All

As a lifelong bike industry head I have been apprehensive about contributing to this forum topic, despite the conversation quite often being interesting, informed and high level, as it felt morbid to discuss the potential job loss of friends, colleagues and acquaintances. While I don't think I am going to reduce the angst of the thread as I sit here reading industry news early on a Saturday morning after another anxious nights sleep, I will take the opportunity to bring things back around to the bike business. I think this article brings home some of the potential immediate effects of...

Apologies for being derivative with the Retailer link, I was knee deep contemplating new layers and missed your post.

Feel like I'm always posting EscapeCollective links here, but to be fair, they are one of the few places paying journalists to research/report on the bike industry in more than a superficial way. They have a piece up on the tariffs: https://escapecollective.com/new-us-tariffs-are-going-to-wreak-havoc-on… It includes quotes from a few small brands, including Esker & Borealis. Bicycle Retailer is also publishing some good,detailed stories: https://bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2025/04/04/bike-maker-hopes-a… This thread began in October 2023. Unfortunately, I think that even ~18 months later, the answer to "Will more companies be shutting down in the next 12-24 months?" is still 'Yes.' We started off talking about a...

If I were a betting man, it's because they thought that dropping something like that just before a race would leverage WBD/UCI into giving in. If you air a grievance too early they could have used it against the teams in selection of wildcard teams. If they waited until after those teams were announced but did it any earlier than now they'd have basically given the WBD/UCI folks enough time to just not make a statement and make the athletes sweat about what the response would be. At least at this point the athletes can posture like "without us there's...

Why would you trade a 200 OneUp for a 175 mm Reverb? It makes no sense to me that losing 2.5 cm of drop, having a battery I can hit my knees on, and spending $$$ is worth getting rid of a cable.

I am very surprised it’s still a 210x55

Taken with a potato

took a thermal cam thingy to windrock for some trackside DH bike bbq

Us bike nerds notice when there's a new color bolt on a stem. Someone definitely would have noticed Nino and Filippo winning Cape Epic on 32" wheels. They are easy to spot.

So Motive is Guide reincarnate? No thanks.

It would be spot on if it was a pure xc brake and really light. But seems possibly underwhelming for a trailbike, but now there’s nothing in the lineup between this and mavens. Seems like they should be lighter or stronger

Sram also released the maven base today. No swing link, dual 18mm pistons (ILO 18 and 19.5 on bronze/silver/ult). I'm sure this brake will proliferate all sub 10k builds, similarly to how it has with SC's new builds. Pretty lame tbh... the piston size thing makes just upgrading your brakes with maven silver lever assemblies questionable.

From the image they just look further apart - would be nice if the bushing area itself was also larger as that reduces friction a lot as well. Moving the oil groove probably reduces the amount of oil draining straight back to the bottom but I think they could ditch that altogether IMO. The compliant air spring is cool though! Pretty sure buttercups do the same thing (not sure if Rockshox intended that or not) as its another major source of friction

Rivian spins out a new micromobility startup called Also with $105M from Eclipse The motor/ebike wars are just getting started. Can't wait to put my $15k+ Rivian ebike in the bed of my $100k Rivian and drive around Los Gatos giving acknowledging head nods to my fellow rich people.

Id put 6 of your watery american beers on you not being able to notice the difference between a 25mm or 30mm wide rim in a blind test. Ill provide all thats required, you just need to show up and prove me wrong to win your 6-pack (my comment is meant as sarcasm, I mean no offence, other than to try and add a little levity) As a reminder to all of us, What the pros do, and use, has little to no bearing on what works in the real world of owner maintained, and hack ridden bikes at half...