In celebration of the twentieth year of this blog, I have a few tales to tell. This post is one of them. This series will occur off and on throughout this anniversary year, I hope to illuminate some behind-the-scenes stories and highlights from the blog during this time. Enjoy!
December on the blog usually marked my stab at prognosticating what the future in cycling might bring. This was usually found in the December 31st posts here. I thought that since we were coming to the end of another year that it might be fun to see how I did regarding predicting trends and events in cycling over the years.
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| Was 2015 the pinnacle of fat bikes, as I predicted? |
At the end of 2015, for example, I stated the following: "I feel that 29"ers, fat bikes, and 29+ have seen about as much play as they are going to get and I wouldn't at all be surprised to see some eroding of their popularity and thus, sales, in 2016."
The song goes, "Two outta three ain't bad" and I think I can safely say I got two of three things right here.
29"ers became "just a mountain bike", but they sure did not go away. If that is what I meant. Now one could say that sales of MTB's have waned, and since most of those are 29"ers, well then..... I could be seen as being correct there, but I'll put that one in the "L" column for this discussion.
However; fat bike sales definitely cooled way off after 2015, with many companies dropping fat bikes altogether soon after 2015. Innovation arguably came to a standstill until recently with Surly's Moonlander v2 model. There was a bit of a surge with 27.5 fat tires, but overall, yes. Fat bike sales dipped significantly after 2015.
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| Surly Krampus as seen at Outdoor Demo/Interbike |
29+ also took a hiatus as a bike many were interested in. Bikepacking, arguably, is the only reason this tire size has survived. MTB designs have whittled the width back to 2.6" on the maximum side for 29"ers, for the most part. 2.8" and 3.0" are still around, but this size wheel/tire combo is not the hot set-up it was hoped it would be earlier in the mid-twenty-teens.
Some things I predicted would happen never even came close to happening. Such was the case at the end of 2007 when I predicted the following: "Well, that "bit" is about to become a "bit more" and will be a really important part of my life moving forward."
I was actually being told by the owner of Twenty Nine inches that I'd be getting regular paychecks for my contributions and that I'd likely have to quit my daytime bike mechanic job! There was even a hint that this very blog might have to be curtailed, or go away, but we all know what happened there.
I was totally wrong!
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| I competed in CIRREM in 2011 and never got back there again |
Another swing and miss I have had in these prognostications has to do with events I have said I was going to do, signed up for, and then - for whatever reasons - did not ride. One such was CIREM, the February "kick-off" gravel event held for years now out of Cumming, Iowa. I rode in the snow-covered 2011 edition of that event, but I signed up for 2012 and never got there. An icy Winter storm the night before made the roads so treacherous I turned around after trying to drive for an hour and went back home.
Perhaps worse yet were the times I said I was going to do DK200, Gravel Worlds, or Solstice 100 gravel events and never did them. In that category, but not a prediction, is the time I signed up for the first Spotted Horse gravel event and went and did the Fargo Reunion Rid instead.
That'll do it for this week. I'll have more next Saturday to close out the year on these 20th Anniversary year blog posts.
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