![]() Linking up the Peak’s secret trails take detailed local knowledge Low end bikes from some of the big brands look good, with team colour paintjobs borrowed from further up the range, but the fundamentals are just wrong. I knew they’d go home park the bike in the garage and never get it out again. He didn’t have a name for the range he hoped to launch but he did have an ethos, “I wanted a brand that would bring people into the sport and keep them there” he says, “I’d go to trail centres and see people finishing rides on these entry level bikes and they didn’t look happy. Mike was designing bikes for Diamondback when he approached retailer GO Outdoors with a pitch to design a range of bikes for them. ![]() One man who understands this better than most is Mike Sanderson. ![]() There’s a good reason why many bike designers and product managers spend more time looking at spreadsheets than actually getting to ride bikes. To achieve that these bikes need to provoke a smile in the showroom and on the trails and be able to do that reliably, ride after ride.įor bike brands this means tough decisions have to be made on where to spend money when building the bike – looks, performance and reliability all making demands of the budget. They provide the gateway into mountain biking that the industry depends upon to turn an occasional bike rider into a cycling enthusiast. Entry level mountain bikes are the unsung heroes of the sport. ![]() Look past the high-end bling though and it’s the bikes much further down the price list that have to put the hard work in. As bikes incorporate ever more exotic materials and clever technology prices have crept up and, while bikes are still better value and better performing than they have ever been, the price tags on the range topping models are enough to make even the most well-heeled rider wince. We are drawn to shiny stuff and the bike industry is more than happy to oblige us with ever more eye catching offerings. Calibre Bikes and the Bossnut redefined the entry-level full-susser category and now they hope to have the same impact with its Calibre Sentry enduro bike. ![]()
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