While I’ve been adjusting to a new life in Portland and spending every minute outside of work searching for a new home, some interesting things have been afoot back in the bike industry. Most notably, evidence of what basically amounts to a merger between Shimano and Fox continues to grow. I’d first written about the “unique electricity” between the two companies back on March 2nd, but at this point, they might as well have exchanged class rings.
Regardless of what any of us think of completely and utterly wired bicycles, the intersection of Di2 and Fox’s CTD suspension system should pretty much be considered the point at which the two companies effectively become one–at least as far as competitors are concerned. Given all the suspension patents being held by Shimano and the more recent evidence surfacing on Geoff Kabush’s Scott, the partnership is definitely trying to shake off SRAM. The most interesting part of all of this might now become SRAM’s response. In the past, SRAM has proven particularly effective at using Shimano’s innovations against them, turning the barrel of things like “Dual-control” right back at them and pulling the trigger. For all the grumbling, electronics have been receiving a pretty warm welcome from consumers, while SRAM holds to an emphasis on ultralight mechanical designs and simplicity. Shimano remains the 800lb gorilla of the bike business, but both companies are on pretty solid ground now, and both are capable of innovating.
Given that SRAM seems to prefer to grow by acquisition, if they were to go after electronics, it’s tough to imagine any clear targets, but more unique companies like Factor are certainly doing some interesting and very different things with integrated electronics.
One way or another, it seems like the next few years are going to be pretty interesting to watch.
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