Big Bike Brands Explained for Newbies

bicycle brands explained. which you choosing?

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You want a new bike, but there are so many different brands. How do you know where to look? Let’s go through some of the biggest and see what’s what. Starting with Specialized. We’ve all heard of Specialized, right? Big American bike brand. Made the first mass-produced mountain bike. They have evolved into one of the biggest performance bike brands in the world. And there’s no denying that they’re at the cutting edge of bike technology, producing some of the fastest bikes ever made. and they make pretty much everything else bike related as well to a very high standard and a very high price. It’s not just good products that got them to the size they are though. They are pretty cutthroat with their business practices which is why some people do not like them. They have a reputation for suing people. So I love Specialized. Giant is aptly named. It’s the giantest bike brand in the world. so giant that they make bikes for other brands as well in their factories both in Taiwan and in China. Some people think they’re boring, a bit safe, a bit beige. On the flip side though, they are pretty good value. Oh, and the founder didn’t start riding bikes until he was 73. Kongo is the highest profile of all the Italian bike brands at the moment thanks to team UAE, namely Tad Picatcha, and all of his success over the last few years. Sales have skyrocketed, but they always had a devout customer base, and they’ve always made some lovely bikes. Most models are made in the Far East, except for the C68, and they’re usually classic looking bikes until the Y1 RS came out, which uh well, Jesus. Trek, another big American bike brand. Born around the same time as Specialized, they exploded in popularity largely due to their sponsorship of the infamous Lance Armstrong. How could it have taken place when I’ve never taken performance enhancing drugs? Obviously, things didn’t exactly go smoothly. He was busted for doping, lost all of his tour to France titles. Trek overall still benefited though and now they make a huge range of bikes from top- end race bikes with well this hole in it to commuters and mountain bikes and they have a subbrand called Bontrager selling all kinds of accessories too. How many times do I have to say it? SL is a Canadian brand known for very aero designs massive in triathlon and pro bike racing. They do not make a cheap bike. It’s all performance. They made aerobikes way ahead of their time and they were the first bike brand to run a pro cycling team and a dedicated women’s team which was also ahead of its time. So, props for that. Bianke was founded in 1885 and is the world’s oldest bike brand. Famous for its chilles green color based in Italy. They mainly focus on high-end race bikes. We are making road racing trains. Of course, Bianke is really famous for road racing and have a real cult following. and apparently are bringing production of their frames back to Italy. Most big bright bike brands get their bikes made in factories over in China or Taiwan. So, this is pretty big news if it’s true. Cannondale, another one from the USA. They were founded in the 80s, making aluminium bikes ahead of their time. They were always quite innovative, coming up with mad things like the Lefty fork, pretty cool, and annoying things like BB30 and then they’ve changed back to threaded BBs. Thanks, Cannondale. and really good stuff like the CAD range of aluminium bikes, highly regarded as some of the best mass-produced aluminium bikes ever made. Now, they have all of the usual offerings in the high-end department as well, but frankly, well, we’re all waiting for the CAD 14, aren’t we? In 1921, Cho founded Shimano Ironworks. Shimano is a freaking huge fishing rod company that also makes some bike stuff. Quite a lot of bike stuff. They sell 80% of the market share of group sets. Uh so chains, cassettes, brake systems. You’ll see them on high-end bikes, you’ll see them on entry-level bikes. And they have a reputation for being reliable and high quality and also for crank sets that snap. That was the older ones, though, and they had a massive recoil. The new ones should be fine. Pinella Italian bikes, which you’ll be paying a premium for. They’re like the Lamborghini of bikes. They have a very distinctive look. Sometimes they got wavy forks and wavy chain stays. They were big anyway, but then they had the team GB effect. Around 2010, British athletes were winning left, right, and center on pinellas along with the team sky pro team, and everyone wanted a pinella. They also have the most to France wins of any brand in the modern era. Oh, and it’s worth mentioning they all have Italian threaded BBs, so don’t thread your bottom bracket in the wrong way. I’m might be speaking from experience. Stram is the USA’s answer to Shimano. They focus on performance products only with wireless shifting and 1 million gears and an app that connects to your bike so you can do stuff to it. They’re known for, well, people used to moan about the front derailer performance quite a lot. But the newest iterations, they have fixed that. It worked great. And the newest versions have the best braking you can buy. So, good job, Stram. Villia is an Italian brand founded in 1906. Again, they tend to focus on premium offerings and sponsor pro racing teams and athletes like Mark Cavendish, who broke the record for the most to France stage wins ever aboard one of these bikes. Now, a brand that seems to fly under the radar considering how big they are. Marita is a Taiwanese brand that make everything, including Specialized. In fact, they own 49% of Specializ. They are the second biggest bike brand in the world and you might have ridden one without knowing because they make bikes for lots of other people. Mavic French wheels most famous for being the neutral service car in the tour to France. Yellow also invented the first ever electric group set with zap and the first ever wireless group set with meronic. That’s mad. Uh it didn’t work very well. Apparently, it kept going wrong because of radio interference, but you know, they were the first to do it. So, props to Mavic. Physique high-end saddles and shoes and more from Italy. They do some other bits like bar tape. They make saddles like the Arion, which is basically a plank of wood. There’s definitely some other ones. And I’m sure there’s lots of people that get on with them. Great. But also, maybe there’s a reason that sponsored riders end up doing this. Look is a French company who invented the clipless pedal in 1984 and contributed to making carbon frames mainstream. Clipless pedal is a weird name because they are clipped, but the name differentiates from the pedals with toe clips. I know, confusing. Anyway, another brand that pretty much only make expensive bikes, but they do look quite nice. And they’ve done some weird stuff with head tubes in the past. Maybe ahead of its time. Speaking of time, time used to make bikes and pedals, but now the companies have split with Stram acquiring the pedals. Time bikes are built in Slovakia and South Carolina now and known for their high quality manufacturing. And this mad video of Carbon being weaved together on a loom. The quality is undoubtedly great, but they do seem to struggle keeping up with the times. How many times am I going to say times? You see some people moaning that the models are a little bit outdated with not enough tire clearance and then they change one of their models which was a gravel bike and now call it an all-road bike because it there just wasn’t enough tire. They’re struggling to stay with the times. But if you know what you want from a bike and it’s one of them that’s in their range, you’re not going to go wrong. Head wheels. There’s there’s some there. Can you see them? Maybe. They’re a family-owned business from the States, and they’re huge in triathlon and all about the aerrow gains. They made this big donut wheel as like a protest at Iron Man Kona because disc wheels are banned. So, they just made it so so deep. It looks ridiculous. Cell Italia. More Italian saddles. Founded in 1897, makers of my favorite saddle in the world, the Boost SLR S3. Not sponsored and probably not in stock because I have bought them all. Cella San Marco. More Italian saddles. And this one is actually owned by the same people as Cell Italia. They have a different range. I don’t know why they’re not just one company. Just is what it is. Or is Spain’s oldest bike manufacturer. All the usual offerings from gravel bikes to ebikes and absolutely huge in Europe. There seems to be a decent amount of customization on their website as well, which is great to see. It’s annoying when you find the perfect bike and then you go on the website and then just like one crank length and the bars are the wrong size and then you order it and get it home and then you have to pay for someone else to change the parts or do it yourself and source the parts, end up losing money and then you just hate cycling. So, more customization. Good. We want to see more of this from brands that sell direct. Ridley Belgian race bikes made for one thing, go fast, but maybe impractical for normal people. What the hell is this bike? But they are at the cutting edge of bike design with very modern geometry. Envy mega premium wheels, frames, and components with a decent proportion of it being made in the USA. They are bling. We may have historically have called them the Rolex of cycling. Congratulations if you can afford them. Karema French wheels. Uh most famous for being ridden by team Aana for years and years and years, although that is now over. They’re made entirely in France, right down to the carbon layup. They got some very cool spoke patterns and unusual designs as well. Check them out. Triban affordable bikes from Decathlon, the French company. These have represented the best value road and gravel bikes possible over the last few years. We’ve done lots of videos about them. I believe they’re being discontinued now though and are being rebranded as Van Risel or Riverside. New brands from Decathlon with Van Ryel covering the high-end stuff and Riverside with the commutery and grally stuff. As of now, things still look very good value. We hope this will continue to be the case. And we hope the triband price points are going to be replaced with something because at the moment, the website just has nothing. Zip. Back in the day, they made arrow wheels with these little dimples on like a golf ball to go faster through the air. Now, they’ve been bought by Stram and they do a range of wheels. It’s all high-end performance stuff. Some of them are over £3,000. That’s a lot of money for wheels. They also do stems, bars, and seat posts. It’s all pretty good, but not cheap. Microshift, a Taiwanese brand who focus on budget friendly group sets. You’ll often see Micro Shift spec on entry- level bikes, and frankly, our experience of it has been great. They now do loads of off-road group sets as well with massive gear range. And their marketing is quite centered around keeping mechanical shifting alive. Fair play, Micro Shift. Also, they have a group set called Sword. Good name. DTSwiss is a wheel brand known for really good hubs. So good, in fact, loads of other brands lace their rims onto DTS Swiss hubs and sell them. And despite having a reputation for being reliable and trusted, they just had a massive recall. So, do check your wheels if you bought them in the last couple of years. Canyon in 2022. They shook up the industry big time when they renamed themselves from Radport Arnold. Canyon’s definitely a catchier name. Good move. They’re a German brand that only sell direct to consumer. So, they cut out the middleman. No bike shops, which means prices are lower. And for a long time, they’ve been extremely good value, hence their success. No bike shop though means you’re dealing with Canyon for support or paying someone else separately to help if things go wrong. They do have some kind of deal set up with some bike shops, but you still got to pay if you want your bike assembled by them. They are constantly experimenting with unusual design like double-decker handlebars, flexi seat posts, detachable drops, and make very good bikes at the lower end of the price spectrum as well. They do have a reputation for annoying proprietary parts though. I mean, they made bottle cages that only fit canyon bottles in Focus, a German brand founded by Cyclross champ Mike Cluj in 1992. They make performance bikes, not really any entry-level stuff again. And they’re owned by Pon Holdings, who also own Canidale, Sevel, Santa Cruz, Schwinn, and many more. Lapiierre, a French brand. These for a long time were ridden by FDJ, one of the pro teams that’s been around for ages. All the usual drop bar stuff and a lot of mountain bike options. They’ve got a history of adopting new suspension systems pretty early on as well. Again, there is no entry-level prices, but looking at the specs on the website of the bikes they do sell, they are surprisingly competitive. And depending on where you live, you might stand out because you don’t see them everywhere. 3T. These guys started in 1961 with components, bars, stems, seat posts, which you’ll see today. Eventually evolved into making full bikes with the help of Gerard Vman from Sevel. He became a co-owner in 2015. And they were the first major bike brand to do one by only and were being ridden by a team called Aqua Blue in the pro ranks. And the riders were had a lot of mixed feedback about the bikes. Let’s just say that. Uh probably 3T bikes to be honest. I think they make good handlebars but terrible bikes. We’ve been on one chain ring all year, haven’t we? So, the bikes have now been refined and I’m sure they have lots of very happy customers. FSA stands for full speed ahead. And you’ll see them all over the place on off the peg bikes cuz often the cranks are cheaper to spec than Shimano or Stram. Having said that, they do have premium offerings as well with like an electric fancy carbon group set and they make some excellent crank sets, handlebars and other parts. Argon 18, Canadian brand out of Montreal and another brand that do not make a cheap bike. It’s performance stuff here with some interesting design choices like the headsets that have this head tube extension thing. It’s more fit customization which is a good thing. Cool to see. Windspace is a Chinese company making some very competitively priced bikes. We’re seeing this more and more now. Chinese factories who’ve historically made bikes for other people setting up their own brands and selling direct. The result tends to be lower cost, but it’s taken a while to gain trust with the western market. Windspace is well regarded in both build quality and their customer service, and you’re seeing more and more of them in the performance space. Cube is another bike brand with specs at bonkers good prices. They have a huge range with pros riding their high-end ay stuff, right down to gravel and city bikes that are very affordable, if you can get one. We struggle even getting them in for review. I think we’ve done one ever. They just don’t have stock. Maybe because people buy them. Rotor, fancy cranks, high-end power meters, Spanish, weird hydraulic group sets as well. Perhaps most famous for their ovalshaped Q- rings, which they claim to be better pedaling efficiency and things like that. They’ve just been bought by Wheeltop, a Chinese group set manufacturer who’ve been making components for other companies in their factories for many, many years. They’ve now established their own brand and clearly they want some high-end offerings, so have bought Rotor. Next, we have Scott based out of Switzerland. High-end stuff. Again, they’ve really cut down their entry-level road offerings, but do have a huge range of mountain bikes and massive high-profile athletes winning on their bikes. Like Nino Sher, they’re at the cutting edge when it comes to performance and also in the ebike category where they make bikes that still ride good even when you run out of battery. I mean, that just looks like a normal gravel bike. Felt. I used to see these around all the time, but not so much anymore. And maybe because it’s changed hands so many times, particularly in the last few years. I actually used to have one of these. Look at that. They’re another performance brand. You might see them in other places on YouTube. They’re definitely being quite modern with their marketing, and it’s great to see them live and kicking again. Campolo, another group set supplier that invented the quick release skewer, which we’re seeing less and less of. It’s kind of sad. You won’t see them anywhere near as much as Shimano and Sram these days, which is a shame. They have a reputation for making beautiful components that you’ll often see people put on their Italian frames. They do seem to be struggling a little bit to keep up with the latest trends and technologies, but their latest group sets have been wellreceived despite being premium offerings only. BMC high-end Swiss bikes with prices on the higher end of the spectrum. They had to France wins and their name stands for bicycle manufacturing company. Oh, and I think BMC should get a shout out here for making an endurance bike that actually looks fast. Right, that is big bike brands explained. Who did I miss? I’m going to have missed someone. Hopefully that gives you an idea of who does what and where some of these brands came from. Thank you for watching. See you guys soon. [Music]