GCN Tech Show: Is the future of the bike industry still doomed?

It’s a special edition of the GCN Tech Show this week as Alex is joined by Justin Hoy and George Wise to assess a downbeat but relevant question: is the bike industry doomed?

It’s a topic Ollie and Manon covered earlier in the year and since then we’ve continued to hear horror stories of bike shops going out of business and warehouses full of stock which companies are struggling to sell. With that doom and gloom comes a glimmer of hope with murmurings that industry prices are about to fall.

So, is there hope? Both Justin, owner of Pronto Bikes, and George, marketing manager at Saddleback, are well positioned to provide further insights. Far from doomed, they have a much more positive outlook for the current situation, although there are a few caveats to that.

Following on from that train of positivity, our trio explore the hottest new tech including some Winspace spokes. Ollie and Blake recently tried to break the new Winspace Lún MEGA wheels on a black mountain bike run, and while they eventually succeeded, it took some extreme measures. That led to plenty of questions in the comments about how to replace broken spokes on the wheels, and Winspace has a cool halo-inspired solution.

Orbea has also released their new Orca road bike. It’s seriously cool and you could be in with the chance of winning one through our latest competition. Learn more about that in the video below.

Finally, in an especially busy week for new tech, images of what’s believed to be a new Specialized Tarmac SL8 were leaked.

It wouldn’t be a GCN Tech Show without Comments of the Week and Bike Vault, and this week’s submissions include a Canyon Ultimate which controversially falls just short of a super-nice vote thanks to its rim brakes. There’s no such problems for a Cannondale SystemSix and Specialized Roubaix.

Want to see your bike featured in the show? Head over to the GCN App to submit a photo. Just remember that Ollie is a stickler for presentation and it could be the difference between a nice or super-nice vote.