Mountain Biking - Future of MTBing

I have noticed that lately, between the LBS sales, new products and riders i see that the 24" beefy tire, DJ frame bikes are getting SUPER popular. My mechanic claims that will be the standard in a few years aside from the strictly Dh and XC bike. What are your thoughts on this topic? How do you think MTB's will look in a few years? Many companies are producing a variety of styles, which ones will take?

Originally posted by urbanking
How do you think MTB's will look in a few years? Many companies are producing a variety of styles, which ones will take?

I think all bikes in the future will look like this:

http://www.neebu.net/~khuon/images/cycling/cannondale_strange_bike_idea.jpg

:eek: :D :D :D

God I hope not....

Yeah I wouldn't want to have to scavenge my rollerblades for parts :rolleyes:

Hopefully that idea got scrapped along with the MX division. :)

Oh crap I didn't even notice it was a canondale..haha...

Those crazy people at canondale ... then again I bet a lot of people doubted the Klein Mantra when it was devolped, I still get many looks and comments about it.

What the heck.....I saw that cannondale a long time ago.

hm... hard to say.

but i think we will see even more specialization - with BMX, Downhill, trials and all kinds of special niche bikes developing quickly and radically.

the basic road bike and touring bike won't change too much (touring has changed slowly with MTB influence)

XC MTB will continue to evolve, but no huge changes i think

but yeah, the "freeride" and Downhill and "trick" bikes (BMX, trails, big air) stuff will continue to quickly change i think.

What does DJ stand for?

Is there an abbreviation glossary online? (Looked everywhere, cannot find)

Originally posted by EpsilonArmati
What does DJ stand for?

Only thing I can think of is Disc Jockey ... but maybe DJ is a bike term I dont know about :p

DJ=Dirt Jump/Dirt Jumping/Dirt Jumper.

Originally posted by nathank
but yeah, the "freeride" and Downhill and "trick" bikes (BMX, trails, big air) stuff will continue to quickly change i think.

Thats where all the progression will be. Freeride bike will be light, stronger, excellent pedalling suspensions. Dh bikes will follow the same suit.

Any thoughts on hardails? Will they progress or die? It seems to me that they are turning into 24" wheel 4" inch shock BMX bikes.

They aren't. 24" cruisers aren't as common as you think (I have never actually seen one live...maybe its an east coast thing?). They won't die. We are already seeing the trend for style and for the most part is more 'pure' on a ht then on a dually. The street scene in Seattle is huge and growing and moving north and south. I think the style developed because of this street movement will translate directly into freeriding. Want to huck something, do a 360 nose wheelie no footer cereal eater off of the edge. That type of thing will be far more common and popular than driving off of the edge of a cliff :)...then again street is far more bmx / trials then anything else. Since shore freeriding is soo trials/trail riding/dh I can see street having a greater impact on the shore style freeriding than on the hucking side of freeriding. Also if you really want to know how ht's are doing visit www.nsmb.com there is a lot of ht pride there when it comes to freeriding. I see ht's actually becoming more of an elite/expert thing than duallies which seem to be anyone can buy and ride (excluding the really fun ones).

I also think we will see a true limit to suspension. The definition of optimum. There will always be companies developing truly big suspension bikes (Karpeil comes to mind) and forks but I think there is a limit when it comes to racing and even freeriding. Instead of going to bigger travel companies will try for optimum travel design.

Wow that was a lot :)

What Maelstrom said :D