Henry's Quinney's 2024 Predictions

As we tick over into 2024 the mountain biking is in a strange place. The growth spurt that would take the world by storm turned out to be just that - a spurt - and has left the industry with the same hand-me-down jeans that we've always had. It's just now they no longer fit around the waist and leave unsightly flashes of pale and pasty calf. My predictions are as much wild speculation as anything.

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Noses Will Continue to be Bloodied in Racing

When talking about pro racing I think there are two separate issues that just so happen to be very easily mistaken for one another. The first is communication, and keeping everyone in the loop and on the same page. By everyone I don't even mean me or you, but rather people who make decisions regarding people's livelihood. I know from a small amount of personal experience and a larger amount from the frustrations of friends that this isn't really the case. This isn't helped by the fact that pro-mountain biking is a bit of a wayward circus at the best of times, however, since coming in, Discovery seem to have capitalized on the concrete foundations of chaos and confusion that were laid long before their time. Industry standards in mountain biking at an elite level are at best messy and at worst downright shocking. This leads me closely to my second point - something has to give.

World Cups are in my opinion fundamentally an unsound product. 120 riders trying to qualify is romantic and exciting but it's not a long-term solution for the peak of our sport. What we need is either a well-funded regional series to let those outside the top 40 sharpen their teeth or some kind of two-division system where each team has a set amount of riders, and gets promoted or relegated across two tiers by the total points they'd accrued at the end of the season. This race could happen the day before and ease congestion on the track as well as in the coverage. Perhaps that could even mean for elite team status you have to qualify a certain criteria (each team could for instance have space - and therefore an opportunity to get important championship points - for two elite males, one elite female, one junior male, one junior female).

When conducting interviews at the MSA World Cup I had a great deal of sympathy with many of the riders and staff, but realistically something will change. I just hope that change is done well enough to not require drastic adjustments in the future. The ESO has a huge task on their hands, and when bringing change in this big it's always going to ruffle some feathers but that doesn't make it any less worthwhile in the long run. All that said, this mainly relates to downhill. What's happening with enduro I have no idea, and having never really spent time on the circuit I don't feel even remotely well qualified enough to say.


Enduro bikes will be steeper

The 63-degree head angle of the enduro bike will go the way of the dodo. Instead, we'll see bikes that have a greater value of stack, possibly a shorter reach and most definitely a longer rear end. The reach I think will be dealers' choice, but in the next year or two we will start to develop a stronger understanding of the relationship between stack and chainstay length on production bikes. Largely, a 640mm stack needs a 450-ish stay, a 650mm a 460-ish and so on. I don't quite know what the relationship is, but I think we'll have a solid foundation by the end of '25.

The long rear end tempers the high front in terms of weight distribution and the high front makes scooping the bike and wheel lifts easier, all while offering a great deal of stability at speed without the inherent drawbacks of wheel flop at slower speeds that you can get with slacker head angles.


Shimano Saint will fall in line with Linkglide

I heard in 2021 that Shimano Saint was coming out in 2023. I heard in 2022 that it was coming out in 2025. That said, I think we will see flashes at Eurobike or perhaps slightly later. I have seen nothing other than the proto-type mechs you would have seen over the past half-decade and, if gossip is to be believed, that development wasn't always completely rosey in terms of how the product was received by riders.

The important thing that will make Saint happen in '24 is that LinkGlide has laid such a solid platform for what 11-speed can and should be. The punch-proof steel cassettes shift very well under load and, while not the quietest or the fastest they do give a reliable shift that can be grabbed without any mechanical sympathy whatsoever. I think that this would ultimately line up well for the needs of racers.


More Weird-Wheels

I recently reviewed the stringy spoke Berd wheels, and I can see more brands going in on novel spokes in the future. Are they better? I think so, but that's not to say they're perfect. After years of making brutally stiff wheels, the industry is now in something of an arms race to provide the most compliant ones - and that will lead us to a strange and wonderful place. I don't know if they'll have string spokes or just be super shallow rims, but mountain biking wheels will venture further away from established norms. Expect to see more two-cross lacing patterns on the front, specific rim layups and wafer-thin rim profiles.


We Will See a Pull Shock Soon, But Maybe Not Yet

When the cover was finally lifted on the proto-type bike that's been ridden to so much success by Loic Bruni and Finn Iles, I have to admit I was a little disappointed. I had hoped there would be a novel shock technology in there, but sadly it was not to be. It was a bit like when I saw Corey Taylor on QI, laughing with Alan Davies. It's not that I wanted him to be mean or rude but I was just shocked by how charmingly conventional he was, and I couldn't pretend that it didn't make me uncomfortable.

This is my most tenuous and least likely prediction but pull shocks will make a comeback sooner or later not because they're inherently better, but rather because it will be a way to reshuffle the deck in patent wars. That will either fade into obscurity almost immediately or create an artificial demand as brands have to keep up with the trend. You thought trunnion was bad? You ain't seen nothing yet.

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