Trends that we saw at Sea Otter Classic 2009

One if the bigger things to hit Sea Otter this year was the full suspension 29er bikes that were introduced. Last year a handful of companies started coming out with them, but this year it seemed like more of them were showing up from various brands. Some of the FS29ers were considered “All Mountain” due to the amount of travel, kinda makes me wonder if they’ll ever try to come out with some sort of freeride/downhill 29er in the next few years…

Is Pink really dead? Well that’s hard to say. We did hear that from one company stating they were moving away from pink products and start focusing more on white. But if you recall, we mentioned that white was super hot at Interbike 2008, so I wonder if they are jumping on the wagon a tad late.

After thinking about this pink thing, I sought out pink looking products from bikes to accessories. From what I saw, pink is still pretty hot. In fact I even bought Priscilla a pair of pink Lizard Skin gloves that weekend. I also saw that Ellsworth was still offering their pink Epiphany, just like the one Kim Finch rides.

Frame sales are down, but accessories sales are high. Another tid bit we gathered was sales of high end frames have started going down. People are just not as willing to drop 2k for a new frame. So what more and more people are doing is keeping their current frame and spending more money on accessories and parts. Basically if you haven’t already figured it out, this thing called the economy is pretty bad and folks have quite a bit less cash to throw around, so what they’re doing is holding on to their stuff and replacing things if or when they break.

Personalization is King. Customizing your bike to your liking has always been a high point for bikers. From colored pedals to wheels, we like our stuff to either match or go with a theme. Well for those companies that offer small accessories to make a bike more personal, they’ll be doing well in the next few months.

Take for example this bike. New Ergon Grips, New Reaper Stem and Ghetto tubeless conversion. Already this bike has more personal appeal than it came with. But with added accessories, this bike is now a bad boy to its owners eyes.

These trends that I’ve mentioned were gathered from various industry people that we spoke with during the show. Plus we also saw it with our own eyes. So its not like we’re making this stuff up. Who knows what the next Interbike will bring, DH 29er? New suspension linkage? New internal geared hubs for mountain biking? Electronic braking? Carbon spokes? Frictionless bearings? Super lite weight AM Bike under 20lbs? What ever it might be, we’re looking forward to it!