Predictions for the mountain bike world in 2025

It’s that time of year when we look into the mists of time, peer into the future, and see what lies ahead. Maybe. In 2024 we were – as usual – sometim …

By stwhannah

Get the full story here:

Predictions for the mountain bike world in 2025

2 words to strike fear into the STW massive – ‘New Forum’.

PLEASE don’t cock it up!

 there’s going to be loads of AI generated imagery and videos in marketing material. Most will go unnoticed but there’ll be some great hilarious howlers on the way.

The irony…

Shimano might actually release a proper wireless group set……..

Tahnee Seagrave to win the overall WCDH if she stays injury free.

They might release a wireless group set, but I’m still not holding my breath for a new Saint one lol

For what it’s worth the thing that got me coming back to this forum time after time was the combination of bikes and other stuff all on the front page .  Please don’t go to a load of sub forums…..thanks .

Same number of forums. No plans to change that.

gravel bikes to go flat barred with 29×2.4 tyres and suspension front and rear

The New Thing is going to be flex. Very specific flex in very specific places.

Vertically stiff while being laterally compliant?

Even more eye-watering RRPs?

The revived thing is going to be flex?

That the ‘MTB community’ will continue to fracture and diverge.

I don’t mean this in a necessarily bad way. Back in the late 80’s, early 90s the spectrum of riding, and indeed bikes, was pretty small. An XC bike and event was not really that different to their downhill cousins. ‘Most’ riders aspired to things like Mountain Mayhem and Sleepless in the Saddle. Now……I think I have less in common with someone that rides Rampage (or enjoys watching it’s stream) than I do red sock ramblers or mountaineers…or even a roadie. We are literally ‘worlds’ apart. In between there is an almost infinite number of subsets of niche.

This is all brilliant – find your own way of being you on two wheels. But just I don’t think there is a thing called the ‘mountain bike world’ anymore.

Actual MTBing will continue to be sidelined within a landscape ever increasingly dominated by ebiking, is my prediction.

Benji’s right on e-bikes and Enduro as a format. A few years back I said ‘MTB’ would become a powered sport, it’s just the way it is – longer -travel MTBs are a snowboarder mewntality not XC skiing. Agree with @convert, MTB is a broad thing these days but looking at the mainstream or majority at a trail centre etc as well as brands’ focus it’s going that way.

Prediction for 2025 is related to that – polarisation in general. More riders keeping it simple, old school XC / ATB style or thinking that way after disattisfaction about the gap between the promises from bike tech and prices and the overall experience, or just alienated by the cost and tech that big brands think is ok these days. On the flipside, more riders going full tech e-MTB and enjoying it.

Flex is the new geometry

I like this. It’s always felt like an important and overlooked part of drop-bar bikes while TBH all the e-bikes I’ve ridden have felt a big dead in that respect (as well as a different kind of lively fun overall). But it’s really persponal and subjective, for those reasons road brands tend to make everything pretty stiff and say it’s about performance. MTB is more open-minded and geeky on this stuff so it’ll be interesting to see if bikes like the Cotic e-MTB get riders thinking about it.

My prediction is perhaps counter intuitively I think we’ll see the return of more and more non-bike sponsorship and outside interest in DH racing as it tries to position itself as mountain biking’s showcase, and the series promises to be more focussed on a smaller group of riders and “serious” coverage.

New Saint- hardly pushing the boat out there, maybe even a Shimano wireless groupset.

A brake ‘power’ war. For all the accusations of copying, Lewis have at least made both SRAM and Shimano and some other western brands for that matter look a bit stupid. They’re ridiculously powerful, by all accounts well-made and very very affordable, and on about the 4th iteration/development of the brake design, with no real plans to slow down by the looks of things.

More headset cable routing. And the invention of cable routing through hubs

And the invention of cable routing through hubs

How do you think dynamo lights work?

The New Thing is going to be flex. Very specific flex in very specific places.

Given how long it took us to figure out geometry*, the next few years could see some truly horrendous bikes, and some truly ahead of their time ones.

*a highlight being at the start of 29ers, some brands insisting that the key figure for handling was wheelbase – and therefore they tried to match the 26 equivilent by… steepening the head angle. and lets not forget the many years spent sizing bikes by effective top tube length (or sometimes even seat tube length!) without even giving consideration to reach.

predict WC downhill racing will be the best its ever been (as a TV spectator, I do feel bad for those riders who have suffered from the reshuffle). more rounds, no semi finals, no “filler” riders, Ric has learnt how to commentate, camerawork as good or better than it has ever been; and I think there is a healthy Goldstone, Pierron, Williams and Wilson along with a womens feild with Balanche and Seagrave and probably 10 viable potential winners. And warner bros cant just sit on their hands, becasue theres increased pressure from Crankworx and Hardline from the red drinks company, and the US national series via the green drinks company.

the decline of the EWS and rise of ebikes will reduce the popularity of big travel meat powered bikes.

Can the classifieds change back to.how it used to be where posts can be added to the advert.  Especially the wanted adverts.

*a highlight being at the start of 29ers, some brands insisting that the key figure for handling was wheelbase – and therefore they tried to match the 26 equivilent by… steepening the head angle. and lets not forget the many years spent sizing bikes by effective top tube length (or sometimes even seat tube length!) without even giving consideration to reach.

wait till you see the early attempts at ‘the bicycle’ : )

More and more bloody ebikes, resulting in more unofficial trails getting ridden into oblivion

prediction: modern ‘mountain bikes’ dying on their rs due to economic and demographic changes which see the mtb as too expensive and complicated, with many riders realising that a gravel bike covers the bases – as well as discovering that adequately fun ‘atb’ type bikes can be made from the stock of 2nd hand retro bikes and simpler parts. Add to that the realisation that the ‘sick bro’ culture that dominates an aspect of the sport these days is actually really unattractive to many. See the US market for details.

As stated above, sales of long travel ‘muscle powered’ bikes will decline as these riders move to ebikes.

This will open up the market better for DH bike ownership. With an ebike in the garage for most riding, it’ll be easier to justify a DH bike for uplift days and holidays.

Now most mountain bikers don’t go uphill without assistance, the stereotype body shape for a mountain biker will get ‘a bit softer around the edges’. This will create a clearer divide between ‘mountain bikers’ and the more athletic and svelte roadies and off-roadies.

The diversity of MTB, is a strength, but I also think it’s a weakness – especially in racing/ media. The gravity disciplines are the most popular with the MTB media, whether social media, websites or magazines. Even here, people have mentioned DH racing but not XC racing.

Yet the non MTB racing media very rarely mention DH/Enduro – it’s not part of their world; XC might get a mention if a ‘name’ from the Road world turns up; otherwise, forget it. I think the sport side needs to break this barrier.

With that, I think the MTB teams/ races need to do far more promotion – otherwise outside industry sponsors will continue to ignore the sport.

Chipps said:

 however, I think there’s still room for one, final, big household name to go pop before we get out of the woods. I have no idea who it would be, but I reckon that a household MTB name won’t be around in a year.

Brompton profits drop by 99% OK,  not a MTB name, but that’s a tricky situation to recover from

 

More of the same. 2025 is going to be economically challenging in all the main markets. As a result I suspect the manufacturers will continue to focus on e-bikes and hopefully find better solutions to bring their costs down. I would hope Shimano finally bring us a wireless mtb shifting offering and that SRAM launch a properly tested product that means you wait until at least v2 before considering

My predictions for 2025

my steel hardtail will remain my weapon if choice, meanwhile there maybe a shift back to steel in the gravel world after a short time on alu. Carbon will not feature.

meanwhile in the big wide world Norco will be the team to watch out for in DH. As for EDR I think that’s dead in the water and yet with proper investment it could have been the most exciting side of our fantastic sport.

My guesses:

The continued demise of ‘Trail Centres’ in the UK. Councils, FC /FLS / NRW needing to slash budgets, they’re finally looking favourably at making more unofficial venues official, the best Trail Centres have plenty of off-piste options to keep rider interested and the carpark and cafe money coming in to make them viable. We may lose a few of the old favourites but gain dozens of venues that rely on local infrastructure (Pubs / Shops / Cafes) and trails built and maintained by local groups.

Yep, e-bikes. The middle-aged guys who used to spend £5k-£10k on some flash carbon Enduro Bike dripping with Gold Fox stuff etc are now spending the same on a motored version because, the benefits outweigh the costs. Battery Tech is in full focus thanks to EVs, smaller lighter batteries will follow. Post 2025 and into the future, I can imagine I lot of manufacturers in the MTB market dropping a lot of former niches simply to focus on 150-170mm travel eMTBs because they do so much, so well and it reduces the cost of producing a 6-model line-up.

Norco will be the team to watch out for in DH.

I’ll be interested to see what the riders entourages get up to.

More big brands will go – largely due to consequences of massively overzealous forecasting which lead to huge spare inventory stockpiles. Maybe one of the bigger American boutique brands like Yeti, Pivot etc. that only operate in higher price tiers.

Meanwhile brands which forecasted the covid boom/bust better, and importantly price appropriately for current cozzie live world, will do well. E.g. I hope to see more bikes like the Calibre Bossnut. I think there’s a lot more people who would buy a MTB if the prices were…reasonable.

A potential risk to e-bike sales if the UK gov starts legislating them differently due to safety concerns on the batteries & fires. Extra price surcharges perhaps, or needing a license to own one, or even household insurance being affected if you charge indoors.

The MTB media will continue to moan about the problems facing the industry.

The industry will lose major players as a result of private equity owners (e.g. GT), an oversaturated and overpriced market, and probably ebike warranty claims.

Meanwhile this will make no difference whatsoever to genuine bike riders who will still be playing in the woods (and benefiting from second hand bargains galore).

Stack heights will continue to rise, on those that havent yet.

chainstays will get longer on bigger bikes that haven’t yet.

More / revised trail tyre type options to surface, be revised.

a focus on reducing bike weights in general (feel this is somewhat already in play)

Post 2025 and into the future, I can imagine I lot of manufacturers in the MTB market dropping a lot of former niches simply to focus on 150-170mm travel eMTBs because they do so much, so well and it reduces the cost of producing a 6-model line-up.

Well that’s a depressing thought.

Missed a major one. Fewer places to ride, with NRW pulling out of running visitor centres and the inevitable deteriorating trails that will follow. The same will be true for council or Forestry run trail centres across the country.

Most already rely heavily on volunteers to maintain and build trails but with fewer than 1 in 1000 riders ever contributing this will be a losing battle.

So it will be £50 a go pay to ride or poorly maintained trails. Back to those Bridleways?

Hope I’m wrong and the apathy of the MTB community can be overcome. Get involved or loose those trails.

Meanwhile brands which forecasted the covid boom/bust better, and importantly price appropriately for current cozzie live world, will do well. E.g. I hope to see more bikes like the Calibre Bossnut. I think there’s a lot more people who would buy a MTB if the prices were…reasonable.

A few veblen goods aside, average prices are the way the costs, routes to market (margin layers) and ex rates etc dictate. The bike industry as a whole would go bust if the Bossnut was the standard for retail VFM. It’s not quite a loss-leader but there’s no way an average bike company could operate on the margins Go Outdoors will on one model. No doubt it’s a good thing for both brands and customers to have a few bikes like that but they’re outliers.

Hope I’m wrong and the apathy of the MTB community can be overcome. Get involved or loose those trails.

Good point. Esp when considered alongside the rise of E-MTB and destination biking rather than old-school XC.

UK MTB has never really managed to get a national body together (has it?).

For me riding off-road has always been about being under my own power and natural track plus I rarely ride TCs so I won’t be losing out on riding, but I’d want to be involved in anything that tries to maintain what there is and our choice to ride them even if only occasionally (for me it’s all down to location rather than any dislike of TCs, on the contrary I love them when I do go). Assuming there was an effective body, with bikes being the price they are a yearly membership would be (or should be) an easy sell to most of us. Buy less stuff, do more instead?