producing largely identical four bar and flex stay bikes where those brands used to have real differentiation and innovation by way of their suspension IP, your business is pretty ripe for disruption by others (unless you can engage in the market death spiral of buying all that IP up). 

The one thing GT (or any brand using a 4 bar or flex pivot) had that couldn’t be replicated and ripped off was heritage (good and bad). I don’t really have an opinion on if that matters to the market but it’s factually incontrovertible. 

My comment was an offhand reference to the similarities, not really a conspiracy theory, but your follow up certainly gives some good context to why one of those brands had to go. There is almost certainly a better suited, way more boring, thread for this.

I dunno, I work for a company that sells multiple brands that compete with each other on paper but have a different customer base in reality. In a similar industry. Brand differentiation works just fine if you offer a similar product that's marketed differently.

Not that I think SC or GT share much at all, or ever made similar products.

For the VPP question, I feel like VPP doesn't really matter until you hit 140-150mm+ travel wise. Smaller than that and the benefits are less note-able and the system adds weight to platforms that need to shed it in the configuration SC currently had it in. When the OG Intense Spyder VPP and SC Blur came out they were simple layout frames that were pretty light and that carried on until the late 2010's when they went low shock mount for better center of gravity. Horst link with a vertical shock position helps keep the weight lower than the low shock mount but also keeps the center of gravity somewhat in line with what they currently have, so it makes sense for the shorter travel platforms.

For the GT topic, yeah after they messed up when they bought schwinn in the late 90's and almost went under, they coasted on Hans for two decades, Wyn and T-Mac for 10 years+, as well as a few other rotating athlete rosters. Buuuut, I do really think they were on the upswing the last few years before the plug got pulled. The last gen Fury was a legit monster and if it had of been put to use under a contender with proper support, I think it would have been a winner. Danny had some good results on it when he was effectively a privateer in '24 and he almost had to pay for the bike. But GT was in competition with Cannondale on the mid-level mtb side with similar bikes, and cannondale had a much bigger following in XC and Road, which pulls a bigger audience. If you have a competitive road brand with equal pull on the MTB side as your 3rd MTB company that you can feed your road and gravel bike customers to, what plug are you pulling between them? Unlikely the one that pulls in older BMX dads and young DH kids with short attention spans. Lets not forget their most iconic legacy though.... They did give us the I-drive flying wing...



 

The Horst Link Santa Cruz Vala is the best ebike platform I've ridden. Somehow it gobbles up rocks but then can be poppy and playful? I was surprised. I have to wonder if part of the magic is the shock tune - more high speed damping ratio than low speed than is common? Free bleed?

Regardless, you can't pry my 2020 full 27.5 5010 from my hands. Cascade link, 36, it's a playful goon. All smiles.

As far as GT vs SC... GT had it's heritage but the last bikes steered away from the innovation that GT was previously known for. IMO, the company couldn't figure what direction they wanted to take the company in. My thoughts a while back were let Cannondale be the road, gravel, XC,  and trail company,  GT could be more trail, enduro, DH, and freeride focused. Santa Cruz could continue just being what it is. Santa Cruz has had a bit of the Midas touch with almost everything they've done as of late selling decently...

If you're PON, you're not comparing GT with SC, you're looking at: schwinn, focus, mongoose, GT, Cannondale, Santa Cruz. You own them all. 

Somebody I know that used to work at GT said that a few years ago when POV videos were popping off on YouTube, Phil Kmetz (SkillsWithPhil) was one of the biggest single drivers of sales for them. Of course Wyn and T-Mac sold to core mountain bikers, but for casual observers of the sport, or people with entry level bikes looking to get their next upgrade, "influencers" and social media personalities that people can relate to drive a lot of mid range sales. In addition, you're right that they coasted on their legacy. A guy walking into a LBS might see a GT on the floor and remember the BMX bike he wanted as a kid, and also the video from last weekend of Phil riding his local trails at warp speed, and decide to get a Force or Sensor. Once the people that remembered the heydays of GT got older, YouTube turned into more professionally produced content, and GT stopped making bikes with any market differentiation, they fell into obscurity. 

Same here, my 5010 will be pried from my cold dead hands. I’ve even done a 40mi 7k ft XCM race on it 3 times (with XC tires) In all 3 of those giant rides I was never wishing my bike weighed just .66 lbs less or had 10mm more dropper insertion. (I’m 6ft and can run a 210 🤷‍♂️)

It’d be a shame from a branding perspective if they killed the 5010 model name too. It’s iconic in its own right and there’s still a ton of people out there who think 50to01 is the same thing lol.

I remember back in the RideMonkey days (dating myself), there was an Evil Undead thread full of guys that loved the bikes but were having QC/warranty issues.  Todd Seplavy (Ska Todd) chimed in and was very candid about that Shipment of Revolt frames.  He said when they opened the shipping container, everything looked great.  But as they pulled the frames out, the welds looked horrible.  I think Todd even said they held a couple up to the Sun and could actually see light through some of the joints.  They ended up tossing 70-80% of the frames from that container, a lot of which were earmarked for warranty replacements.  I believe this was the point when they decided to pivot to carbon for the Undead and all future full suspension bikes.  While I'm not privy to the inner workings or finances of Evil, I have to believe the huge reception of the original Evil Following helped them bounce back after the Revolt debacle.  

In the US market, Schwinn and Mongoose are big box brands, so they are there own thing. Focus isn't much of a thing here, but possibly on the level of GT and Cannondale in Europe?  Maybe someone can correct me on that... That leaves GT, Cannondale, and Santa Cruz all kinda competeting for a slice of the pie.. The bikes were different enough to all be there, but I feel like there was a little too much crossover in some areas...

I test rode a tallboy 6 over the weekend (5mi / 600' vert).  It is really, really good.  I have a ht4 that I love and I love vpp for longer travel bikes.  I don't miss it on the new tallboy in the slightest.  It goes uphill as well as the previous version with more traction when climbing square ledges and loose over hard... and goes downhill easily 30% better then the previous version.  It is half way in between the tallboy 5 and my hightower 4 with regards to descending.  Honestly, it's so good and so well rounded that it's damn near boring.   I didn't get a chance to ride a tb5 and a tb6 back to back... I'd love to because I feel like frame flex (increased compliance over tb5 and ht4) is contributing nearly as much as the change in suspension design.  There are a handful of bikes that punch above their weight/design going downhill... this one seems to smash itself into the next category up the chain.  

I've posted this in the racing and team threads too, but I figure it goes here as well. Full Honda DH team vibes from back in the day, here's a first taste of what Antidote Solutions is set to bring to the downhill racing table (link below). We will also have more info including the technical details to reveal at the Loudenvielle World Cup. Fun times ahead!

First team news release: https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/press-release/antidote-solutions-enters-world-cup-dh-racing-as05-sports-prototype.

https://bikerumor.com/first-look-vyro-amen1-a-shifting-crankset-alternative-to-gearboxes/

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/could-this-radial-shifting-drivetrain-be-the-future-of-mountain-biking.html

What's old is new again

New canyon strive ????