Pinkbike Awards: Game Changer of the Year – Nominees
Arguments raged among staff at Pinkbike about who, what, or whether there even was a moment in 2014 when an event occurred in the mountain bike industry that promised to dramatically alter the future of the sport. Eventually, after shouting down sub-brilliant suggestions, like flat pedals at the World Cup DH and super-slack geometry for enduro racing, three candidates were nominated: One is a pioneering suspension brand that unexpectedly branched out into the component market. Another is a man who in one season turned a losing team into World Cup powerhouse, and the final nominee was a stop on the 2014 Enduro World Series that forced a fork in the road for the emerging sport. Game changers? Each of the candidates qualifies for a shot at the title either by challenging conventions or by creating new ones. That said, we can choose nominees and we can pick a winner, but time only will determine if our choice was truly a game changer.
Fox Factory Acquires Easton and Race Face
Fox Factory announced late in 2014 that it had purchased two high-profile component makers: Easton Cycling and Race Face Performance Products. The decision can be judged in two ways. Fox may believe that its share of the suspension market is nearing the saturation point and that acquiring two key component players provides them an opportunity to own a greater share of the mountain bike business. Another, and perhaps more plausible explanation, is that beyond electronic controls there are few if any mysteries left to explore in the manufacturing of cycling suspension products.
If that is true, then forks and shocks will quickly become commodity OEM products. With the luster of innovation and elitism removed, Fox will soon be trimming its pricing along with the likes of RockShox, Marzocchi, Suntour and Manitou, as suspension makers duke it out to gain shares of a stabilized marketplace. The ability to offer a package deal – matching wheels, a crankset, and cockpit items, along with Fox’s suspension components could earn them the nod from key OEM buyers.
SRAM, Fox’s greatest rival, has kept no secrets about the bargaining power it derives from owning identified brands that can provide a complete drivetrain, a cockpit ensemble, braking systems, suspension items and wheelsets. Shimano, as conservative as the Japanese component leader has been, has also diversified into cockpit components and accessories with some success, presumably for similar reasons.
What makes Fox a game changer is that the once-exclusive suspension maker’s move towards diversification announces a new era is upon us – one in which major component suppliers have honed their offerings to the point where they have become interchangeable. Relative parity creates a situation where the sum total of the bicycle will be valued more highly than any of its individual parts. In short, OEM bike makers can shop the field to squeeze pennies from the MSRP of their ranges. Now that an enthusiast-level rider can buy a mid-priced mountain bike in any category without thinking twice about the quality and performance of its fork or shock, the suspension war is over.
Measured in the context of the larger picture, today’s mid-travel dual-suspension bike is going to perform within one or three percentage points whether it has a Fox, RockShox, Cane Creek, or any top-rated suspension component. So, when a big-brand product manager wants to shave twenty bucks off of the bottom line of their new enduro bike (a $100 price reduction at the retail level), he or she will be scrutinizing suspension as much as any other component on the bike. A supplier like SRAM can cut a couple of dollars from ten items on their list, where Fox would have had to drop its fork and shock prices by ten dollars each. When orders are in the neighborhood of 30 to 40 thousand items, a ten dollar reduction may represent a substantial loss.
It’s no secret that in 2014, Race Face cranks were conspicuously replacing SRAM and Shimano items on flagship models across a wide range of bike brands. Easton’s wheels and cockpit products were also popular OEM spec. Fox’s acquisition of both brands adds a measure of bargaining power that it will need to defend its premium suspension range against its rivals in a penny-pinching OEM-driven marketplace. Even if Fox does not plan on using Easton or Race Face as bargaining chips, in a commodity-driven business model, OEM spec is market share. If Fox plays it right, they will have two extra slices of OEM pie with every serving. Potential benefits should be lower retail prices for bikes and more interesting component selections. The potential downside is that suspension makers that do not offer similar packages may soon become small-volume, boutique suppliers, further narrowing the differences between the offerings of the major players.
Eric Carter: Manager, Specialized World Cup DH Team
Specialized is probably the most identifiable mountain bike brand, and it is no accident. The Morgan Hill bike maker has carefully and cleverly built a marketing powerhouse, which it constantly prunes to keep its image in step with affluent riders of the moment. Thinking of Specialized conjures up a plethora of catchy product names, slogans and acronyms, crafted in great numbers and used successfully to bombard potential customers with two simple messages: Specialized is the world’s leading innovator in cycling and Specialized plays to win.
So, what happens when Specialized’s innovation comes into question, or it doesn’t win? Well, those are two rare moments, but a long dry spell on the World Cup Downhill series created the perfect storm when Aaron Gwin signed with Specialized after slaying the World Cup series for consecutive seasons. For some reason, riding a Demo 8, the most popular and well-respected DH bikes at the time, Gwin could not manage a place on the podium at a World Cup or World Championship DH race. The rest of the team didn’t do any better, and after two years, whisperings about the Demo being long in the tooth and Specialized not being competitive reached the media.
Specialized’s spin doctors may be the best this industry has ever seen, but nobody in marketing could polish that turd. What Specialized needed was a can of Whup-Ass, and Eric Carter said that he had one. Specialized gained control of the team and took a flyer on Carter, a highly-decorated veteran of BMX and DH racing, who had never been a team manager. They didn't have to wait long for results.
Gwin posted a win at the first World Cup of 2014. Fellow team mate Troy Brosnan posted his first World Cup win at Fort William and with two races to go, both were in contention for the overall with Specialized on the podium in six out of seven World Cup DH races. When asked, Carter proffered no special secret. He said that everything the team physically needed already existed.
What Carter did provide was guidance, support and encouragement – exactly when it was needed - and he ran interference to keep corporate pressure and unnecessary distractions from affecting his athletes. Carter knew from experience that, in a game where winning and losing is defined by hundredths of a second, those seemingly small changes would make a huge difference. Specialized knows how to market and win, but Eric Carter knows how to race and win.
Whistler Crankworx - Enduro World Series
Enduro’s grass-roots origins and participation-based format brought racing back to the people, and if sold-out races are a measure of success, enduro proves that, given a rider-friendly venue, mountain bikers would much rather race than spectate. That said, 2014 may mark the beginning of the end of enduro’s rider-friendliness.
When the Enduro World Series was formed, it united a diverse group of promoters and venues into one international tour. In doing so, the EWS gave enduro a recognizable profile for the media and jumped into the radar of bike-industry pro teams.
Mountain bike history shows that when professionals start playing in the sand box, the weaker and milder inhabitants will soon be ejected. With the EWS rounding out its second successful season, there was talk about whether the series would quickly evolve to a pro-only venue like World Cup XC and DH.
Any doubts would have been silenced by the EWS at Whistler Crankworx. Racers faced, in nine hours, what amounted to five physically demanding stages, many with monster transfer climbs, and some of the most technically difficult descending they would see on the 2014 tour. The Crankworks EWS put the hurt to the pros and stretched the amateurs to exhaustion. Good weather saw the lion’s share of competitors make it through to the finish. A hard rain would probably have made it a gong show.
Arguably the toughest race in the EWS’s brief history, Whistler Crankworx put the series to task. Should the level of difficulty of EWS-level enduro races be elevated to where it tests elite-level professionals to their breaking points, or should the venues be designed to allow top riders among the sport’s working-class amateur racers to get around the courses?
Post-ride polls and racer interviews indicated that the majority would like to see the EWS favor the pros at the expense of amateur competitors. EWS organizers are now faced with a fork in the road and their decisions will likely favor the majority’s. Game changer? Absolutely. Whistler’s course designers put together an enduro that will never be forgotten, both for the magnitude of its five distinctly different stages and for its seminal role in professionalizing a popular grass-roots sport.
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The competition just changed, and it will drastically effect what comes OEM.
Yay for lack of variety and limiting competition.
Wait, what?
In this day and age with a multitude of choices for every part of a bike, most all bikes and components within a certain price point will perform very similarly, however occasionally there will be something that doesn't. For example, look at the Pike vs. the Fox 34/36. In 2012, the Lyric/Revelation was just about as good as the 34/36. Then the Pike came out, and it was far and away the better fork, but in 2015 the new 36 made it anyone's game again. When Shimano released their current generation of brakes in 2011/12/13 (depending on the group), they were arguably the best out there, then in 2015 the SRAM Guide came out, and now it's anyone's came again.
So, at different points in time, different companies were leading the field for certain components, and when components are grouped together it can inhibit consumers from getting all the innovation they can in an OEM spec.
If the article is correct and premium suspension is about to become a commodity, I think that's awesome. Will it hurt aftermarket suspension makers? Depends on each company's value proposition. Suspension geeks will probably still pay extra for DVO's user serviceability and DVO will be fine. If X-fusion is hurt because mid-level bikes no longer ship with garbage suspension that needs tossed right away, I'm ok with that. You shouldn't need to go aftermarket for suspension that does what it is supposed to.
Also, keep thinking xfusion is junk and sell me you take offs cheap. Ignore the inverted fork they have out that is called the Ferrari of am forks, that put out the locking axle before the rs1 that fits all 20mm hubs instead of proprietary stuff.
Thinking like that will guarantee we are stuck with just rs and fox.
Notice when fox put out 5 years of junk. It happened right as marzocchi fell off the map. Less competition=crap. The xfusion and suntour picked slack forcing fox to actually innovate and suddenly a good 36 comes out.
re: the bars/stems/chainrings - you are only looking at it from the point of view of: I'm in the market, how many do I have to choose from? I'm taking a step back and saying why are so many of us in the market for short stems, wide bars and singe chainrings? If you have to immediately replace parts on a new bike you are getting screwed. If in the process a few guys get to make a living popping out CNC parts it's great for them, but none of them are really innovating. They mostly sell the same stuff at the same price.
try a different perspective.
TBH I don't think that, from a fans point of view, specialized has changed that much as a team on the DH circuit; nor really do I think that, from an interested consumer's perspective, that specialized have done anything ""game changing"" (I hate that phrase) under Carter. He has helped the team play catch up, but hardly set the DH World Cup alight.
And as for the EWS becoming another series beyond the reach of the committed amateur; you and I both seem to not really mind as long as it doesn't interfere with our loal riding! Amen!
For me personally, the biggest change to my world of MTBing is without doubt the rapidly increasing spread of some important wheel sizes and soon to be hub spacings leading me to take a decision to stick with what I have got for the foreseeable future.
My bike still looks the same and I ride the same spots as last year. I would bet that none of the 3 nominated have any influence on 99.9% of pinkbike readers. Therefore not a game changer
The greater emergence of the narrow wide chainring... A game changer for sure for more and more riders. (Not me yet though).
2015 could be the fat bike. Who knows. It's been around for years but 2014,15 seems to be where it is becoming popular.
would love to see the cx bike there too one day. Taking riding back to its roots.
Totally untrue. As an engineer, I can tell you that product innovators are NEVER done exploring the possibilities of performance in a given domain. The more likely outcome is when mating marketing and business models with the cost to push the innovation to the next level, said discovered possibilities are delayed to the consumer until a point where the marketability can be pointed toward a more feasible consumer.
I don't think it is a bold statement to claim he was wrong.
They change the game.
They don't IMPROVE the game, but that wasn't the question, was it?
Prolly one of the greatest things on the article that I read.
Honestly speaking none of the above are true game changers (maybe the FEST series would be the closest one). But you can't change the game every year.
This makes "real" mountain biking more accessible, more affordable, and more sustainable for more and more people. That, to me, is a game changer. Now all we need is for local trails associations/clubs/shops to really get into the teaching business more. More clinics, more instructors perhaps being able to make a real living off this thing - all leading to more people riding better and having more fun, taking advantage of the awesome (and newly affordable) gear.
An EWS exclusive series would restrict to specific teams and pre-selected riders, no? Without a governing body, how would that work? Exclusivity probably should come in the form of an altered route for the amateurs in races like the Whislter EWS(IF it's warranted), not eliminate the a amateur category all together. Or split whistler EWS into a two day even where everybody can slay it?
m.youtube.com/watch?v=mdnZhvLTvMM
They also forgot to properly address the Demo/Specialized team as "career killer".
I think no person changed the game.game. No product changedgame. What had changed the game is the evolution of what can be done in a bike. Whether big or small. Media tends to forget that. Why? They don't get paid for that.......
So yeah the 3 options for "Game Changer of the Year" are less than meh. I didn't scan all the comments, but I saw plenty about FEST. Can't argue there. What I didn't see & it may seem strange that I'm suggesting this based on pretty much everything else I ever say about the guy, but if anyone/anything changed the game I'd have to put Zink in there. I may not agree with his slope/Rampage contest placings but regardless of the forum he's chosen to perform some things in & arguments over what he's awarded for doing so, he's still done some shit. Some shit that we all notice & shit that's never been done before. Second @ Rampage deserved he didn't, but this here is probably where he should be given some gold. Don't get it all wrong though, if bruh scores a podium for another one hit wonder @ next Rampage I'm still gonna shit all over it. Gotta tell it like it is.
Ews courses are a cake walk over here, and we refer to Fox and SRAM as nice aisian companies
Enjoy your navel gazing pinkbike
Triple backflips
Enduro (from the next big thing, to neon sausage suits in World Cup dh.)
definitely not..