I went to the Core bike show - the biggest trade meet for the UK bike industry - to get a feel for how things are after some of the most chaotic years ever for cycle shops and their suppliers.
“Survive until 25" was the dark messaging of the bike trade for 2024. And as we crawled through a cold January, it looked like that would turn into “still sick in ’26” rather than anything more optimistic. Rumours were still rumbling that huge amounts of bike and equipment stock remained unsold despite being binned out at up to half price.
Unsurprisingly this has been choking sales of anyone brave enough to introduce a new bike. As a result, even relaunches of legendary names like Calibre’s Bossnut are being discounted heavily within a few weeks of hitting the shops. I’ve yet to see a new Specialized Stumpjumper on the trails either despite (or maybe because) the previous Stumpjumper Evo model being everywhere. If you listen to the gossip that leaves a lot of bike brands in the ‘at risk’ category and several in ‘intensive care’ often depending on what decisions their outside investors make next.
Given that not a great deal has changed with fundamentals like geometry and suspension designs in the past few years it’s hard to see any massive tech breakthroughs breaking the stranglehold on pedal bike sales. Even E-MTB sales are largely stalling, as, in most cases, motors and batteries haven’t changed dramatically since the last E-bike people bought in the frenzy of Covid.
With second hand resale values even worse for e-bikes than conventional bikes, volt jockeys are hanging onto their rides longer. The only exception to that rule is the new DJI Amflow e-bike, with its outrageous power to weight ratio, that’s put a massive cat among the pigeons. Not just in terms of sales either, but also because it’s mostly being sold in small independent bike shops; retailers who’d been cold-shouldered by major brands because they couldn’t / wouldn’t commit to massive stock buy ins. But who are now delighted to have riders rushing to their doors to demo this new must-have machine. From what we’ve heard most demo rides turn into a sale straight after. So, while other brands are scrabbling to fit the DJI Avinox tech to their next bikes or boost the motor power existing designs, the Amflow is definitely shaking things up. In much the same way the automotive brand landscape has changed dramatically since EV’s became the new focus.
Despite this, there were a decent number of bike brands represented at Core. Including premium MTB names such as Santa Cruz, Yeti, Norco, and Transition as well as smaller set ups like Surly, Rondo, Upgrade, and DMR, plus other show specials such as Manitou’s concept bike. The main focus of Core Bike Show is parts and accessories though, and things seem to be more positive there. That’s because rather than selling their existing bikes for a joke price, riders are preferring to upgrade them and/or look after them better instead. So, while there’s been a few years of the same over supply and discounting struggles as bikes, faster turnover of ‘consumable’ components seems to have helped.
While nobody had anything truly head snapping in terms of ‘stars of the show’, there was some interesting stuff if you knew where to look. Fox were sneaking peaks of their latest fork developments to a trusted few folks who were firmly told to keep their phones in their pockets. Renthal had a secret cupboard of things that won’t be released until August, and Goodyear and Terravail both had unreleased tyres hiding in plain sight for eagle eyed rubber fetishists to spot. In contrast to Fox, Cane Creek had the Invert gravel fork they were hiding last year in production format on their stand. They did have a box of secret stuff too though.
Given that most of the industry’s issues of recent years have basically been caused by making more stuff than people want to buy, the amount of brands launching a new side hustle component line was somewhat startling. Especially when it immediately put them in direct competition with other brands in the same distributor portfolio. For example, it was good to see Protection brand Leatt available in the UK again after disappearing in the Chain Reaction / Wiggle collapse. However, as well as their expanded clothing range, they also had a new family of flat and clipless pedals as well as handlebars, grips and stems. They were proper posh too, using lightweight magnesium castings, titanium bolts, and other components. The grips had some smart shock absorbing tech inside too. That’s surely going to make it awkward for the Zyro Fisher team who’ve already got Deity components covering that area. But then they’ve just picked up Continental tires distribution on top of the Panaracer range that they’ve been selling since I worked there 30 years ago. Then over in the Upgrade Bikes room Stan’s were showing off a new range of bio lubes literally opposite the Motul guys who’ve been doing oils and slippery things since the 1850s. But then, I guess if everyone stayed in their lane we wouldn’t have a fraction of the options we have now. We wouldn’t have indexed shifting if Shimano had just stuck to fishing gear and thinking about it, we wouldn’t even have mountain biking.
The idea of an all-round bike that works on and off road has been around forever though, mainly because a real difference between road and off road is a relatively recent thing. Rebranded as gravel, that still seems to be the segment that’s bucking the slow selling biking trend with real growth. Not surprising then that Hope are pushing further into that segment with RX’ gravel versions of their carbon cranks, lightweight disc brakes, and some new wheels on the way too. Restrap were at the show for the first time with an expanded range of bags, and every gravel tyre range had something 50mm which reminded me a lot of mountain bike rubber thirty years ago.
Apart from Enigma who were showing a very neat looking ‘flat bar gravel bike’ on the USE components stand (they’ve given up telling everyone to call them Ultimate Sports Engineering), there still seems to be a real disconnect between commerce and cliche. By that I mean people have been saying ‘gravel biking is just 1990s MTB’ for years, but nearly everyone has seen that as a criticism not a confirmation of a good thing. Looking back at riding in the early 90s, we were having a great time. Rattling along mostly legal trails, getting lost, doing map reading and overnight camping events like the Polaris challenge, or being terrified on technical trails if we went much faster than walking pace. A much more sociable, inclusive sport that fitted into the natural landscape far better than the intimidating, economically exclusive, habitat destructive direction mountain biking seems to be increasingly heading in. But that’s a topic for another time.
Another topic I need to remember to bring up again is the big change in media. For now though, I’d say that everyone I saw scoring exclusives and having positive chats were what I’d call ‘new media’. Mostly folk from outside the bike industries, podcasters and online creators doing - and expecting - different things from the same old same old media who were shuffling round begging for scraps on the second day. I think that escape from old ruts is a really interesting and potentially very important thing for the direction of the whole industry.
Anyway, to wrap up what was supposed to be a Core bike show report, the fact it was the busiest in terms of attendees is hopefully a good sign, and it certainly felt like the first sign of spring after what has been a long, self-inflicted winter.
