MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Hattie Harnden will win the Gates Belted Purse.
Maybe. That might be wishful thinking, but either way, there’s more chance of a woman winning the Gated Purse.
The rise of the 32in wheel
They’re coming, whether you like it or not. And not just for XC. Resistance is futile.
But which will win a World Cup first, a 32" XC bike or a belt driven DH bike?
If 32 becomes a thing will we end up with a proliferation of mullets - the original 29/27.5 then super mullet 32/29 and enduro mullet 32/27.5 (now that would be quite a sight...)
Even more divisions and filtering of riding bikes and where they should ride...bike companies will be pushing more gravel and ebikes.
Entry level bikes will cost around £10,000 by the end of the year.
Na. Simple XC hardtails are on their way back. Of course, you'll be able to buy Premium models too but some sense will prevail and the big manufacturers will try to entice new buyers too, especially those deterred by the cost of e-bikes
I've only just got used to 29" and still not sure if I really like it or just tolerate it! I really hope "big bike" don't start pushing 32" everywhere and trying to phase out the other wheel sizes.
A new standard diameter and screw pitch for pedal axles, to improve stiffness. Or something.
I hope 32 inch wheels doesn't become a thing. It wont work for shorter riders; my rear wheel is already close the the saddle when fully dropped on full compression.
Mullet solves that problem. Not that I’m advocating for bigger wheels… but most of the advantages of them are at the front, and disadvantages at the rear… so there’s not really a problem unless you’re wedded to matching wheels for some reason.
There are already some lovely custom 32/29 mullets out there and some awesome 36ers, hopefully the mainstream brands bugger off and leave odd wheelsizes to the freakshow as nothing kills a niche faster than plebs getting in on it, and they nick all the geometry and design work done the beardie odd bods and claim it as their new wonder product.
I'd just like to see more really well designed, interesting bikes, built to last as long as possible rather than being reliant on electronics, motors and all that bunkum.
My predictions are:
Continued chaos as the authorities try to deal with electric things on wheels which they didn’t have the vocabulary to describe. That’s based in Mrs Ampthill having been in communication with police and concluding they really didn’t get that they are fully legal ebikes that can be ridden any where a bike can be ridden
I hope Benji is right that a sensible revision will be made to the laws on pedal assist ebikes to prevent a power war
One of the bike brands, or all of them, will realise that their race teams are no longer being watched by potential customers on tv and kick up a fuss
Their are loads of types of bikes capable of being ridden along most of the uks rights of way network. I live in hope that people won’t get stressed because some one has chosen a different type of bike to ride along the same route as them
I predict people will come round to my way of thinking and embrace the fatbike. Lots of fun and suitable for all trail conditions just by adjusting tyre pressures. They involve minimal maintenance. None of that faff with tokens, air pressures, electronic monitoring, no creaky pivot bearings to replace, just wipe the chain, apply some lube and you’re good to go.
You know it makes sense!
Excuse the list, but currently I have ( and use them all);
A 650b 120mm travel, carbon wheeled, full suss trail bike.
A 650b+ steel single speed.
A cheap and cheerful alloy ‘gravel’ bike 700c
My wife has a 29” hardtail.
None of the wheel sets can be interchanged between any of the bikes owing to axles / drop outs / hubs.
No part of any of them relies on a battery.
I know it’s come up many times before, but a year of standardisation would be wonderful.
But hey ho, I’m old now and would think very long and hard about buying a new bike. All that I have work well and most improvements or reliability will only really come by keeping myself working as well as I can.
In the same way that 659b was a stepping stone to 29". Maybe 32" is a stepping stone to 36". In which case, some people might already have experienced that and shy away from 32".
Also, while MTB seems happy with bigger wheels off road, gravel seems to sometimes suggest that 659b is better off road. I think it would be nice to see the idea of another wheel size fall flat in it's face. However, I'll try not to underestimate just how powerful the marketing machine really is. Even if you resist as an individual, if everyone else jumps ship, you might be left with no (or less) choice.
TBH I reckon my bikes might be better with a little bit less front suspension and a little bit more wheel. I simply do not care. Half waiting for a new hub standard because "there's not enough triangulation for the bigger wheel".~
I think this will be a boring year for bikes tbh, just sort of more of the same, except at the top end where the few people that can afford a £10000+ bike will become more and more important. i'm just hoping someone else rips off radial tyres, or schwalbe make some better tyres with it. Lads literally all you need to do is a 40/42a rubber with good side knobs, I will send you a highroller 3 so you can rip it off if you like. It's OK, everyone else copies everyone else, you don't have to be weird.
I think it would be nice to see the idea of another wheel size fall flat in it's face.
27.5 / 650B in general
29+
B-Plus
It'll find fans like fat bikes and 20" minivelos have but I expect 32" will be added to the list of tyres the bike industry has hyped then moved on from.
There will be advantages for some uses and wheel size needn't be one-for-all but there aren't enough taller XC riders who will love it enough over 29" wheel to support it in the long run. A cynic's view might be that the bike industry is just looking for something, anything to generate sales of a bike that doesn't have discounted competition already out there. One thing for sure is the industry doesn't need more complexity, SKUs and risky product punts, or a new hub pairing (157R 142F anyone?) to go with it.
While I'm here .. my prediction is that brands relying on e-MTB and carbon road are in for tough times, it's where the western bike industry will feel what's inevitable from China the hardest. The western industry itself has chased complexity via the capability of the factories on one hand and Bosch and similar large companies on the other. Doing that has built the attributes that will be the way for the factories to take the advantage whenever they want to. Probably not going to be seen in a big way in 2026 but it's starting and the knock-on effects could be significant - Trek and Specialized may be more vulnerable than most because of the way they blend product tech with scale and higher RRPs, though they lack the real brand loyalty of a more niche brand.
On the more positive flipside, better times ahead for smaller brands who make stuff outside of that generic contract manufacturing loop and have something valid to say about their products, beyond spec and price. An influx of China direct bikes would make these brands look more credible and interesting than they already, imo.
Personal predictions?
More MTBing that I don't call 'MTB' anymore, it's just 'going biking' like we did in BITD on late 80s ATBs. Love it. Simpler bikes and good times.
Further back to basics in the kit on my own bikes. Linkglide and Cues 9s in my future, because as long as I get the ratios I need I couldn't be less interested in running gear spec level these days. Digital gears are irrelevant to me and I find the £500 mech or cassette thing just a bit weird. I swapped out some Shimano XT cranks for Middleburns with a square taper BB not long ago and I'm pleased to report they feel like .. cranks. All good. I look forward to having a BB that lasts more than 6 months. And last year I also got a set of BB7s and Paul levers working and feeling every bit as good as a decent hydro brake (for UK XC use. It's all in the parts match, cable outer type and route and cable grease). So I predict 65% likelihood I borrow a full new XT D12 bike this year and love it and want to buy it.
"Will we try to put away our phones and concentrate – hard! – on a print magazine for a few minutes a day as a detox? I certainly hope so."
That's been my past, present and will be my future for pretty much ever. I love paper mags, hate reading things on my phone/tablet.
Weird thing with ebikes, once you've got one you're happy with, they are very uninteresting things to read about. They're so expensive you can't go for the upgrade every few years, even if you want to (which I don't). So er... yeah dunno really 😀
32" wheels are a joke. Should we try them on the road?
However, I'll try not to underestimate just how powerful the marketing machine really is. Even if you resist as an individual, if everyone else jumps ship, you might be left with no (or less) choice.
2 things on this,
1 is I think the bike industry overall is terrible at marketing. There are exceptions at small brand level, otherwise it's across the board generic, weak and/or uninspiring imho so it's not that which pushes big changes kit out there, not at this level of change.
2 is that new standards shift and the resulting customer FOMO, moving bikes or parts on out of fear of sidelined specs, is being talked about as a failed policy by some, by many perhaps. People just stop buying bikes or parts as often and they lose trust in brands and faith in the product itself. It creates churn that's not the same as genuine demand-lead stable growth. It provided some sales incentives for a 10 year cycle and it won't continue to do so, hence a lot of eye-rolling 'Aw FFS are we here again?' responses to 32". As valid as it may be as new design in isolation, it's not led by consumer demand. It's an opportunity for hope and a lot of product guys not wanting to miss out because there isn't much else that's creating opportunity right now. 29" wasn't much more rider-led at the start either but that came around in different times and was the first of these big shifts, as riders I think we were more receptive to a change then. And for a lot of riders it was a change that had merit Vs what we had at the time. Some of that merit certainly applies to the change from 29 to 32 but I do see it as a much weaker case.
I wonder how this will age : )
32" wheels are a joke. Should we try them on the road?
At the last Taiwan industry show they were being hyped for gravel too. 686mm / 32" rims, ~45mm tyres.
650B can make a great smaller framed gravel bike (and works perfectly for my all-road / gravel tastes and I'm 6ft) yet as 650B options slowly fades from tyre catalogues, they're tooling up for 686mm. I can't help but make some conclusions from that.. Anyway sorry, this thread is about the MTB world.
I think you're right, other than a few early adopters and those riding sponsor bikes I expect that the response of most people to 32" is a cynical one. The primary advantages seem to be touted as speed and stability, but a decent amount of people outside of flat-out racers are already going 'back' to Mullet setups or even 27.5" on trail bikes having not really gelled with 29ers for that exact reason; to bring back manoeuvrability/fun.
I expect to see it more in the niche 'Bespoked Show' type circles where boutique hardtails with big tyres and rigid/short travel forks are already a thing for big days out in the countryside, and another way to be unique/contrary is embraced (I don't mean that as a criticism btw).
As for my prediction, I think "simple" electronic suspension with manual control (equivalent of replacing a dropper lever/cable with AXS dropper, but for lockouts) is on the cards. Less cables to faff around with and route internally but a useful function of a 2/3 position lockout from a bar lever rather than an automated infinitely adjusting range of settings.
Something I expect to see continue is the double-edged sword of MTB brands ditching internal routing (Yay) in favour of wireless-only drivetrain options (Boo)
2 is that new standards shift and the resulting customer FOMO, moving bikes or parts on out of fear of sidelined specs, is being talked about as a failed policy by some, by many perhaps. People just stop buying bikes or parts as often and they lose trust in brands and faith in the product itself. It creates churn that's not the same as genuine demand-lead stable growth. It provided some sales incentives for a 10 year cycle and it won't continue to do so, hence a lot of eye-rolling 'Aw FFS are we here again?' responses to 32". As valid as it may be as new design in isolation, it's not led by widespread consumer demand. It's an opportunity for hope and a lot of product guys not wanting to miss out because there isn't much else that's creating opportunity right now. 29" wasn't much more rider-led at the start either but that came around in different times and was the first of these big shifts, as riders I think we were more receptive to a change then. And for a lot of riders it was a change that had merit Vs what we had at the time. Some of that merit certainly applies to the change from 29 to 32 but I do see it as a much weaker case.
I've been thinking a bit about standards lately. For many, a standard crank length is 165mm to 175 mm. I'm keen to try some 150mm cranks but I find I'm reduced to ordering some kids cranks off aliexpress and hoping that the q-factor isn't going to be an issue.
I'm definitely not the only one who is short crank curious but Sram and Shimano don't seem to be falling over themselves to furnish us with lots of options for cranks lengths.
I think there is definitely a difference in changes to what has been done before where you can swap out an existing component on your current bike vs changes that require buying an entirely new bike. It feels like the latter gets all the attention and the push, not just in terms of advertising but also in terms of how its fawned over by magazines.
Just take a look at 29 inch wheels compared to tyre inserts. To me, tyre inserts are way more of a game changer than a relatively small change in wheel radius (and to be perfectly clear, I'm not talking about the geometry changes that accompanied the introduction of 29" wheels, just the change in radius in isolation). And I can feel people already typing out just how wrong and stupid I am.
Changes that can be swapped onto your existing bike are generally given a quick, 'I guess you can try it, maybe you'll like it or maybe you won't. It's just one part of the bike, after all.'
A focus on swappable parts (tyres, inserts, pedals, grips, bars, dropper posts etc) has always been there for riders and the media. Perhaps this will increase this year.
Oh, plenty of 155mm “adult” chainsets out there. Why the 150mm requirement?
Plenty?
It could just be the online shops I've been looking at but so far I've found a single 155mm crankset from Sram while Hope offer some of their cranks in 155mm. I generally don't buy Hope stuff if I want to try something out given the cost so that leaves the Sram offering which only seems to come as a complete crankset. So then I'm also buying a new chainring because the Sram offering comes with a 32 tooth chainring. If you wan to go down in crank length then you probably also want to go down in chainring size so then your left trying to find a chainring as well.
As far as I can see there is only one reasonably priced option available and even then it comes with the same size chairing as the rest of the lengths they offer.
Unless you are talking about e-bike cranks which seem to make up the vast majority of short crank offerings but they don't really do me much good as I don't have an ebike (if there is a way of bodgeing a chairing onto a set of ebike cranks I'd be very interested in hearing more as that would make life a lot easier).
I think there is definitely a difference in changes to what has been done before where you can swap out an existing component on your current bike vs changes that require buying an entirely new bike. It feels like the latter gets all the attention and the push, not just in terms of advertising but also in terms of how its fawned over by magazines.
The general arc of products is toward a closed single system, proprietary parts and less user-serviceability, like electronics and cars. Bikes are the same but as I got into a bit earlier, I'm not sure that it's working for the industry and that Q is coming up more often with more people. I'd say it depends on what part of the industry / what rider we're talking about and I think one problem the industry has is not being able to address both equally well. A transport/commuter will buy a closed system and needs a reliable, serviceable bike, they might fit a new saddle, grips or accessories and that's about it. An enthusiast often wants to express that enthusiasm via customisation and fine-tune the performance with upgrades. Buy an everyday runner C-Max of customise a Focus ST?
What I think the industry got wrong is not knowing whether e-MTBers were in one camp or the other (might be 50/50 in reality), perhaps failing to meet the expectations of either.
However, I'll try not to underestimate just how powerful the marketing machine really is. Even if you resist as an individual, if everyone else jumps ship, you might be left with no (or less) choice.
The trouble is buying power- your buying power is a couple of bikes. Trek's buying power is 1.6 million. Consumer buying power is an absolute fiction as far as influencing any well orchestrated change goes. So the only place it really makes a difference is small stuff where the big boys don't have a dog in the fight. They don't really need to market to us at all, they just have to convince a few designers and buyers.
The trouble is buying power- your buying power is a couple of bikes. Trek's buying power is 1.6 million.
If the bike brands learned one thing in the last few years you'd hope it was about the need for selling power rather than buying power. Buying power gets new stuff done, for sure. You can buy as much as you like...
Consumer buying power is an absolute fiction as far as influencing any well orchestrated change goes.
Over stuff that doesn't really make much difference or is only a potential PITA (eg front axle spec) I'd agree, things can be forced through. But supply and demand means true demand for a materially different alternative will usually be met.