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Refreshingly SMART, not strange. The last thing the industry needs right now is somebody making a product that already exists in overabundance just because they can. Why waste any time, effort, and resources on making a DJ frame when you can source it as part of the deal with Spesh and get paid for riding it instead. We should applaud Neko's focus on what's essential here and actually providing some value to the market (the DH bike, in other words), otherwise they'll just turn into the 1547th "by riders for riders" company churning out generic flat pedals and handlebars...

Just announce the team at once, not this long drawn out process over a week with one rider at a time.

Hint of belt drive in that ‘chain’ ring

Not sure if it’s been posted already but the union posted this. Two kiwis, one Norwegian and an Italian. Lachie stevens mcnab and Ellie hulsebosch for the kiwis, frida ronning for the Norwegian and chris hauser for the Italian.

FWIW, I just got a newsletter from Specialized Gravity, where they are confirming their 2024 teams. I reads like this: DOWNHILL TEAM LOIC BRUNI - Elite men FINN ILES - Elite men JORDAN WILLIAMS - Elite men EDR TEAM CHARLES MURRAY - Elite men KEVIN MIQUEL - Elite men ESTELLE CHARLES - Elite women RAPHAEL GIAMBI - U21 men E-EDR TEAM CECCE CAMOIN - Elite men SOFIA WIEDENROTH - Elite women E-XC TEAM JORIS RYF - WORLD CHAMPION - Elite men SOFIA WIEDENROTH - Elite women MULTI-DISCIPLINE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM CHRISTOPHER GRICE - Elite men IZABELA YANKOVA - Elite women RAPHAEL...

Aimi Kenyon (formerly PB Racing) on a Trek in her newest reel

They're also selling their current full-suspension inventory on a BOGO deal to try to generate cash flow, allegedly because they can't afford the payments necessary to get their new models released from the manufacturer. They don't sponsor any race teams any more, and they don't make a dedicated downhill bike. They're in no position to sponsor Gwin.

The "California" is in Yeti colors so that settles it!

Yeah I'd been thinking the same, a rental fleet for a bike park can easily set you back $100k or more, it would make financial sense for him to make a sweetheart deal for a fleet part of the package (a Gwin/Gwin situation, as the park fleet is also good advertising for the bike brand)

Pure speculation… I could see Gwin riding/partnering with a bike manufacturer that will benefit him outside of just racing. I.e deals on Rental bikes at Windrock and other potential ventures. The southeast gravity scene only seems to be growing, I could see him helping to open/owning other parks. With Gwin’s history of being fairly business savvy, I be surprised to see him riding for a brand purely for racing purposes.

When you see it! 😉

That’s Gwin in a wig.

"There are CEOs, CFOs, fund managers & capital allocators that have built their entire career on a net-zero interest rate environment." This is well said, and pretty scary to think about. People who have only ever thought in terms of high risk, long-runway projects and now have to learn to live within their means and make money the boring, slow, old fashioned way- selling physical products to actual customers. Makes me think about Silicon Valley, where seemingly any and every idea was getting funded and the revenue model was "sometime we'll make tons of money, somehow, in the future." I...

I never thought I'd get to talk about the interest rate environment, capital allocation & what the past can teach us about the present/future in a mountain bike forum. First, Robot is right in the big picture that its not business Armageddon and rates have certainly been higher most of history. Funny enough, I think BofA released a chart showing the history of interest rates from ~3,000 BC to now (or at least it was circulating on Twitter/X recently). Turns out, for most of the period following the time of Jesus & the Roman Empire to now rates were somewhere...

The "free money machine" is turned off, kinda, but it's not like it's business armageddon because the Fed raised the interest rate. The current Fed Rate is 5.5% and, historically, that's not crazy. For reference, Paul Volcker bumped the fed rate all the way up to 20% in the 80's, which really is rough. For anyone who cares, I've included a graph below of the fed rate since 1954. For about half of the graph the fed rate is at or above 5%. The fed interest rate has been bananas since 2008 when it dropped all the way down to...

This is a good synopsis of "how did we get here" if anyone doesn't want to parse through a bunch of other posts. I think the fun part is to look to the future being I can broadly agree with Dave's recap (few quibbles, but not important for this conversation). Here are the keys to consider when peering into your crystal ball/magic 8 ball. 1) Mountain biking went through a phase of increased demand during COVID. This demand is better thought as "pulling future demand to the present". This means higher than average demand was followed by lower than average...

As a CFO (outside of the bike industry), and a lifelong mountain biker, I've been following the current boom/bust cycle in the bike industry. I have very reliable sources at GG and banker friends who lend to multiple bike companies or their parent companies. @whitesq comments on GG are basically correct, they sold a majority equity position to a private individual investor. Initially they believed that investor had a shared vision for the company which included developing high end bikes and ebikes, in addition to growing their in house domestic revved carbon manufacturing as a contract manufacturer to other bike...

I guess I should've put a caveat in there that Sales and Marketing folks don't count. They live in a different reality. I once visited a friend who worked for a large bike company that starts with 'T'. He invited us to ride their trails and had us meet him at the HQ so we could get a quick tour. Ready for the ride, I was wearing my clipless shoes and was click-clacking my way into the front door - when he saw that my shoes had a big red 'S' on it he actually told me I had to...