The Bicycle Industry’s Marketing Missteps: A Call for Transformation
The allure of cycling hasn’t vanished overnight; rather, it has been gradually eroded by an overemphasis on specifications, discounts, and marketing that lacks distinction. In this analysis, we delve into how brands are inadvertently diminishing their own value and how the industry has confined itself within its own bubble. More importantly, we outline the steps necessary to rebuild value, culture, and aspiration—and why immediate action is imperative.
The Shift from Desire to Dependence
Historically, marketing in the cycling industry was about igniting desire and highlighting differentiation. Today, it often fosters dependency and uniformity. Major brand campaigns frequently resemble component catalogs:
- Bosch CX
- Avinox (formerly DJI)
- Shimano XT
- SRAM RED
- FOX Podium
Or they read like spec sheets:
- 110 Nm
- 1.5 Watts less drag
- 800 Wh
- 19.8 kg
By the time one finishes reading, it feels less like a narrative and more like a shopping list or performance sheet. Somewhere along the way, the product itself—the soul, the experience, the brand—has disappeared.
This isn’t to say brands don’t create comprehensive campaigns—they do. But in a world where the easiest message to communicate is components, ingredient-first thinking inevitably becomes the dominant narrative, overshadowing identity, culture, and meaning.
We sell the recipe, not the meal.
And the worst part is that we’ve been doing this for so long it feels normal. It has become a sign of how lazy we’ve become as an industry. Leaving the comfort zone is apparently harder than staying stuck in a loop that everyone knows is broken.
Brands tend to blame the dealers. But dealers didn’t invent ingredient marketing—they are downstream of it. And ingredient messaging now dominates to the point where brand identity becomes secondary.
When Components Replace Identity
The situation worsens when this obsession with components reshapes value itself. Let’s be clear: components matter—suspension quality, brakes, wheels, all of it. No one is denying the engineering, the performance gains, or the geek joy that comes with high-end parts.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth the industry keeps avoiding: when components do all the heavy lifting in your value story, your brand stops being the hero.
If the reason a bike is €5,000 more expensive is simply because the spec list changed from GX to XX Transmission, from Rhythm to Factory, or from alloy wheels to carbon, then the brand has unintentionally positioned itself as a delivery platform for third-party engineering. That’s exactly how brands slip into the ingredient trap: the narrative, the aspiration, the identity—everything gets outsourced to SRAM, FOX, Bosch, or whoever shows up on the downtube call-outs.
And the same pattern is repeating itself with Avinox. If your only reason to sell is being the first with Avinox, it may boost you for a year. But what happens when an entire armada of Avinox bikes enters the market? How does your story change? Where does your value come from when the ingredient you built your identity on becomes a commodity?
Components create performance value, not brand value. Performance value is repeatable, measurable, and available to everyone. Brand value is not.
A FOX Factory fork performs the same whether it’s mounted to a €3,500 bike or a €15,000 bike—so if riders don’t feel a difference in the frame, geometry, engineering, design, service ecosystem, or ownership experience, the premium collapses.
This is the real problem: if the bike’s soul doesn’t scale with the spec sheet, the price premium becomes a liability, not an asset.
The smartest brands in other industries already understand this:
- Cars don’t sell because they use Brembo brakes.
- Cameras don’t sell because they use Sony sensors.
- Smartphones don’t sell because they use Qualcomm chips.
These ingredients help—but they don’t define the brand. The bike world still hasn’t made that leap.
Components deliver performance. Brands must deliver meaning.
And when meaning disappears, no amount of Kashima or XX Transmission—or the latest Avinox release—can fill the void. Except you fight the price game.
When every brand tells the same component story, sameness becomes the end result—which brings us straight to the next problem.
The Clone Factory
The reality is: The average bike ad today is indistinguishable from the next. Change the logo, change the color, and no one would notice.
Could you walk into a bike shop and instantly tell one brand apart from another when they are lined up side by side? There are some strong exceptions, but the majority of the brands have become very similar. Even brands like Santa Cruz have gone down a way in which they ditched their iconic VPP look to make more space for bigger motors—like a Bosch—on their eMTBs. Without decals now, you could mistake it for a Transition or something else…
And here is the irony: we talk about freedom, adventure, personality, community. Yet our marketing feels as pre-packaged and risk-averse as an insurance brochure. Same gravel roads. Same mountain passes. Sa Calobra has been abused so many times by so many brands that it should start charging royalties. Same golden light. Same perfectly staged, emotionless riders in landscapes that could have been pulled from Shutterstock. And then we dare to call it authentic storytelling. Brands may add more diverse faces to their campaigns, but the language stays the same—insider-coded, performance-obsessed, and anything but inviting for new riders. Real inclusion isn’t about who appears in the photos—it’s about who the story speaks to.
Lost in the Bubble – The Illusion of Progress
The hardest part of being in a bubble is that everything inside still feels right. What looks progressive or innovative from the inside often lands flat outside. We applaud each other for micro-improvements and incremental ideas, mistaking internal validation for external relevance.
And because everyone around us thinks the same way, nothing challenges us. We keep using the same narratives, the same performance framing, the same insider language—and then wonder why the rest of the world doesn’t care. If everyone agrees with you, you’re not breaking new ground. You’re orbiting in circles.
Meanwhile, new players—from lifestyle brands to EV startups like ALSO—are rewriting the rules of desire. They speak to people, not insiders. They sell identity, values, belonging—not torque numbers. And predictable as ever, the usual suspects mock them for it.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth:
They at least have a story.
Their language resonates with the 99% who aren’t hardcore riders.
Ours resonates only with the tribe already converted.
And bubbles don’t just distort ideas—they distort who we design for.
When Insiders Become Gatekeepers
This is where the industry’s own structure becomes its biggest barrier. Many decision-makers in this industry are riders first and executives second. Often former or almost-pro riders. They obsess over aspects that simply do not matter to 90 percent of the average customers. Bikes are still sold almost exclusively through the lens of performance. Ride like a pro. Train like a pro. At 300 watts, this bike will save you 20 seconds an hour. At 150 watts? Well…
The problem isn’t that performance doesn’t matter. The problem is that it’s not the universal entry point.
The megatrends shaping our world—health, fitness, adventure, commuting, exploration—barely appear in our storytelling. We forget why the gravel boom exists: because it brought cycling back to the essence, not because it added another performance metric.