The past couple of years in the mountain biking industry have been exciting. The mountain biking public now has more high quality frames and components to ride than ever before and it is almost to the point that we are asking…so what is next? Unlike the early days of mountain biking when the industry was just trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t, (remember elastomer forks, huge bar ends and suspension designs like the Y bike?) now even budget bikes are getting big price performance. We are completely spoiled these days with the amount of components, bikes and accessories that we have to choose from.
So where is the industry headed in the next couple of years and what can we expect?
Here is how I see it all shaking out…
The Carbon Bike Takeover
In recent years, we have slowly seen carbon come in as the material of choice for many mountain bikers. A material that used to be used primarily in the road bike industry has now become durable enough to use in mountain biking. With companies like Ibis, Santa Cruz, Trek and Specialized leading the way, we are going to start to see a mass influx of carbon hard tails and full suspension bikes hitting the market as the early runners continue to sell really well.
The surprising part of this takeover is going to be the emphasis on not only race bikes, but the all mountain 5.5″ to 6.4″ sleds. As we have already seen with the Mojo (full carbon), Nomad (full carbon), Enduro (front tri carbon), a longer travel carbon mountain bike is completely doable. As China continues to develop their carbon program, we are going to continue to see more lines make the material switch and add more black weave to their lineups. Eventually, we are going to start to see some budget lines do the exact same thing.
9 Speed Is A Distant Memory
Just as we saw with 8 speed, 9 speed mountain biking is going to become a distant memory. The push for 10 speed mountain biking has been made and it stuck. You are going to see the component manufacturers continue to support 9 speed with legacy components over the coming years, but the end goal will be to eventually phase out 9 speed completely. All development and design dollars have already been shifted over to the new platform.
More Accessories That Improve Our Rides
The past two years in mountain biking have been HUGE for accessory manufacturers. With the emergence of telescoping seat posts, point of view HD cameras (like the GoPro Hero HD), onboard GPS units (like the Garmin Edge 705) and simple, must have items like the RoadID, the accessory market in cycling has opened up to more than just components in new colors. As the bike industry and riding public continues to grow, we are going to see even more innovation in the accessories market. There are even rear view cameras in the works almost ready for production for road bikers. The sky is the limit at this point on what we can use to enhance our rides.
Increased Media Attention To Mountain Biking
Like it or not, the extreme side of sports is what draws in the viewing public in regards to media attention. For road biking, it is the Tour de France. For mountain biking, it is going to be the progression that has hit freeride and downhill that is going to bring more press to the sport much like it did for motocross in recent memory. As much as we love our epic rides and technical downhills, they aren’t that exciting to watch as a spectator. The continued expansion and riding progression of park riding and videos like Follow Me is going to bring more attention to mountain biking than it has seen in the past. Why? Because even my mom likes to watch Thomas Vanderham fly through the air. Crowds need to be amazed and innovators like Cam McCaul are making them say “holy shit” when they see them ride on the screen.
Social Media (aka. Facebook) Will Bring More Riders Together
There used to be a time when you really only knew the riders that rode your trails. Now…with the emergence of a force that no one was really expecting, Facebook as brought together more riders and shared more riding stories than any other online resource. While we still have our large forums, I would expect to see more conversations and pictures shared on Facebook over other online outlets in the near future. The transition has already started and sharing your rides and bikes with other riders around the world has never been this easy. Many riders have already started organizing their group rides, advocacy events and just rides with friends on this platform.
So that is what I see happening…what do you think we will see in the industry in the following years?