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Mountain bike industry has been over priced and over saturated for a decade now. There’s A bunch reputable brands that make Good bikes already. Why wouldn’t I just buy from them? I’m not so loyal to moto manufacturers I’d buy whatever product they made just because.
The world is on shakey ground right now, look at France and South Korea's problems.
Using myself as an example - when I first considered an emtb - knowing nothing I was drawn to the PMG product as I race a KTM and the dealer which I like carries both motorcycles and bicycles. I could have easily just pulled that trigger - I assume I was there target market. I however did some more research and went a different direction that suited me better. Bottom line I do think there is some synergy there. Plus think about the psychological effect of looking at $7K emtb - it kinda makes the $11k dirt bike seem not so bad if that makes sense…
All these Moto companies that built E bikes like Yamaha KTM even intense. All those bikes suck big time compared to a real mountain bike companies bike.
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I see what your saying. To me all the moto brands making e bikes are pretty unimaginative. Like you said when you do some research there are better options.
Except the KTM bicycle brand doesn't belong to Pierer (it was split off decades ago), so they have to tie it in with their two niche sub brands - brands that they are putting a concerted effort to market as not KTM. So viewing the bicycle business as a branding loyalty exercise is a misplaced strategy from step 1.
Yeah I hear what you are saying but by that time I saw no major diff between the brands GG , HUS, and KTM so just figured they were all the same - in other words I didn’t devalue them because they didn’t say KTM.
If it requires the consumer to ignore marquee brands but then tie the marketing back together at the product level to navigate, it probably isn't a successful branding strategy.
Middle East and Ukraine say hi
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone refer to Intense as not being a real mountain bike company. I haven’t followed the MTB industry for the last 8 or so years. Did something change?
And also cut racing. CF Moto and Argo are rumored to be looking to purchase.
They have not been what they were for a while now. Their E bike is not exactly awesome. Only reason they sell any is because they can be bought cheap. Old school stuff
Bummer to hear about Arctic Cat. For years they had Tucker Hibbert who was like a RC to snocross and now they are down to not even racing
MtB stuff is funny though.
It’s mostly the same stuff over and over again. Tweak geometry one way. The. Tweak it back.
Our need to always have something new is driving prices up and companies to suffer.
I rode my 2014 bike last week and have a similar 2023 enduro/all mountain model. While on paper the 23 should be leaps and bounds ahead based on premium components, weight and geometry.
They ride different, but it’s only marginally better.
Shit. We think WE are a niche sport!
Getting off topic.
Some people think their 2015 ktm is not better than a 2025. I don’t agree.
the same could be said for moto bikes.. kind of exemplified by Keefer's re-test of the 08 crf450 compared to todays. changes aren't always advancements.
Pit Row
Not good news they won't be going racing. That is what you do to save a company.
Yes, way more niche than MOTO. It's pretty cool to watch the pros in person though and how good they can handle a sled. There was a ton of money going into snocross when it was at it's peak. Now it seems to be dying
When was the last significant advance in suspension, KYB SSS?
I guess? I don’t think mtn bike forks and shocks have had any crazy advancements since the SSS came out (as far as technology). Travel has changed on mtn bikes some since then. But both are constantly tweaking geometry linkage, angles etc.
There is this stuff called live valve. It’s kind of cool. Some of the newer technology is the high and low speed rebound and high and low speed compression adjustment plus A separate bottom out circuit it’s adjustable on some shocks. The stuff always changing. But the big changes lately are active electronic circuits. On a fly changing of the valving
sorry this stuff is way off-topic
Motocross bikes have also been tweaking geometry linkage, angles etc, all small changes but no significant improvement.
Yea reread my last sentence.
I'm getting lazy!
Mountain bikes from 2005-2025 is like moto from 1975 to 2005. Bigger wheels, longer travel and much better suspension, 1X drives with wide range cassettes, and introducing e-assist is like going from 2 stroke to high tech 4 strokes. Things have leveled off a bit, but the moto company's e-bikes are about a design cycle behind the bike companies, if they came out 5 years earlier they may have had something to offer folks to jump brands.
Having said that there may be a bicycle company the equivalent of KTM find themselves in a similar predicament in the near future. We are in the middle of a market correction, bikes and motorcycles are 1 thing if the general public finds itself upside down on bigger ticket items like car and house loans this will seem quaint.
I don’t know but it sure seems like the margins on a high end MTB would be exponentially higher than a dirtbike. The development and complexity of a DB seems way more costly.
They are. Retail Markup is around 50%(thanks @8tensolutions for the correction), from what I remember when I was working at a place that sold them.
So how do go an F up margins like that 😂
Post a reply to: KTM to file for Bankruptcy/ Self Restructuring on Friday