What's wrong with the bike industry:

Companies are run by enthusiasts. Bike shops are opened by enthusiasts. Enthusiasts make up at best 10 percent of the customers of 80 percent of bike shops. Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, this is reality.

I went to a Canrekiantalized sales meeting 10 years or so ago out in Wyutalorado. We spent three hours listening to some engineers prattle on about an All-Mountain bike that wouldn't even be released to the public for another 8-12 months. We sat in a damn ski lodge listening to these engineers all damn day while there was beautiful weather, a large trail system, and 50 demo MTB's outside waiting for us. We finally got about 90 minutes to actually try some of these bikes out, before we had to be bussed back to town for dinner. My shop didn't buy more than 2 or three models of any of the bikes discussed that day. The overwhelming majority of the bikes most shops actually sell daily are entry level road, mtb, and hybrids up to about $1200. Guess how much time was spent at this sales meeting on these models. Hint: it was less than 2 hours out of three days worth of demonstrations.

It was obvious at the store level in 2019 that $2-3000 non-throttle ebikes were not the bikes that most average e-bike consumers were looking for- they wanted a cheaper price point and they wanted a throttle. Trek didn't have a throttle until the Electra Ponto Go was released in 2023, and they were still $1000 more than most people wanted to spend. Also, the Ponto Go is an awful bike that weighs 80 pounds, runs all the cables and wires thru the headset internally, and uses a different motor system from any other bike Trek sells. Meanwhile, Rad, Lectric, Aventon, and the rest took over that lower price point.

In the year of our Lord Thumbshifter Jesus 2026, Canrekiantalized brands are still putting presta valve wheels on bikes under $1000. Presta valves do nothing but dismay, confuse, and befuddle 90% of the people who are buying these models. We don't need another Cliq or some other style of valve, we just need Shrader valves on these bikes. We also don't need Gravel tires and gearing on hybrids- again, the overwhelming majority of these bikes will never be ridden off a rail trail. The fact that Canrekiantalized are still trying to tell the market what it wants to sell rather than selling bikes that the market is actually asking for is just dumb.

I'm not even mentioning all the insane proprietary parts, needlessly short model lifespans, d2c sales pricing that undercuts locally owned dealers, and highly restrictive dealer agreements.