I'm so stoked you guys found my list! Not to get in as competition or anything like that but we talked about this on the world's okayest mountain bike podcast as well. I'm honored that I was mentioned!

To Blakes point, bikes aren't only "county" specific. They're also regionally specific. I noticed a while ago that many times, different areas are loyal to either local brands or brands that a local racer is riding. For example, in Arizona, you might see more Pivots. In SoCal, you might see more Intense. Colorado, you might see more Yetis. And in NorCal it might be Santa Cruz and Ibis. Now, I'm not saying that these are going to be the prominent bikes. Whatever "Big Brand" that is being sold at the local bike shops is going to be the majority of the bikes, but you'll probably notice more of those boutique brands in those areas.

You brought up a good point…how many of these ‘brands’ are just a re-name of some generic mass produced department store bike? How many are small, custom hand-built bikes?

@MartynAshton, Martin's hack was not to direct air to the disc, the fins act as a heatsink, taking heat from the pads which keeps the pads cooler.

SWEET! I actually won a stunt mug for last weeks caption contest - awesome!!

Hard to say if there are too many brands. If that list is worldwide it includes, as mentioned, brands that are country specific. Brazil has strict restrictions on what can be imported so their brands might be on the list, but are very needed. I think Trek is showing the big issue, too many SKUs. Does every manufacturer need a 120mm, 130mm, 140mm, 150mm, 160mm, 170mm, and 180mm bikes? Then each travel option has to have multiple build variations. If a company only had 4 travel options, each of those probably has 4 trim levels. Now each of those has 4 sizes. That's 64 variants and we didn't even add in paint options. For most major brands those are low numbers.

I love the wide range❤ amidst the bulk main brands there's surely something that'll suit you. If not there's the boutique brands who will make what you like 👍

Everyone complained about Treks knock block but here Specialized is now using that. I have 3 bikes with the block and have never once noticed it on the trail.

19:33 NOOOOO!!!! PLEES don't stop singing hacks and bodges

Martyn and Blake must never stop singing Hacks and Bodges, it's too special to give up. 🤪👍How good was Blake's stunt mug bounce? That went flying!

Martyn and Blake are back. I like the hacks and bodges song 🎶

Santa Cruz's popularity makes them way less cool imo. Seeing an obscure brand on the trail turns my head. Knolly... banshee.. guerilla gravity... forbidden... orange Don't see many of those in Maine

I usually let my friends borrow any bike of mine they wanted just to try before they buy. Out here in Wisconsin there are not a whole lot of bikes available but when I lived in Colorado there was a whole lot of brands at different shops I bought only front suspension bikes and rented when I rode at Vail a couple times a year back last century.

This is not full Mountain Bike Brands. This is only frame brans. A big difference. Making a frame is very simple.

Maybe it just because I'm getting old, but modern bikes rarely inspire me. like cars they have all started to look like the same safe cookie cutter designs with the only difference being the branding/decals. give me a 90s/2000s retro bike like an atx1 dh, sintessi bazooka 3 or a fire mountain fade Cannondale f900 and while I may not be a fast, the smile it puts on my face when I get it out is worth every second lost

half the problem with price is likely Fox,Shimano, Sram. I have a feeling they could cut their prices a lot and still make a profit.

Thousands of brands and yet, only few factories. Food for thought.

I've blown a fork. Compression knob shattered my helmet 😮 missed me by millimeters. Another reason to wear a helmet.

Personally bummed Nukeproof is going away. To me, they made some great bikes that look good which is also how I feel about Santa Cruz.

I'm not sure if there is any specific brand that needs to go, but as with most things in life I think the cream will rise to the top and those those that don't provide anything new or worthwhile will fall by the wayside.

Big or small there is room for them all. We all reap the benefits from all the R&D that has been done thank you world of mountain biking.

Brands are just brands. Often they are owned by the same parent company... e.g. Merida owns 49% of Specalized! So if we grouped these together the number would drop significantly. Even the smaller brands could be grouped together into those who use the same factories to manufacture their frames or whole bikes for that matter. So from that perspective the number of true bike companies is probably half or less of the number of brands out there.

If you think about it there are essentially only 3 really important players in MTB wolrd.. Shimano, Sram/rock shock and fox... Every other brand is just a frame to hold these really expensive components... I don't think the issue is how many bike brands there are, but rather how oem manufacturers price their components... almost 1000 euro for fork?... or for bike breaks? Or for a couple metal gears? These are real issues, not that you have so many bike brands as you can get really expensive or really cheap frames direct from china with comparable quality, but you simply cannot get suspension and groupset for "nowhere near" the price bike manufacturers get them...

Nukeproof and Vitus are going down the Cannondale route since Signa pulled the plug.

Yes, it is amazing how many bike brands there are. Times how many models ? That would make quite a spectrum. So let’s say, there’s a bike for everybody in there some where. And if I had the money I’d go for the full / max power and it would be on the heavy side. But I don’t have 4K laying around. I’m retired on a fixed income. So I had to DIY it. And that’s a whole other category…..and for $2,500 I’m more than pleased. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything without a throttle and 160nm of torque. But that’s just me. I’m 72 and some times I just want to get in a loop and do it quickly, 5 miles, packing nothing, not even water when it’s below 80°f…

It’s like the auto and motorcycle industries of the 1930’s and 40’s. Loads of makes, consolidated in the 50’s and 60’s. Narrowing even further in the 2000’s. Improved tech but maybe not quality and reliability - British Leyland as an example

Yep! Get rid of all the box store brands right out the gate. Then get rid of all the brands that are using the same bike but just brand it different. Great show boys and defiantly do not stop singing the intro to Hacks & Bodges, Cheers - M

Definitely room for the small boutique brands; I don't like a lot of the mainstream stuff, which is why I like to opportunity to get an alu frame Bird with external routing - not something that Trek or Santa Cruz are likely to sell anytime soon.

Cool just seeing GMBN and Neil on @carsos as part of the ploy to give his jeep back to a very deserving injured ex service man. And amazing that he is also training for the Tour Divide, despite having both legs blown off in action. 💪💪💪💪💪 #carsos #carsausage

The market tends to regulate itself, if there is 150 brands it means there is space for them. Once there isn’t space, the market will prune itself. So it’s not up to us to say if there is too many or too few.

Free market economics, let the market decide! Some brands will soar, some will go to the wall, some will merge, others may divest. We will already see many brands are merely brands that get stuck on generic bikes (which don't pull resources from a parent) some that design bikes but outsource manufacturer (So separate resources for dev and marketing, consolidated for build) and those that build their own bikes. Anyway market will sort out what people want

There definitely are a ton of options and models and bike types. It's a big learning curve and I had to research for like a month or 2 before I purchased mine. And even then, it's not like you can test most of these brands out, so you just go for the ones with good reputation.

“A general rule for you shoal be not to talk!” Now that should be a GMBN T shirt! Hilarious Mr A. 😂

Better to have lots of choice than not enough imo. Never stop singing!

I very rarely agree with Martin, but I'm totally with him here. I think realistically it could go down to as few as 20 frame brands without any great loss in innovation.

Just for comparison, there are more than 100 motorcycle brands. Motorcycles are on average much more expensive than mountainbikes so many more people can afford mountainbiking. Most mountainbikers (?) are proud of their local bike manufacturer. So. I don't think there are too many brands. Bad ones die sooner or later.

I think Martin's beef is with what the bike industry has become behind the brand name and not that there are too many brands! If every single brand on that list was designing building and selling bikes and parts out of their own workshop would Martin still be saying there's too many brands?

"there's much fewer brands that can really do that" - on one hand there are many brake manufacturers doing their own things, we have many tire manufacturers, but on the other - nobody would buy fork for 75% price of Fox/RockShocks from unknown brand. And even Giant, Trek or Scott are making their own parts, but still use forks and shocks that people want - from 3 big brands.

I call BS on that bike brands. If your frame is stock option you can buy from manufacturer not designed for your "brand" you dont have bike "brand" you have bikes with custom colors and different letters on downtube that's all.

The one brand of bike that I always wanted was a hard tail Bianchi but they started at 16" and that was too big for me I almost bought a hard tail YETI that was not an ARC but it was also too big. They only wanted $600 for it and I could do payments on it. I made $6 an hour so over 100 hours of work including taxes...

I actually only consider the big three, and Cannondale Unfortunately Blake your favorite brand is struggling right now..😢 Nuke-proof, Kona ext

I think you have a point, but…. It’s fun to have something special.. AND.. when you have less brands, the bikes are not going to be cheaper, the company will earn way more.. 😅

#captioncontest The look you make when you test out your dropper post but forget to fit the saddle!!!

Yes! 🎉 @GMBN Thanks for the Jersey! My size is XL Greets Martin

If there are 150 mtb brands this means there is space for them on the world market. If there wasn't, they would disappear. This is the beauty of a free market - it self-controls itself quite effectively. From the consumer standpoint, I think this is good there are many brands because they have to compete against each other for our money. Few brands could mean elevated prices. On the other hand, there are relatively few brands that are really recognisable worldwide. Do they stand up to their fame with the currently produced bikes is a different story, of course.

I'm an Australian, we don't f'n make anything anymore except toilet paper and things that'll kill you. I'm sick of buying rebranded bikes/parts made in "the far east" that fall apart.

I'm sure some of the brands have multiple brands under their umbrella, why not just concentrate on one brand and produce effective sales and marketing strategies for the brand. Plus I'm sure it would be cheaper to develop one range of bikes rather than loads then those savings can be passed on to us and the cost of bikes comes down. .

#captioncontest literally everyone’s face when they found out there are 150 brands of mountain bikes out there

#captioncontest Neil managed to name 149 of the brands on Martyn’s list but couldn’t remember “Propain” to win the grand prize.

There's more - Dartmoor is not present on the list.

Personally, I don’t think there’s too many brands. I like smaller brands like Starling, Cotic, Reeb, Knolly, Kingdom, Pipedream, Turner that focus on making quality steel, alloy or titanium bikes. I couldn’t care less about the latest £12,000 Trek, or Specialized. I think there’s is too much emphasis in putting riders on expensive carbon fibre bikes and having them buy a new one every two years. There’s something to be said for having a quality bike and keeping it for longer than a couple of years. Racers, especially XC racers may need the latest carbon fibre bike, and they are usually sponsored so a broken frame means little to them. They can just grab another bike from the bus. The rest of us don’t really need those bikes. Longevity, budget and durability are more of a consideration when you spend your own money. It’s actually a bit sad to see brands like Calibre, Nukeproof and Vitus fail. They were getting people on reasonably priced bikes that were of decent quality.

Let the market decide which bike companies live or die. These things will eventually level out.

It took balls for martyn to say that about cannondale, and he’s 100% right.

Perhaps the current state of the market place with massive price reductions to clear stock will, ultimately, result in a few brands coming together and reducing the number in the market place. But, unless they are Bespoke brnads like Curtis, it seems brands are quite corporate, which could lead to a question as to which brands are trully focused on the MTBer like they were in the 90's and like the Bespoke brands still are. Does it really matter if there are 150 brands; it gets people out and riding; does it really matter overall? If you can, then you will buy/ride a bike that's more "real", and does having more brands make the sport and the ability to get out and ride, more accessible? If you grew up in the 80's and 90's, then we can all recall a small number of brands, and it was still accessible: if we wanted a bike, then there were only a few, so that's what we got. What we have now is choice, and lots of it. Is it any better/worse. But what brands seem to be doing is going crazy on components, and there seems to be too many component choices. Perhaps the number of brands is not the issue, but the number of bikes they produce and the number of iterations. Produce one and do it well. Also, produce more frame only options and allow the buyer to get the frame only and build the bike they want; get the components they want.

Yes there are too many. Will a reduction cause cheaper bikes? Doubt it. I am not an economist, but I just have the feeling if the economies of scale were to help lower the prices, would this not be the case for the really big brands already? Are their bikes more affordable?

Because it takes almost nothing to build a frame and add component sets… and people get to hung up on frames. The best bike brand is one with purchasing power.

When I rode BMX I dreamed of having an Elf bike in sliver and blue. They were really light then.

NO ! PLEASE ! DONT STOP SINGING for hacks & bodges📢🔔

The number of bike brands is not the problem it is the limited number of component manufacturers. Just about every bike brand has a 'range' of bikes that have the same frame but cover a price range of thousands of dollars due to the component package on them.

I would Gladly say "On Yer Bike!!!" to Every Company who has the Cheak to Demand a 5 figure Price for a "BICYCLE!!!"...Been Cycling since mid 1970's...Most Expenive bike I've bought was Eu1200 in 2017...Still like New.

If there was 300 legit bike brands, would the extra competition reduce the prices.Same goes if there was only 75 legit bike brands, would prices be higher due to reduced competition.

I think there are actually less brands than there is made out to be. For example, cannondale and GT are owned by the same conglomerate and santa cruz and cervelo are owned by Pon Holdings. A lot of times an established name is kept in existence because of its heritage and cache hence the seemingly diverse amount of brands which in reality are already a lot less.

I don't think that dramatically reducing the number of brands would change anything. Carbon frames almost all are manufactured in a small number of places like Taiwan. Components are manufactured by only a few companies. We're better off with the variety, and there really aren't 150 significant global brands in bike stores for regular people to actually buy

Honestly the more the merrier. Let's be frank, out of those 150+ bike brands maybe a handful controls 90% of the market and fragmentation certainly doesn't hold back the development. I'd even go as far as to say small brands often take the risk and introduce fresh ideas instead of selling the same bike over and over again.

CTM, Superior and Kellys brands are missing :D

#captioncontest when you accidentally use the dropper mid trail

#CAPTIONCONTEST Neil contemplates the meaning of life after wandering into the wrong studio and getting sucked into listening to steve jones waffle on about some emtb thingamabob. "How did I get here? I used to be a downhill racer..."

#captioncontest: Neil winning an R from Blake.

#captioncontest When you realize that you are stuck in a bad dream and have ended up helpless in the beating heart of EMBN.

Would rather have a Norco than a SC. I don’t think there are too many bike brands. Thing is that other than a select few, bike brands all source frames from the same manufacturers any ways. They’re all the same but different. We are all caught in the middle being influenced by clever marketing companies.

#captioncontest sitting next to Martyn when he says that your brand sponsor shouldn't exist and their bikes are generic.

#captioncontest When Jonesy won't stop talking about energy density, watts per kilo and range extenders. ps, Neil's doing an amazing Father Dougal Mcguire impression here!

While there are a ton of bike brands, I would imagine the market share of the top 15 to 20 brands accounts for 95% of the market. If this were true (and it’s conjecture on my part) , that kind of makes the rest of the companies sort of irrelevant in terms of their overall industry impact. Anyone with thought on this?

#CAPTIONCONTEST - The look when you watched Bernard's prototype Pivot explode during Crankworx

Better than not enough

#captioncontest "It just keeps getting closer." Neil thought as he looks at the stunt mug realizing it only missed him by a hair

It is both too many and too little brands at the same time. Too many companies doing same or near same bikes and too few big conglomerates, owning those companies. It's like PON being Volkswagen, Merida-Spesh as Toyota-Lexus with everyone else scraping the barrel as garage ateliers while reporting to their finance overlords and Giant being Giant.

#captioncontest the look you get when you realise how much a Propain costs when they dont sponsor you

I think there's another statistic that you would have to look at to answer your question are there four bike brands that make up 80% of the industry? Because at that point the volume sales proposition is kind of the same.

I always thought that in a healthy capitalist state having competition was healthy to keep the prices down. I paid my mtb frame 300£ and I think it was fair... 600£ for a fork 500£ for a drivetrain... that's ridiculous. Could Shimano/Sram be considered an oligopoly ?

With respect to overpriced bikes, I am all in. Tired of the price gouging in the US market. But, my opinion does not matter because the market controls. The market will shread the weak brands, thankfully.

Lmao, you put my bike on again, first it got a nice then a super nice. Consistency lads! Thanks though! What kinda ship are you lot running over there that my bike made it on twice? Its not even that nice apart from the DMR bits.... 😂

Number of bike 'brands' isnt the issue. (Some are simply assemblers with a sticker. 😅) How many different drive trains do those bike brands use...? Are there too few? Does no one else think there not enough competition and too much dependency on certain component manufacturers?

#CAPTIONCONTEST Neil completely applaud by the latest bodge.

#captioncontest "sorry don, but you will be moving to GCN and manage the e gravel category"

this list needs to be at least doubled, you take only American and European brands, and a couple of Chinese ones. there are much more of them, only in China you can write the same number, in Russia there are 10 brands, in Turkey 6 brands, South Africa 15 brands.

“If you get on that unicycle ONE MORE TIME”

Different brands are not the problem until we get to components and groupsets. Shimano and SRAM are too dominant. They control price points. Force innovation. That innovation is never cheaper, more durable and home serviceable. Parts availability is problematic. Replacement chains and cassettes have become excessively expensive (>10 speed). I hope the likes of Microshift and L-Twoo become competitive on function and reliability.

I say bike brands could probably look in to mergers rather than sell

#captioncontest - I'm sorry GMBN, but I just can't ride a regular mountain bike anymore.

I picked my next bike (ferrum lvn 160) because it's steel, local, and affordable. Are any big name brands doing that?

#captioncontest: When you forget to close the incognito browser before the show starts.

When are you guys posting the 24 Hours of the Old Pueblo video with Rich I can’t wait 👁️👄👁️

#captioncontest the look Neil gives you when he is told he has to do a 24 hour race with Rich

I found bikes that were ver high in build quality and innovation tend to loose it after a few years of building a good rep and high demand tend to get bought by a bigger company then tend to get built cheaper then lose the quality and appeal, just my opinion tho🤷🏻‍♂️

#captioncontest: "Neil was not amused that the latest batch of Ebikes now come with 10km of extension cords"

#captioncontest Martyn tried to get Neil to sing the Hacks and Bodges theme tune one time too many and the red mist descended.

SAMSONS CITRUS STOPPERS I think the term would be Martyn

Imho, Many of current mtb bikes are justly the new cannondales… little passionate giys bringing their art and craft into the market

#captioncontest That moment Neil realised the new contract he signed mandated singing Hacks & Bodges.