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For years people have been asking for MGUs from SRAM and Shimano and there has long been speculation that those brands didn’t get involved because they didn’t want to undermine their own market share of expensive, high wear components. In doing so they’ve left their flank wide open for a Chinese company to swallow up the drivetrain market while solving issues riders have complained about for decades. Horrific miscalculation from the drivetrain cartel.
"if you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will"
Maybe, or maybe they didn’t have the in house expertise and scale to pull it off. SRAM sure missed the mark with their PT e-bike motors. The EP801 is almost quite good but missed on stupid external wires, displays and battery tech, not to mention durability woes with the prior gen.
DJI is reportedly about twice the size of Shimano, 4x the size of SRAM, and is likely to increase this gap substantially.
DJI started with far more in house expertise in all this stuff. A bike MGU is child’s play compared to the Agras T50 agricultural drone. So many internal synergies (barf but true).
Slim batteries are the real winner for them and no bike company will ever be on pace in this regard. Life is a fashion show.
You called it a few months ago about DJI and others getting rid of the rest of the bike components (drivetrain). The new Avonix MGU with a belt... damn the future came quick.
Continental had its CVP motor system with NuVinci back in 2018 or so, but they killed it off despite solid claims. I believe some of that IP ended up at Rheinmetall/Amprio and that later made its way to SRAM. The current Eagle Powertrain was a Brose project, likely started well before taking on Amprio. Does anyone know the status? If I recall, that was targeted at the urban and commuter world along with a Continental belt.
We’ve seen quite a few big players try to get their foot in the door of mountain biking but they all seemed interested in cashing in on the covid boom instead of leveraging their resources for innovation
@SRAM and Shimano engage in price fixing - You probably want to get involved here lol
I just stumbled on an interview with the CEO of Trek. https://fortune.com/2026/05/06/trek-ceo-john-burke-gen-z-tariffs-ai-national-debt/
I only skimmed it but my initial reaction was "woah, tone deaf".
Also, LMK if this was posted earlier and I missed - will delete if so.
Think the DJI MGU is a real engineering prototype, or just heavy mock ups?
Any way to read this one for free? He is a big reason I left.
Found the free version: https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/ceo-trek-bicycle-…
Such a wild read, the idea of getting through 52 books a year by reading just the first sentence of each paragraph and using that to decide whether to read the rest is deeply disturbing.
I actually liked the article.
Whether any of it’s true or not is a different story, but calling out military spending and Milton Friedman is awesome in my book.
Yeah, I just read it this morning in full and agree, much better than my initial glance suggested. If anything, it was a bit vanilla but he didn't come off as many CEOs do.
What I do wonder though is what is really going through his mind day to day during this trying time for Trek, because I don't think its "what book should I read next".
Totally, more detail about where is thinks the bicycle industry is headed and how Trek plans to navigate it would’ve been a lot more interesting and informative than knowing about his reading habits!
I mean it just came off as your typical fortune mag ceo jerk off interview.
I will agree with and give props to trek’s investment in female athletes. Vali, Rachel, neff, Mosley. They have no issue funding around a female first and men second in mtb racing.
for me reading the article explains a lot of how trek ended up in the shape it is today. But I agree burke doesn’t seem like a bad guy. But he is pretty full of himself and his views on things that ain’t got nothing to do with bikes. A couple of which seemed logical but also kind of pointless and moronic. With the rumors in here with trek management being completely off their rocker when it came to the COVID boom. He seems like he and his crew were probably doing way too much look how we popular we made cycling and how we’re changing the world versus oh hey this isn’t remotely sustainable. Trek was also one of the last brands to really start discounting. And I imagine that hubris was a factor there too.
I love how you kind of disproved the validity of his book scanning method. You got a different impression scanning vs reading the article in full.
These CEO thought leader types always need to come up with a new method to do everything. It can't just be "I read a book" It needs to be some systematic time saving "get to the inspiring business strategy defining point/lesson quote" now so I can make and excel entry admission. Just read the paragraphs man.
Their reaction to the covid boom may have been reactionary.. Orders started hitting the factories in Taiwan and if you didn't step up your orders, you were operating with a fear of not having bikes..
some dust ups in the bike protection world - https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/ridewrap-vs-dyedbro-vhs-vs-shush
Yes they were reactionary. But plenty of brands understood the covid boom was a fad. An opportunity to grow the sport for sure. But not some pipe dream of breaking thru to the mainstream where lots of non bike folk are spending a 1-6 hrs a week on a bicycle in casual fashion for fitness or fun. I don’t think trek has ever revealed their thought process thru out Covid. If so I haven’t seen the articles. But it’s pretty obvious like some other brands went wildly overboard in their predictions of 22 and 23. And considering the rumors discussed here it seems trek not only was one of the brands that went quite overboard. They were one of the last brands to realize just how badly they screwed up too. Maybe not quite Ktm levels of being wrong. But certainly very off the mark.
A smaller company would’ve gone bankrupt. And trek has a smaller market share and less presence in the bike culture than at any point in my lifetime. And obviously management is the primary driver of that.
I honestly really like trek as a brand and i hope they rebound to giving the other big time brands a run for their money. My superfly ss will be the only bike I ever own I really regret selling. But oof for a guy who the article says was involved with multiple boom/bust cycles he really seemed to get this last one wrong.
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