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The German market isn't reflective of North America; and possibly other core MTB markets like Australia and New Zealand, however small they might be. The amount and quality of riding in North America, for example, fosters a completely different riding culture. Of course eMTB has a place here in North America, but we still have a large percentage or riders that want the analog experience. Squamish is a good example of a super core area for riders and, while eMTBs are seemingly everywhere there, my anecdotal perspective is that the split is still in favour of analog. My prediction is...

Do these numbers reflect ALL bike sales or just the sale of MTBs in Germany? Their cycling infrastructure is much, much better than most NA cities and cycling is actually a safe method of transportation. Are these numbers just being skewed as people switch to urban centric E-bikes as a preferred method of transportation? Also, it would seem that trail access in America is a concern that in some areas may steer people to analog MTBs still. Locally, it does seem like a DH bike and an emtb in the trail category is becoming more popular.

In the last two years my local New England observations of bikes on the trail went from, oh wow that’s the first time I’ve seen a big group ride off all e-bikes, to, oh wow that’s the first group ride of all mountain bikes I’ve seen in months. Even the number of old school solo xc ripper guys is down… Riding bikes in the woods has pretty much changed again, the last big change here was almost everyone “serious about riding” being on a full suspension bike.

I have to admit, I do not love the side profile of some of the 32" bikes that are coming out. They end up looking like XS bikes with cramped triangles and kinked bottom/top tubes. Hopefully more progressive geo will enable these things to look like something other than a 2010-2012 era niner.

Jeff, Thanks for using the term Memetic. The sociological concept of Mimetic Desire, as posited by Rene Girard, is pretty crucial to understanding consumer sentiment in these markets that have (de)evolved into near-perfect competition. In Girard’s conception of the Mimetic the inaccessibility of the desired object leads to Scapegoating, and has dark sociopolitical consequences. Mimetic Desire and Memetics(as conceived by Richard Dawkins)are related, but not the same, but the fundamental theme that connects them is desire. I posit that there just isn’t as much demand in the marketplace as the marketers of goods need to survive, so the churn, failure...

"Speaking to the eBike riders I see on the trails here, they're all shifting to lower-priced bikes as they've realized that they can without sacrificing performance." This lines up with a hypothesis I've been thinking about for a while, which is that I think so much of the weirdness of the bike industry and bike customers (obsession with grams and weight, obsession over granular differences in tire feel and suspension tuning, and willingness to spend enormous amounts to customize and upgrade a stock bike) comes down to the weakness of the human motor and the human mind. We only generate...

The Pope reads Vitalmtb forums confirmed

Just to put a bow on this: I do not expect asset-backed financing to show up in the mountain bike industry anytime soon. I am also not convinced it would matter much even if it did. A few thoughts... The riders most likely to use consumer financing are already fairly credit constrained. A lot of that cohort has limited remaining credit capacity, and they are the ones who would theoretically be financing an e-bike or similar product, especially at today's APRs. Speaking of APRs, I do not think true 0% APR offers are likely to show up in any meaningful...

Forbidden also messing around with the e-bike without a motor to test out some DH stuff with Laurie. 'The bike Laurie rode during the week was an early proof-of-concept acoustic DH build using a Dreadnought E front triangle and a number of custom parts. It was built to get the gravity project moving in the real world, giving the team something to ride, change, measure, and question while putting early ideas underneath a rider who can give accurate feedback at speed.' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLJAPe6Hl3s

This 100%. I have a mate who got into riding 18mths ago. He's the kind of guy that is all about the intricacies of Tomas Haake's polyrythmic drumming and any other complex undertakings, but as soon as I try and explain to him that he needs to spend a couple of hours one day bracketing his setup and his riding will improve immensely his eyes glaze over.

I've run Live Valve on both an Epic Evo and a Spec Enduro. I think they both have a good place. On the 170mm Enduro, I really like the ability to setup the shock for the best downhill performance. For me this means running a slightly softer spring rate (coil), less compression, etc. that might normally feel pretty bad for climbing but Live Valve takes care of that. I've yet to feel any harsh transitions from open to close but on the Enduro run a slightly softer firm mode. I think the real benefit here, even on downhills, is running...

Uh, that's most bike buyers. The number of people that I've sold bikes to who don't care/know what the knobs do is... the majority. We do our best to educate, but I could see their eyes glaze over in the first 10 seconds. The number of customers who care about how suspension works is less than 5% in my experience.

Just so everyone is on the same page, a 20% progressive DH bike and a 20% progressive trail bike can be two very different suspension systems. Below are two theoretical bikes that both have the same starting leverage ratio and the same 20% overall progression. However, the leverage slopes are different, meaning the rate of change through the travel is different.

Jesus, sorry I asked about a coil shock on the new Tallboy.

Running less sag makes a bike track poorly on account of losing contact with the ground anytime there’s an indent the wheel has to go over. You see the same exact issue with people lifting vehicles to drive off road. They throw preload collars on and all of the sudden they feel the truck is harsher. The spring rate hasn’t gotten stiffer so why does it feel harsher? It’s losing contact with the ground and causing the chassis to pitch to allow a wheel to drop into a hole as soon as a hole is deeper than the amount of...

I completely disagree. My Murmur is horrendous with a coil shock. Even with a 23% sag setup and a can creek progressive rate spring I can bottom it out in a parking lot without ever leaving the ground . Riding it on trail , it feels great on small chatter . But bottoms out ever 15 seconds on even mild rock sections , let alone jumps. Rode it twice with the coil and immediately put the air shock back on with most of the volume spacers . But dang I love the bike. I see these bikes a lot with...

I recently read an article by the enduro mag. They made a survey and found out that 70% of their readers that took part in the survey never changed their rebound from what the bike came with. The amount of people riding bikes that dont have a clue about basic setup is very high. For them, something like the progression rate is not relevant. We are all so far off the average user that we are not who brands have to engineer their bikes for. https://enduro-mtb.com/performance-gap-das-dilemma-moderner-bikes/

Y’all are acting like bike financing (which is what leasing is, btw) is some brand-new idea. It isn’t. The basic tools have been around forever. In its most archaic form, its not all that different from opening a store card at your favorite big-box retailer. What bikes still lack is a real underwriting structure where the lender can tie the loan to the asset itself. When I finance a $100,000 truck, the bank holds the title until I pay it off. If I stop making payments, they can repossess the truck, sell it at auction, and recover at least some...

My concern is it may incentivize brands to charge more for bikes to push people into leases because monthly payments are a more reliable business model than lump sums. I doubt bikes will be spared from the subscriptification of the U.S. economy.

How much of the appearance that “e-bikes are the only thing selling” is an artificial bubble based on the fact that they are a market that essentially did not exist 6-7 years ago? Thus, we are still working through the initial phase of: everyone who is interested buying into the market (often for the first time) looks like greater demand than what will stabilize over the ensuing 5-10 years. I imagine over time as there are less ‘new’ buyers and the demand becomes only individuals turning over from an older model to a newer one that e-bike sales actually drop...