The XC bubble is going to burst

I don’t think it will whilst it remains the sole MTB Olympic event, plus with Evie Richards coming to the fore last season, I’m quite excited about the season ahead. I do wish DH would become an Olympic event though (alongside gravel riding on balance bikes with oval wheels 🙂).

Where are you riding that gives you such a lot more rocks per km Ta11pau1?

I want to move there.

I read the “16kg” thing as being a rule-of-thumb upper limit for actual trailside bike weight (i.e with pedals, tools, water bottle, etc).

And that really in the context of not stressing overly about bike weight. Bikes have become bigger, wheels are bigger, suspension has become bigger, decent tyres weigh a bit. It’s not that much of a bother, and probably for a lot of people something a bit bigger and tougher is going to give a better day out than something built with too much of an eye on the scales.

Of course, it’s different strokes for different folks in the end, and if you prefer a lighter bike for what you ride then that’s grand. But I don’t think a 16kg upper limit is unreasonable 🤷‍♂️

Be careful Wheelsonfire1. I was shouted down for the heresy of pointing out 1x is a bad expensing solution to a problem that didn’t exist (’emperor’s new clothes’ really).

Another +1 for stack height. But 40mm rise bars (mine are from USE) do a great job.

Agree re. 150mm for trail bikes. Ibis Ripmo is a great example, super on a big day out in the hills, although wheel & tyre choice is key. It’s a very different bike running a fasttrack/ground control combination on light wheels than it is running an Assegai/Dissector combo on 35mm wide rims.
More people running 2 or 3 wheel/tyre sets would be my accompanying prediction.

And I reckon the return of singlespeed would be great (although it’s already back for some of us). Would love to see a boost/disk brake version of the Sturmey Archer 3-speed hub available, or their kick-shift 2-speed. Love my SS but my knees aren’t getting any younger.

From now on trail bikes are going to have as much travel as possible so long as the overall genuine on-trail weight doesn’t stray too far over 16kg.

It was the phrase “on-trail weight” which made me think that. The weight of the actual bike you’ll be riding. I may be reading too much into it 🤷‍♂️

You may be right. I just read it as weight with pedals ( and gloop and inserts if you use thhem)

God I’m so bored and irritable after 6 weeks sat around doing **** all. Sorry.

Mr Tetchy

New wheel standard for 2022. It’s been too long without a new one. 675B?

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/shimano-granted-fcc-wireless-approval-for-another-derailleur-and-control.html

Shimano are still working on it.what about electric hub gears.

I’d like better stock! I like all this on bike storage and some legs that don’t turn to jelly.

Can we not transfer this to the bike forum where it belongs and make it bigger than the rich energy vs whyte post. It would be interesting to see everybodys opinion on what the next new standard or product we never knew we couldn’t ride without will be, or what’s on your wish list.

As riders from the birth of mountain biking hit 50 and more,

Surely they’d all be mid 50s now. MTBs became commercially available mid 80s eg Rally Maverick (1985), Muddy Fox Explorer, Ridge Backs etc. If you bought a Rally Meverick, at say 15, in 1985 you’d be 52 this year. If you were in on the real birth, before you could just buy one in the LBS, you’d be even older.

My first MTB was a Ridgeback 601 in maybe 87/88 and I’d already spent several years being very jealous of friends with Muddy Fox Couriers / Raleigh Mavericks…

Surely they’d all be mid 50s now. MTBs became commercially available mid 80s eg Rally Maverick (1985)

‘Scuse me!
I’m only 49 thanks very much.

Red Raleigh Maverick with sidepull brakes and steel rims.

Really starting to wonder if Shimano is abandoning di2 on MTBs

My prediction is that we’ll see something new from Shimano electronically, but it won’t be a straight copy of of SRAM’s wireless AXS (Shimano don’t/won’t do that) I reckon it’ll be some half-way house of wired/wireless combo.

My Predictions

E-Bikes will sell more than regular bikes in wealthy western countries like UK, Germany etc.

XC racing will not die a death. Not with riders like Van Art, Pidcock in the men’s happy to race everything.

EWS will die a death as it currently operates. (not sustainable)

POV MTB YouTube channels will die.

My predictions, unfortunately, no return to simpler bikes.

Supply issues mean there’s little or no point in manufacturers making anything other than making the greatest profit per unit, and that’s going to mean prioritizing their expensive models. Brands offering only budget-friendly models are going to struggle to get production slots or parts to build them, again.

The bursting of the review-based media bubble.

As a consequence of that I predict manufacturers feel less need to feed the media hype machines. Why fly journos out to Moab to ride your latest 2022 electric everything dandyhorse when you’re already selling out the 2024 stock? Or gamble on a grouptest when the best-case scenario is you win, but have already sold out.

Singlespeeds to make a resurgence. New bikes from Singular and Stooge. On-One finally come out with something to replace the SS Inbred.

But it’s stuck on 11spd, and has been for a few years now despite 12spd trickling down to Deore.

Shoving an extra sprocket on a cassette and a click on a shifter is pretty easy mechanically, and that was done to attract the OEMs, but it’s probably even easier on Di2, just a firmware update, except how do they derive much extra income from that? Di2 is very much at the “Premium” end of things for them still.

Just look at Road Di2 if you want to see how shimano tend to operate with leccy shifting, they used Firmware to prevent backwards compatibility between 10 and 11 speed Ultegra Di2. The last thing they wanted was punters buying a couple of extra parts to get that extra cog, rather than needing a whole new Groupset/bike…

If you’re a company flogging complete bikes, you’ll shift a lot more units with 12 Deore or NX clicks than 11 or 12 XTR/X01 leccy gears, expensive bikes actually make less money so why rush to replace your flagship product early?

I don’t doubt current generation 11 speed Di2 could be made to work with a 12 sprocket cassette, but it’s not in shimano’s interests to do it straight away, it’ll come with the next facelift…

Oh yeah, and the introduction of an E-Bike based race. I reckon it’ll either be a part of EWS, and will grow so huge that EWS will effectively become an E-Bike series, or an E-bike version of it that will attract more money and support from manufacturers

Haven’t a few e-bike events been tried already?
I don’t doubt it will come eventually, but it’s still not really proper bicycle racing is it.
The problem any E-bike racing format faces right now though is, where does the Grass roots of the sport come from?
I’m sure you could rustle up some willing pros to race a their sponsors bike, but for any sport to have “legitimacy” (IMO) you need to be getting kids/young adults involved and the cost of a competitive E-bike is still going to be pretty prohibitive (how many people under 40 with an ‘Average’ income buy them currently?). XC/4X/BMX/CX/Trials, even DH and Enduro, all have “E-bike racing” beat on basic cost of entry as things stand today…

With everyone’s cost of living rising I really can’t see “E-bike Enduro” taking off before 2024…

You clearly don’t go to many events in the UK, the Enduro races are rammed with ebikes… and i do mean pretty well rammed. Cannock is rammed with Ebikes, so is 417, Forest of Dean, even Rogate had a fair few last week.
There’s many many many many e-bikes out there now and plenty of them are also racing them.

That’s probably a fair criticism, I’ve not been going to any Events for the last couple of years (Family/Work/Covid excuses)…

Either way though it can’t be kids rolling about on them is it? Surely it’s middle-aged, middle income bracket blokes No? People already into MTBing, and with the necessary disposable income for an electro-Dandyhorse…

We’ll see I suppose, I just don’t see the most expensive possible flavour of bicycle taking off as a viable competitive format at all levels.

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Oh yeah, and the introduction of an E-Bike based race. I reckon it’ll either be a part of EWS, and will grow so huge that EWS will effectively become an E-Bike series, or an E-bike version of it that will attract more money and support from manufacturers

E-EWS began in 2020 IIRC

Edit (multiple edits in fact): additional 2022 prediction – this forum will continue to vomit HTML code in replies when I attempt to use the quote function!

Mainstream MTB will be a powered sport soon enough

I haven’t seen updated figures but a couple of years ago the average amount paid for a bike in the UK was £350. When ebikes come down to that sort of cost, they’ll be mainstream. Until then they will remain the preserve of a wealthy minority.

XC won’t die despite what the haterz wish.

More lightweight emtbs for sale.

The problem any E-bike racing format faces right now though is, where does the Grass roots of the sport come from?

I think if you launched an e-bike based enduro event (or series) in the UK now, you’d fill it with no worries…

 but a couple of years ago the average amount paid for a bike in the UK was £350.

For a bike maybe, for a proper reactional mountain bike used as a hobby (what we’re discussing), I think the vast majority of sales will be powered (if they’re not already).