No, but I do support brands who put money in to keep events going. Brands like Exposure and upgrade bikes have put loads of money and time into local races.

So no, but yes…

I’ll also join the list of people who would never buy an Intense. I’ve seen so many people have grief with them. I’ve seen too many brand new frames that aren’t straight. I’ve seen all the broken frames and lack of back up. As a company they always seem like a cowboy operation who are just winging it.

They’ve got the kind of heritage that money can’t buy but that was luck more than anything. They had a dedicated DH bike built for racing when everyone else was riding their rigid XC bikes in every discipline. They made some iconic machines in the early days of a new sport but that hasn’t translated into a desirable line of reliable bikes for me.

Oh and I almost forgot, let’s name every frame after a gun and paint it like Ronald McDonald.

The last two bikes I bought new were a Planet-X Free Ranger and I’m pretty sure there are no sponsored riders using them. Also an Orbea Orca and there aren’t any World Tour Teams riding Orbea bikes at the moment.

I got into Nukeproof bikes through being a Sam Hill fan, and the fact that I had a go on a mates 2012 Mega….
Now on my 3rd Mega so make of that what you will – oh and have a Nukeproof Scout too.
My Gravel bike is a Cannondale – I got it because it was a decent spec cheap gravel bike.

Racing and results of no interest

Bikes are bought on the basis of budget/value and being vaguely appropriate for the intended use.

I’m not sure I ever really bought much because it was “race winning” in any area of life.

I’m not a very competitive person in most respects. I like going fast, I like scenery, I don’t care if I’m last to the top or bottom of the trail.

If I’m obsessed by anything it’s by value/function/reliability/fitness for purpose. I ride a Specialized and Planet X and drive a well maintained but old diesel Ford. Profile probably fits 😂

Results influence me after I’ve filtered them by price low to high.

Edits on youtube have more influence, but usually they leave me dreaming about bikes I can’t afford to buy, Chris Akrigg, Danny Macaskill, Ali Clarkson, Fabio Wibmer, etc.

Results influence me after I’ve filtered them by price low to high.

😂 In fairness I think that also works for me.

I’ve never seen an Intense bike that I’ve liked the look of. Even in their winningest days I always thought they looked fugly. If they were back winning every week, I’d still be out. Also, that Sender in toothpaste green looks… meh.

Nope. Not in the slightest.

yes, but not in the way you think.

If daughter gets her A level results today and heads off to University, with me being firmly in the squeezed income / not rich but also getting minimum loan and needing to top up fully – my buying choice is going to be severely influenced. Like – whatever is cheapest, do I really need to buy it, can’t I fix it from the spares bin / zipties!?!

I think STW is the wrong place to ask this question. It’s full of beardy bridelway botherers who are all unique, contrarian renegades

And to prove the point I have just bought a 2007 Giant track frameset to build up a very light tracklocross bike. Never seen anyone riding a Giant track bike off road and don’t even know what the riders rode at any tracklocross races.

at any tracklocross races.

at a what now ?

Results don’t influence my purchasing but they can sometimes help. I think brand awareness is the bigger thing about racing.

Think of YT who were just a slightly niche direct sales brand who a lot of people weren’t sure about. Having Aaron Gwin riding for them made them seem a far more legitimate company in many eyes. I think Nukeproof were similar with their race team, they went from CRC own brand (cheap and cheerful) to proper manufacturer who people will choose not just because they’re cheap.

I don’t think individual results will be a big influence but as mentioned with Commencal, if there’s a clear trend of a specific bike being that good then people will notice and start buying. If it were just Amaury Pierron winning on it then I don’t think it would have had the same effect, he’s so fast he’d likely win on any bike.

I think Nukeproof were similar with their race team, they went from CRC own brand (cheap and cheerful) to proper manufacturer who people will choose not just because they’re cheap.

I had the first Mega 290 and it was good geometry but pedaled shit and was a bit unrefined. Seemed like Sam Hill was winning a little bit in spite of the bikes at that time.

Their current bikes seem a big step up and the Mega and Giga are right among the top of the class.

Innes Graham getting a podium at the EWS as a privateer on his Giga defo helped keep it on my wishlist TBH.

For me it sometimes works the other way round. Despite a teams success and how nice the bikes are I don’t want to be associated with that and seen as a crazy fan boy.
For example, Trek Road bikes, during the Armstrong era the increase in sales was massive for that company and everyone seemed to have one and for that reason there was no appeal for me despite them making some nice bikes. But clearly it worked on many others as their sales increased.

I’m a strictly, ‘Sort by Discount first’ purchaser so my answer would be no. If I can get a 70% discount on a model that’s 2 or 3 years out of date I’m happy with that.

However, I like to think that if I ever moved somewhere where the trails were on such a level that each and every ride was really pushing me technically I’d think very carefully about my next bike purchase.

It’s not really results that catch my eye but a bike that shows signs of being a really good all-rounder. Forbidden did this recently when Eric Olsen bikepacked between EWS rounds, not to mention the fact that Connor Fearon was riding the same bike at World Cup DH events.

So yeah, it’s on my radar thanks to racing but the other two bikes I’d consider (a Nicolai G1 or a custom Starling Sturn) I don’t really associate with racing although I’m sure people are competing on them.

Not really. But Degenkolb won Paris Roubaix on my bike (Defy Advanced SL in a medium), so it’s a keeper for that reason alone.

Given the unattainability of motorsports equipment for ordinary drivers, I think it is surprising that one can basically ride a pro bike (albeit with significant expenditure) without issue. Two of my bikes are pro-level frames which have won tour stages or classics. My car isn’t going to win anything 😀

I’m trying to think which bike I would buy if I found a suitcase full of money and had to spend it today. That bike would be a Geometron G1 and I’m not aware of anyone who races one. They have enough positives (for me) to outweigh any marketing or race results.

I got my first Yeti in 2012 because of the race results they got in the late 80s and early 90s. So “yes” I guess.

Given the unattainability of motorsports equipment for ordinary drivers, I think it is surprising that one can basically ride a pro bike (albeit with significant expenditure) without issue. Two of my bikes are pro-level frames which have won tour stages or classics. My car isn’t going to win anything

That’s an interesting one.

I’d say us punters can actually have superior equipment than the pros, as they’re bound by sponsor deals – so my bike with an EXT shock might be more capable than a pro’s bike with Fox or RS.

Jared Graves said in a podcast that he was basically uncompetitive when Spesh made him ride their hard compound or thin carcass tyres in the EWS. I’ve owned some of them and I absolutely believe him. Lethal **** things.

Bit theoretical as I still ride much slower, but y’know.

I remember when Gwin won MSA few years ago on some new Onza tyre they were sold out forever!

I think for DH bikes, the UK is the wrong place to gauge this, as someone else said, you wanna check what bikes are in the queue at the lifts in Morzine, Chatel and Morgins.

Enduro Bikes is an odd one, the Specialized Enduros are everywhere but their team isn’t really successful. I have no clue on XC, Marathon, Gravel or Road!

I’d say us punters can actually have superior equipment than the pros,

Up until not very long ago you could have vastly better brakes than the road pro teams. Shimano even had an ad campaign around it.

You can still have significantly lighter bikes.

I’d say us punters can actually have superior equipment than the pros, as they’re bound by sponsor deals – so my bike with an EXT shock might be more capable than a pro’s bike with Fox or RS.

For the truly nerdy, there is an extra level to delve into – who is sharpie-ing the logos off their tyres, forks with the wrong stickers on, and the occasional rider who is at least partly unconstrained by sponsors, like Pidcock’s XC bike.

If someone has gone to substantial effort to avoid using the pile of sponsor correct free stuff, that speaks volumes.

The last two bikes I bought new were a Planet-X Free Ranger and I’m pretty sure there are no sponsored riders using them.

Marketing comes in different flavours to appeal to different types of people. There are those who are attracted to bargains and cheap stuff, and that’s the market Planet X is after.

Other brands are considered aspirational, and they sponsor race teams because other people are attracted to prestige and ‘desirability’. And you often don’t want one brand to cross those two groups because it dilutes the image. Take Saracen for instance – I’m sure it made business sense at the time to become a Halfords brand, but whilst it may have shifted units it tarnished the brand image for a long time. Now that they have a DH team, you must surely appreciate they are not racing DH on Halfords BSOs – and this is how they get their message across.

In motor racing this has of course been big forever. Take Honda for example – they make the Jazz, famously the old people’s car, and the Accord, about as boring a car as you could get. If they slapped an R badge on a Civic just based on that you’d think they are try-hards. But they also have a boy-racer/car modding/Japanese hot-rod thing going on, and sponsoring race teams is a big part of that. So then suddenly the Civic type R is a cool car. Image is very malleable, but not always by the brand themselves.

Enduro Bikes is an odd one, the Specialized Enduros are everywhere but their team isn’t really successful.

Doesn’t necessarily matter. The number of people who follow DH racing is tiny. But the number of people walking into a bike shop seeing a huge poster of some pro clearly at a race on a Specialized is much larger. Most would not know if that rider had mediocre results or not – I don’t think I would even recognise them.

No.

Can’t even begin to think how I would afford some of the overinflated, overhyped stuff, which a lot of folk seem to think they need, even though the kit outweighs their riding abilities.

eMTB bros at BPW comes to mind!!

Budget and value rule.

The Spesh Enduro is arguably a genre-defining product and a brand in itself.

And I guess they’re spending all their racing money on Loic, Finn and the XC lot.

Pidcock’s wins did lead me to browsing the BMC Fourstroke out of curiosity as I’d never heard of it or seen one before, so I guess that did influence me to some extent in that it became something to consider.

That said, I have no budget for a new bike let alone FS so it’s all a pipedream anyway!  & that model seems to be restricted to using their own 80mm dropper.

No, it’s price, availability and ability to demo before purchase for me.

You could probably swap all of the pros onto each others bikes, and with a bit of adjustment, they’d all perform similarly.
It’s more so the person, not the bike, dictating performance at the very top level.

If anything, this is quite cyclical and just pushes up prices further – winning or losing at competition.
Having to pay for a pro team throughout the season has to be paid for somehow by the brand.

A Canyon Sender…. for some reason, he’d LOVE a Sender..

perhaps there is a rider he admires who rides a canyon.

perhaps there is a rider he admires who rides a canyon.

Nah, we both enjoy watching riders like Finn Illes and Daprela, just because of how they ride and their edgey riding all the time.

@doomanic – Intense… a totally irrational dislike for them. whenever i have looked at their bikes they seem to have out of date geo, awful colours and are pricey. I mean never say never, but as it stands, i wouldn’t spend my cash on one.

Blimey! I bought my Sniper because it felt pretty modern and was one of the less garish colourways! And because they are direct was a lot better value than others with similar components.

It hasn’t snapped yet either, which is a bonus. Had a bit more niche appeal than my Spesh.

This is what I think when I hear Canyon Sender…

And yes, yes I would.

I’d say Canyon who might otherwise be seen as cheap catalog bikes, have legitimized themselves through racing more than any other brand. YT too, went big on Gwin and their prices climbed soon after. That said, Nukeproof will forever be a cheapo CRC brand in my mind, despite having maybe the most series wins of any bike on the EWS

Not for me. I dont think shand have a race team