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The bike industry as a whole could have sold more than they did in 2020 and most likely throughout the whole 2021. However, the supply chains simply were not able to cope with the demand. And I completely understand that, for some companies (those that essentially everyone needed parts from) it was impossible to give exact lead times. Their systerm could not scale for that demand and that's why you suddenly heard about lead times of 700-800 days. In reality it could have been 300 or 1000. Simply because no one could accurately scale it up just like that, because...

Wow. Thanks for sharing. What an incredible inside scoop and a reminder that sometimes... common sense makes business sense.

Thanks @Sacki , for the detail! @jeff.brines how about asking Sacki if he's up for a podcast? I best we'd all be into hearing more about Bike Yoke!

It's a very interesting and impressive interview. Thank you, Sam, for taking the time and going so much into detail and also Jeff, of course for trying and then making this happen! It was interesting to hear how YT experienced the turbulent times during covid. For us, I can say, that we already saw OE orders being postponed and cancelled already around Q2 2022. But the more important thing happened to me in April 2021. There was one particular OE customer who used to need around 1,500 post per year from us. End of 2019 (pre-Covid) we received a projected...

I'm a multiple bikes that match the purpose type of guy. I could likely trim down to just the hightower... but I do like having a long travel bike for park duty. XC/Gravel = Kona Ouroboros Trail/AM = Hightower 4 Park/Shuttle = Nomad 6 Ebike = Bullit 2

I recently "downgraded" from a Nomad as a One Bike to a Bronson, because I didn't hit really big stuff or ride park enough to justify the extra travel, and that same extra travel made it less effective on my normal trails. I did think about keeping the Nomad and getting a Druid v2 as a primary trail bike but decided that would be just bracketing around what I really wanted to ride most of the time. If I lived near a bike park I wanted to ride often, I'd get a DH bike as a second bike. I've previously...

Not tech rumors, but soil tech history! The difference between Oregon, WA and BC is all about ice. Kilometer+ thick ice sheets created glacial terrain features and exposed more bedrock from Washington State north. Oregon didn't get the sweet, sweet ice sheet remodeling. The maximum extent of the Puget Lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet was Tenino, which is between Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon. In the Seattle area you have a lot of glacial till soils that the ice pushed around. Further north the ice scraped away soils and smoothed the bedrock, making terrain for amazing tech riding. This...

I just fell to my knees in my LBS

Well to credit you all, this thread was Pinkbikes greatest research resource lol

@sspomer I totally get your decision from a web resourcing point of view. Things get really expensive really quick when you need to tack on more power. A lot of cloud hosting providers price exponentially instead of linearly. That being said, I think not pinning a v2 and keeping this way of chatting about rumors is a mistake. This thread works because it allows for banter along side rumors I wouldn't ever care about. Prime example is the Santa Cruz Vala, a bike I have negative interest in. However that did prompt the carcinization of bike suspension discussion (that prompted...

Crabification, forum edition. I'm honestly just thankful that there is still a place to discuss things that are meaningful, that are not facebook groups. Thanks to all for staying committed to the gen x/millennial form of endangered internet discourse that is the forum.

Okay, so we have carcinization for bike suspension, but is there a similar process for clip-in pedals where they all eventually use some variation of Shimano cleats? Spudification?

Maybe talk to the guys at Revel or Kona.. Dustin Adams now that he's taking the helm at I9..

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Since its a US holiday, I felt like going a touch more meta here and give some bigger picture thoughts... To start, and it goes without saying, but I’m continually impressed that this thread is still one of the best corners of the internet. That’s because of the people here who show up, think, and discuss topics that should be boring but somehow aren’t. I appreciate the time, effort, and respect from everyone that’s gone into this esoteric corner of the internet over the years (!!). First, my thoughts on the idea of "friction" I've been mulling...

Man, this thread is great. Now we have the CEO of a reputable German bike (component) company coming in here and taking a look at the CEO of a German bike company of (now) ill repute. What other bike forum has such participatory reach? Well done guys! I would be very interested to hear more on FELT. The news seems to have really flown under the radar, but maybe that's because I'm so MTB-centric in my news and the last thing in the space that I recall the brand doing was paying the Robot to put the Felt logo on...

I don't think it correct to assume that "Supercar money" can not be made in the Bike Industry. You can make decent money in the bike industry, then reinvest that money in something that multiplies your wealth astronomically. We live in a crazy world, where you can make insane amount of money with speculation in no time, if you are smart and/or lucky. Now, that money may not directly come from the bike industry, but I would say he could have pulled off his wealth from smart investment of money that he originally made in the bike industry. I believe...

https://www.bikeradar.com/news/campagnolo-job-cuts-2025 Only 35 years after the fatal blow of Juli Furtado swapping out the Campy OR parts on her Yeti for Shimano the night before the Durango Worlds, Campagnolo is finally starting to feel the heat of missing the mtb and ebike markets.

I thought it was brilliant. Chris touched on all of the issues - team not getting paid, YT usa, paying customers with no bikes - and Flossman was free to respond naturally. Instead of diluting or improving my perception of tribulations at YT, I found the conversation really reinforced Flossman's now infamous character- zero accountability, empathy or remorse for the customers and staff involved, and constantly focused on the implications to the brand (not people) and damage limitation measures. If this was a parole hearing he'd be miles from getting his sentence commuted. I don't think this was good publicity...

I’ve been a long time listener to Downtime, as evidenced by my support in this thread, but the responses by other listeners in this thread have solidified my appreciation for the value it brings to our community. I’ll be supporting via Patreon as a result. I know, from listening, it’s been a tough year financially for Chris and the podcast, and I don’t want the negativity on this thread to outweigh the stellar content that the podcast usually offers. That being said, I do think a more hard hitting interview with Markus would be great, but I certainly wasn’t expecting...

Thanks to those who've taken time to write kind words about Downtime. I was expecting to get some hate for this episode as there is definitely a lot of frustration out there on this topic and Markus appears to be a very polarising character. For what it's worth, I put in the time to understand the concerns of the MTB world as much as was possible from forums etc and I believe that all those key points were covered in this interview. I also took time to understand the mechanisms of Private Equity and just why growth is essential and...