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What are trends you've seen come full circle?

4K views 62 replies 31 participants last post by  mack_turtle 
#1 ·
The cycling industry is full of marketing tricks. I geek out on bicycles. I always have and love seeing new stuff come to market.

Looking at old bike reviews 5-10 years old, Many things reviewers praised on a bike are negative now. Many things that were negative are now in fashion.

Fork offsets used to be 39mm. Then everyone had to have longer 50+mm offsets. Now we're back near 40mm being better.

It was once all about shorter wheelbases. Now bikes are a foot longer...

We were all obsessed over tire weight and rolling resistance. Now we run Assagis without much thought.

Specialized convinced us that the Horst link was the grail of suspension designs. Now they don't even use it on some models.

A headangle of 68 was once found on Enduro bikes. Now it's considered twitchy and nervous.

Chain growth on FS bikes was a huge no no. Now all the bikes have it built in as 'anti squat'.
 
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#2 ·
Long chain-stays. Originally on the first mtbs, but with short front ends. Once thought that the long CS made bikes handle like a bus, we now know that longer chainstays mixed with a long front end make for much more balanced bike with much better handling in tight corners, chunk, mud, tech climbing and pretty much every riding situation. Unlike short chain-stays mixed with long front ends which makes a bike handle like a barge, shopping cart, wheel barrow or like riding a swing gate.

I am still having a hard time believing how much better my 450mm CS length bike handles tight single tracks and fast corners than my 417mm CS bike. I never would have even considered something with longer than 420mm CS when I bought my last new bike in 2005. A lot of advancement has happened in the last 15 years and bikes are so much better because of simple things like this.


“Until recently, the shortest possible chainstays were the rage. And for some, they still are. Whether it’s because they’re being developed using a dartboard decision-making process or the result of actual engineering, short chainstays are going the way of 26" wheels. More brands are beginning to lengthen the rear centre to better position rider mass between the wheels.”
 
#18 ·
Long chain-stays. Originally on the first mtbs, but with short front ends. Once thought that the long CS made bikes handle like a bus, we now know that longer chainstays mixed with a long front end make for much more balanced bike with much better handling in tight corners, chunk, mud, tech climbing and pretty much every riding situation. Unlike short chain-stays mixed with long front ends which makes a bike handle like a barge, shopping cart, wheel barrow or like riding a swing gate.

I am still having a hard time believing how much better my 450mm CS length bike handles tight single tracks and fast corners than my 417mm CS bike. I never would have even considered something with longer than 420mm CS when I bought my last new bike in 2005. A lot of advancement has happened in the last 15 years and bikes are so much better because of simple things like this.

"Until recently, the shortest possible chainstays were the rage. And for some, they still are. Whether it's because they're being developed using a dartboard decision-making process or the result of actual engineering, short chainstays are going the way of 26" wheels. More brands are beginning to lengthen the rear centre to better position rider mass between the wheels."
Yep, I initially thought short chainstays were a good way to keep the wheelbase in check on modern slack bikes with long reaches. In reality, the imbalance it causes offsets any gains from the shorter rear. It feels like you're riding on the rear wheel and pivoting around it rather than being centered. This feels very awkward.
 
#4 ·
I have a hardtail with "track end" style dropouts, so I can lengthen the chainstay length if I wanted. I keep em short. I'd rather rip my eyeballs out with a spork than ride my bike with chainstays longer than 430mm, but that's just one variable in the equation of how a bike fits and handles under each rider on a specific kind of terrain. a different bike in a different location might handle better with, among other variations, longer chainstays.

the trend for super short chainstays, when applied to all bikes, was not a good idea. but if the pendulum swings back and marketing hype tells everyone that every bike should have massively long chainstays, we'll see a lot of riders suffering under bikes with bad proportions in some applications.

when people start talking about geometry variations and trends, they often leave out the regional preferences and type of bike. the kind of stuff that works best in Squamish is not necessarily suited for Florida, Texas, Ohio, or Connecticut. variations that work well for FS bikes don't necessarily work the same way on hardtails. singlespeed bikes require a different riding style than bikes with massive 1x drivetrains.
 
#16 ·
I have a hardtail with "track end" style dropouts, so I can lengthen them if I wanted. I keep em short. I'd rather rip my eyeballs out with a spork than ride my bike with chainstays longer than 430mm, but that's just one variable in the equation of how a bike fits and handles under each rider on a specific kind of terrain. a different bike in a different location might handle better with, among other variations, longer chainstays.

when people start talking about geometry variations and trends, they often leave out the regional preferences and type of bike. the kind of stuff that works best in Squamish is not necessarily suited for Florida, Texas, Ohio, or Connecticut. variations that work well for FS bikes don't necessarily work the same way on hardtails. singlespeed bikes require a different riding style than bikes with massive 1x drivetrains.
This is me as well, I'm short and prefer 29ers. But I like short in the rear to maneuver tight areas and longer in the front so a mid bike shift in bodyweight keeps it stable.
 
#5 ·
I wasn't around when they first came out but I remember working at a shop 10+ years ago looking at OLD oval chain rings in packages thinking how gimmicky they were. Was surprised to see oval rings making a come back.

Coil shocks were the thing way back when, then air came along and coil disappeared for a little while, now coil is back in.

All I got :D
 
#6 ·
I wasn't around when they first came out but I remember working at a shop 10+ years ago looking at OLD oval chain rings in packages thinking how gimmicky they were. Was surprised to see oval rings making a come back.

Coil shocks were the thing way back when, then air came along and coil disappeared for a little while, now coil is back in.

All I got :D
Ovals were around in the 80's by shimano and have definitely come full circle. Though it could be argued that they didn't drop away just into the niche for awhile until the science caught up.
 
#8 ·
I was hoping to preempt the troll posts, but:
oval rings are not a resurgence of Biopace. stop saying that ****.
Hite Rite was not a dropper post.

so far as I can seem most of mountain biking has been a linear progression:
no one is going back to tubes, rim brakes, bar ends, multiple chainrings, narrow handlebars, long stems, QR skewers, short top tubes, steep head tube angles, rigid seatposts, etc. some of those things work for some people and will hang on, but no one is intensionally swinging back in that direction.
 
#12 ·
I was hoping to preempt the troll posts, but:
oval rings are not a resurgence of Biopace. stop saying that ****.
Hite Rite was not a dropper post.
I think ovals are an evolution of biopace. The idea even back then was to even out the flat spot in the power curve, just the science wasn't there to assess how much you needed to oval to gain over that flat spot.

There was a remote from IRD for the hite rite that did make it a dropper post. Especially if you had the 4" hite rite, and the original dropper post from Maverick required that you grab a lever under your saddle to actuate it which wasn't far off from reaching down and grabbing your seatpost QR as you approached a down like we did back in the day. I could actuate the hite rite in motion with the QR without stopping, sometimes. However the hite rite went away with the push of mountain biking away from having fun on your bike and instead the serious drive towards NORBA/UCI racing as the reason for mountain biking to exist. Thankfully marketing has returned to the mountain bike as a fun recreational activity and not just a sport. That has finally come full circle.
 
#19 ·
I see these things going back and forth based on trends, they aren’t bike design related though. The funny thing is rather than just admit you follow trends people have to come up with dumb reasons why one is better than the other.

Water bottles and hydration packs

Flat pedals and clipless pedals

Baggy clothes and Lycra

Small sunglasses and large sunglasses

High cuff socks and low cuff socks
 
#20 ·
Oval rings were around in the 1970s with peaks ~3 o'clock and 9 o'clock
Biopace in the late 1980s were not oval, kind of rounded off four sided, and with the peaks being ~ 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock, instead of the current oval ~3 o'clock and 9 o'clock

Pre late 1980s, mtn bikes had slack and relaxed head angles, then they got steeper and more aggressive with fighter plane vs cargo plane handling. Now head angles are back to slack, but aggressive now means the opposite.

ps: in the non-bike world I read that short shorts for males are making a comeback
 
#21 ·
I like the rebranding of fanny packs as hip packs. They sucked the first time around.

As an obsessive climber, I actually loved bar ends. Since all trails have become flow trails with 6 foot wide paths, wide bars have effectively replaced the need. ;-) Maybe after the trees grow back, we will come full circle with bar ends.

I'm hoping toe clips will come back, just for the lolz
 
#40 ·
Also, non-DH casing 2.5" wide tires. They started to be a thing in the very early 90's, until Keith Bontrager ruined this with that heavy focus on making wheels super light and narrow. With that becoming so popular in the early 90's, 2.5" wide tires never had a chance to gain traction (pun intended).
 
#25 ·
Oakleys. I have a set of M-frames (circa 91?) with multiple lenses which could easily be mistaken as current models almost 30 yrs later.
 
#30 ·
Having ridden MTB and worked in bike shops from the mid 1980s through the NORBA / weight weenie periods of the 90s, I've seen lots of things come and go and sold lots of "new and improved" bike stuff. Many things in cycling have been around before in one form or another as far back as the late 1800s (oval / elliptical chain rings, soft tail rear suspension designs, etc.). Some things stick around or evolve while others disappear.

What I ride now is closer to my first mountain bike in 1985 than the bikes I rode in the '90s.

My first mountain bike (1985)
Head angle: 68 degrees
Chain stay length: 473 mm
Handlebar width: 705 mm
Stem length: 50 mm
Tires: 26 x 2.2
Rim internal width: 26 mm
Pedals: Flat
Seatpost: Quick release adjustable

My 6th mountain bike (1992)
Head angle: 72 degrees
Chain stay length: 425 mm
Handlebar width: 590 mm
Stem length: 150 mm
Tires: 26 x 1.9
Rim internal width: 17 mm
Pedals: Clipless
Seatpost: Fixed height
 
#38 ·
Tire levers. It seemed like everyone I knew took pride in never needing them or never using them. Now I see them mentioned all the time in tire reviews, etc. I imagine that's due to the ubiquity of tubeless-ready rims and tires and tighter fits.
In my experience, tubeless ready rims and tires have more consistent fit that rarely needs lever. Old school rim and tires were hit and miss for me. I pretty much have always carried levers in my pack, even when I wore those neon fanny packs back in the late 80's. ;-)
 
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