Two of the biggest brands in bikes have been targeted by separate lawsuits, claiming that customers were charged so-called “junk fees” in the process of purchasing items on their respective websites.

Both Specialized Bicycle and Giant Bicycle were sued in U.S. federal court over the fees, which the separate suits claim are a violation of a 2024 California law that eliminates “junk” or “drip” fees. Specialized settled its case out of court this week, whereas Giant’s case continues.

Known colloquially as the “Honest Pricing Law” or “Hidden Fees Statute,” SB 478 “makes it illegal for most businesses to advertise or list a price for a good or service that does not include all required fees or charges other than certain government taxes and shipping costs.” Those fees exempted include those from restaurants, state or local sales tax, and/or a “reasonable” shipping cost for physical goods.

Plaintiff Christopher Rossow sued Specialized in February 2026, alleging that the Specialized e-commerce website did not show all of the fees that he would be charged for a purchase until after he had submitted his credit card information and address.

Instead, according to Rossow’s claim, “consumers are quoted an artificially low price, only for Defendant to sneak in a mandatory “Shipping & Handling” fee (the “Fee”) regardless of whether the consumer selects the “Ship to Home” or “Pickup from Store” option. For e-bike purchases, Defendant additionally charges a $15.00 “Environmental Recycling Fee” (the “Recycling Fee”) after consumers input all their shipping and credit card information. This cheap trick has enabled Defendant to swindle substantial sums of money from its customers.”

Similarly, Bronson Thomas sued Giant in February for a purchase made through Giant’s e-commerce website. Thomas claimed that he had bought a Giant bike and accessories through the website, and that in the process Giant “subtly added a ‘Destination fee’ of $75.00 to the checkout screen. The fee was mandatory because Plaintiff could not purchase the products from Defendant’s Website without paying the fee. Plaintiff was charged this fee even though he selected to pick up his items from the store.”

Both suits were filed in California federal district courts, and both plaintiffs were represented by the same attorney: Stefan Bogdanovich of Bursor & Fisher, a firm that specializes in class-action lawsuits. Both claims against Specialized and Giant had been filed as class-action suits. Specialized settled before the class could be certified. The Giant case, meanwhile, continues; in an order dated May 18th, Giant is required to respond to the complaint by June 17th.

Neither Specialized nor Giant have commented on the cases.

Attempting to re-create the conditions claimed in the suits had surprising results. On both websites, I attempted to purchase either a Shiv or Trinity. On Specialized’s site, I could only purchase a Shiv as a frame. The listed price of the frame is $6,149. Regardless of whether I chose to have the bike shipped to my home, or to pick it up in a store, a $75 fee was added to the purchase.

Similarly, on Giant’s site, I went to purchase an MSRP Trinity Advanced SL 2 for $9,900. Yet after you’ve added the item to your cart, then go to make your purchase, there’s a surprise $75 fee awaiting you. It is labelled as a shipping fee, with the explanation that the “Shipping Fee reflects costs incurred in transportation, logistics, and other associated fees. The shipping fee is non-refundable or negotiable.”

The post Specialized, Giant Targeted By Lawsuits Over Online Purchase Junk Fees first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

The Giant Group, the parent company behind Giant, Liv, Cadex, and Momentum (and not to mention the manufacturer of record for a whole lot of other bikes) released their Q1 financial results earlier this week. To be blunt, they’re ugly. Reporting in the New Taiwan currency, the company recorded a net loss after tax of NT$200 million (approximately $6.34 million USD) for the start of the year.

The main reason for the loss? A nearly 26 percent decline in revenue year-over-year. The Group cited softer demand overall, as well as what the company cited as “normalization of OEM business mix” following years of increases via that channel. It should also be noted that the first quarter last year saw businesses with sizable bumps in shipment, trying to land product before tariffs came into effect.

Those are the bad numbers. But there’s some positive trends to be found, too — some that should bring both consumers and bike shops relief, if not downright New Bike Day joy.

One of the main reasons for that top line loss? A one-time charge to the balance sheet of NT$80 million, which the Group called a single-time recognition of the losses associated with the Withhold Release Order imposed by US Customs and Border Protection last year. According to Giant, the case is in its final stage and should not have impact for future earnings; essentially, we should expect to see more inventory soon.

Also promising for Giant is an improvement in margins, raising 180 basis points year-over-year to 19.6 percent of revenue. The company cited strong performance from what it calls premium innovation and higher-value products in its own brand business. Earlier this year, we have seen top-line product launches from Cadex, Giant, and Liv, which all seem to have taken to the marketplace well.

Between both improvements in margin, as well as seeing the resolution of the Customs and Border Protection case, we should see a much stronger rest of 2026 for Giant.

The post Giant Had a Bad Q1, But the Rest of 2026 Should Be Much Brighter first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

It’s been roughly a year since IRONMAN released data showcasing growth across both the full and half distance triathlons and, more specifically, growth of the sport amongst younger cohorts. That coincided with recent USA Triathlon data showing that the bulk of growth in membership is coming from 20-39 year-olds, for the first time in well over a decade. It helps paint a picture of a sport that seems to be rebounding in participation.

Yet, as our reader forum has pointed out in a couple of threads on the topic of participation and barriers to competing, not all is perfect. Some triathlon clubs have folded, or decreased significantly in membership. Smaller, grassroots events are less likely to have fields that are even close to capacity. Some report that, in conversations with fellow club members of single-sport events, price is a significant barrier to entering a given event — and if its not the race entry, it’s the equipment.

But it’s not just triathlon that is seeing this push for larger events to sell out. It’s everywhere in endurance sport.

Take, for instance, the Boston Marathon, which takes place this Monday. The field of 30,000 runners includes 24,362 qualifiers, all of whom had to run roughly 4.5 minutes faster than their respective qualifying times. Over 9,000 applications who had met the qualifying standard time were rejected. Charity slots for the race, which include fundraising minimums that approach five figures, sell out nearly instantaneously.

The runDisney Marathon next January sold out within minutes of registration opening to the general public. The London Marathon had 37 runners apply for every slot in its 30,000 person race. Large trail running and gravel races see much the same effect, whether it’s a UTMB series trail run or Unbound or Leadville. All of these events feature high price tags, and no shortage of demand for them.

So why the disconnect? Why is it that we both identify cost as a participation barrier, and yet the biggest of races have more demand than ever?

I’d suggest that there are a couple of factors in play here. The first has to do with the economics of race production in 2026, and the perceived value associated with entering a larger event. As we have written about since the pandemic, the cost of race production has skyrocketed. Every single item that is involved in a race has gotten significantly more expensive since 2020. And with amenities at nearly every event distance, even outside of our sport, offering a bare-bones experience is something that does not draw appeal to newer entrants to the sport. There’s levels of expectation there. This was borne out by a recent article over in Triathlete that spoke with race directors of independent full-distance triathlon events. It’s just awfully expensive to try and put on a race right now, let alone keep up with any semblance of athlete expectations on experience.

Perhaps coincidentally, though, it’s becoming apparent that people are more willing to spend more of their dollars for specific experiences, regardless of their preferred leisure activity. Based on recent travel data, people are taking fewer vacations, but when they do, they are increasing their spend accordingly. Delta, for instance, announced in their recent earnings that revenues from premium seating exceeded that of economy for the first time. I, admittedly, am part of that trend; I don’t typically upgrade domestic or work travel, but I have paid for an upgrade to premium on international flights to improve the chances that I will sleep.

In other words: people will spend the money. They just might only do it once or twice a year, as opposed to a bunch of times.

That raises one primary question: what does that do to a sport that, by-and-large, has been built on a model of athletes participating in events multiple times per season? The answer, I think, is probably a bit more complex. For IRONMAN, I think it’s mostly fine. Particularly for their namesake distance, there’s really just Roth and Norseman that can compete from a prestige and demand perspective. I think that bears out in the mostly strong numbers across the full-distance portfolio.

The answer gets a little murkier for 70.3. There’s more athlete churn, there’s more location burn-out (e.g., “oh, I’ve done that race before,”), and there’s still a north of $500 price tag staring you in the face. This is why I think we’ve seen a little bit more location rotation in the IRONMAN schedule, with locations phasing in and out of the schedule as athletes chase down another new finish line. And there’s probably a lesson to be learned somewhere in there for World Triathlon and the PTO for the 2027 World Tour — don’t necessarily expect to be parked in venues for long-term.

I also think generally the large, festival-type weekend events are going to be fine. It’s the large-city model that Supertri has effectively pivoted to. It’s why we’ve seen a run in consolidation on some of those types of events, what with Chicago, Captex, and New Jersey triathlon all part of the By Supertri umbrella now. If I were a betting man, I think we see more of this move over the next 12 to 24 months in the marketplace.

And it’s also where, I think, outside of your indoor triathlon events, you are most likely to have interest from new athletes. Your beginner athlete is generally captivated by some degree of size and scale of the event, and having large-scale sprint and Olympic distance races is what helps feed that dueling need for an accessible race (as there’s less equipment or training need out of this distance), while also maintaining the large event feel that is clearly a key differentiator and why people register for one race or another.

That, unfortunately, leads us to the generalized small independent race. And that’s where I see the greatest struggle in the marketplace. Having worn that hat for a long while, I fear that outside of very specific niches, like beginner youth triathlon or pool swim based events, it’s going to be an extremely hard challenge to put on events and have athletes actually be attracted to them. I don’t think that means it’s harder to become a triathlete; I think it just means that people will continue to push towards the largest version of an event they can, which eventually will see more consolidation in this space.

The post Athletes Keep Choosing Big Races. Is It Sustainable? first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

While North American triathlon fans might not be as familiar with her, we certainly should be. Austria’s Lisa Perterer is a three-time Olympian who quickly made her long-distance talent apparent just weeks after the Paris Games with a win at IRONMAN 70.3 Cozumel. She rounded out the 2024 season with a second-place finish in her IRONMAN debut in Cozumel. All of which set the stage for a stellar 2025 season that included a runner-up finish at T100 Singapore, a third at IRONMAN Texas, another runner-up finish behind Solveig Løvseth at IRONMAN Lake Placid, a fifth-place finish in Kona and then a win at IRONMAN Cozumel.

In this week’s Slowtwitch Podcast, We begin the conversation with the 34-year-old with a look back to her origins in the sport – formerly a competitive swimmer, a fall off a horse at the age of 11 shattered her left arm, which ended her swimming career. Looking for a new challenge and inspired by watching athletes compete at IRONMAN Austria, Perterer entered her first triathlon at 15, renting a “way too big bike,” but still enjoying the experience. She quickly got her own ride and within a year was part of the Austrian junior team, racing at European Cup events. In 2009 Perterer would win the Junior European Cup circuit and, a couple of years later, moved to the Elite category and would qualify for the London Olympics with just one year to qualify, all while she was still in school.

Four years later, feeling like she was in incredible shape, a stress fracture would sideline her from the Rio Games just a few weeks out. Determined to have a good race at an Olympics, she worked hard for the Tokyo Games, but would finish 27th. Disappointed with that, she pushed through to Paris, only to have another disappointing day, finishing 50th.

“It’s time to make a change,” she told herself. “And this is why I decided to try long-distance racing, but I didn’t want it to be stressful. I just wanted to have fun and find joy again in triathlon.”

She found that joy in 2025.

Texas Surprise

After receiving a wild card slot at T100 Singapore, Perterer made the decision to head to Texas almost on a whim. Determined to just “see how it goes,” Perterer surprised herself with her podium finish at The Woodlands, and that got her on track to pursue the IRONMAN Pro Series. That meant the trip to Lake Placid, then Kona.

After the fifth-place finish in Kona, she headed to Cozumel and was surprised at how well she seemed to be recovering, so she decided to compete in the IRONMAN race there, but assured both herself and her family that she wouldn’t finish the race. After one lap of the bike, though, she heard she was eight-minutes up on the field, so she decided to keep going, finishing her fourth IRONMAN race of the year with a win.

After that big year, Perterer is determined to have a slower start to 2026, which is why next week’s IRONMAN Texas will be the first time we’ll see her racing.

“I want to follow the pro series, but my real focus is Kona and I don’t know how my shape will be at the beginning of the season, and I don’t want to start too fast,” she says.

One thing Perterer will still have to do this year is nail her spot for Kona – during the podcast she explains what happens and how she missed claiming her spot at the slot allocation in Cozumel.

Training and Coaching

Surprisingly, Perterer isn’t putting in more hours of training as a long-distance athlete than she was during her draft-legal years – during the podcast she explains what her training regimen looks like now, and the changes she’s looking to make as she searches for a higher finish on the Big Island this October.

We also learn about Perterer’s coaching – she works with her boyfriend, Elliot Bach (NextGen Racing) and is currently helping 10 athletes with their training.

“It’s a big passion for both of us,” she says.

Listen to this week’s podcast to get more insight into how Perterer has made such an impressive move into the world of long-distance racing and how she manages to balance her training and coaching. As an athlete who has excelled at all the elite levels of triathlon racing, she offers some interesting perspective on the sport.

The Slowtwitch Podcast S2026:E07 · Apr 9, 2026 · 54min

Lisa Perterer

Olympic triathlete Lisa Perterer shares her journey from junior champion to Olympic athlete and her transition into long-distance racing. She discusses training strategies, race experiences, and her goals for Kona 2026.

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The post One to Watch: Lisa Perterer’s Journey from Injury to the Olympics, Then IRONMAN Champion first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

Close to three years ago, shockwaves were sent through the world of sports with the founding of the Enhanced Games — a sporting event that many have dubbed the “Steroid Olympics.” While that might be an oversimplification, it is certainly the easiest way to describe the Enhanced Games to someone who knows nothing about them. The competition allows athletes to take performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), with the goal of seeing just how far the human body can be pushed when it has access to medical enhancements.

Many people received the news of the Enhanced Games with dismay. After a lifetime of watching sports and looking down on anyone who doped or cheated, it felt like this competition was endorsing that behaviour. Max Martin — Enhanced Games co-founder and CEO of the organization — hopes people will change their mind on the matter when they learn more about the event. They aren’t encouraging foul play or dishonesty, but rather the opposite, as they are giving athletes the chance to compete in what could be the most level of playing fields that many of them may have seen since their days in the junior ranks.

The Enhanced Games Programme

At the moment, there are 50 athletes on the Enhanced Games roster. The list of competitors is made up of swimmers, sprinters and weightlifters. Some of the big names include Australia’s three-time Olympic medalist and three-time world champion swimmer James Magnussen and two-time Olympic medalist and three-time world champion sprinter Fred Kerley of the U.S.

The schedule is quite sparse for the first edition of the event, which is set to debut on May 24 in Las Vegas. There will be 50- and 100-metre freestyle and butterfly races in the pool, the 100-metre dash and 100- and 110-metre hurdles on the track, along with a pair of Olympic weightlifting events in the snatch and the clean and jerk. (Martin says he hopes to add more sports in the future, including endurance-based competitions.)

With event prize purses, appearance fees and results-based bonuses, the Enhanced Games team is prepared to dole out up to US$25 million to athletes come May. Each individual event will have $500,000 up for grabs ($250,000 of which will go to the winner), plus a bonus for anyone who beats a world record. Athletes competing in the 100-metre dash and 50-metre freestyle can earn $1 million for a world record time, while any record-breakers in the other events will win $250,000. (The Enhanced Games already paid out one of those million-dollar bonuses after Greek Olympic swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev swam 20.89 seconds for the 50-metre free, beating the world record time by 0.02 seconds at an exhibition in 2025.)

Martin and the Enhanced Games team can afford these payouts (not to mention the venue fees in Vegas, an Enhanced Games-wide training camp in Abu Dhabi and other expenses) thanks to investments from many big names, including PayPal founder Peter Thiel, Saudi Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed Al Saud and Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (a pair of brothers many people will know from the based-on-true-events Facebook film The Social Network), among others.

Fair Sport

A big criticism of the Enhanced Games is what many consider to be a lack of morality or fairness. Athletes and sports fans have grown up learning that cheating is wrong and using PEDs to have an edge over clean competitors is immoral, and that is 100 percent correct. The world has seen legends like Lance Armstrong taken down because of doping, and rightfully so.

However, as Martin points out, there is a difference between doping in a clean sport with strict rules regarding PEDs — a sport, league or event in which everyone is hopefully competing on a level playing field without illegal enhancements — compared to doping when it is permitted in the rules.

“The athletes are extremely excited about the point of fairness,” Martin says. He refers to a 2011 survey (published in 2017) that anonymously polled elite athletes at the World Athletics Championship in South Korea. The results were staggering, with more than 43 percent of those surveyed admitting to having taken banned substances at some point in their careers. Granted, this survey was run more than a decade ago, and not across the board with all sports and athletes, but similar polls have been conducted in the years since.

A report from The Telegraph in the UK notes that 21 percent of more than 900 athletes surveyed at the 2022 Commonwealth Games admitted to using banned substances. A similar anonymous poll out of Spain saw 36 percent of athletes making the same admission. A study published in 2024 surveyed more than 1,000 American athletes, and up to nine percent of them said they had taken a banned substance in the past 12 months.

There are vast differences between nine, 21 and 43 percent, but all of these surveys point to the same reality: clean sport isn’t actually clean, whether one in 10 athletes or close to half of them are doping. And while many athletes have admitted to taking banned substances, World Anti-Doping Agency tests only find about one percent of athletes guilty of cheating, meaning there are countless individuals getting away with doping scot-free.

“The transparency aspect of the Enhanced Games is a big part of it for our athletes,” Martin says. He has spoken with many Enhanced Games athletes who spent years racing against familiar competitors only to see those individuals transform into stars out of nowhere.

“They’ll say, ‘I’ve been swimming with this guy in every top event for 10 years, I know he’s not capable of doing this,'” Martin continues. “But then the athlete in question doesn’t test positive and their competitors are left feeling they’ve been wronged.”

Athletes have two choices when they realize their competition is doping. The option we all hope they pick is to compete fairly and choose not to dope — even if they know they won’t have a chance against those who are cheating.

The other choice that some athletes make is to do what they see as simply levelling the playing field by joining in on the doping. This if-you-can’t-beat-em-join-em attitude is how Armstrong continues to this day to publicly rationalize and excuse his years of cheating as a pro cyclist, and while he is the most well-known person to hold this mindset, there are undoubtedly many other athletes who dope or have doped who share that point of view.

The difference between Armstrong winning the Tour de France while on PEDs and athletes moving to competing in the Enhanced Games is all about fairness and transparency, as Martin says. It wouldn’t matter if 99 percent of athletes in the Olympics were doping — it is against the rules and therefore wrong and immoral. In the Enhanced Games, however, it is well within the athletes’ rights to take PEDs.

If an athlete were to go from the Enhanced Games back to clean sport, there could be an issue (many sport governing bodies have in fact banned Enhanced Games athletes from rejoining their competition pools). If this is the end of the line in their competitive careers, however, it seems only fair for them to opt in to a chance to see how far and fast they can push themselves while also chasing a big paycheque.

Tarnished Legacies?

Another point many people against the Enhanced Games make is the matter of athlete legacies. They say that an athlete signing on to the Enhanced Games program sullies their reputation and points to a history of doping — as if admitting to doping now, when it’s legal, means they have always done it and are simply tired of hiding.

In some cases, this is perhaps a fair criticism. The earlier-mentioned Kerley made headlines last summer after the Athletics Integrity Unit hit him with a suspension for whereabouts failures (three missed anti-doping tests in a 12-month period). Not long after this news broke, Kerley announced he would be joining the Enhanced Games roster. This is undeniably not a good look for the American sprinter, but it shouldn’t impact how his fellow Enhanced Games athletes are viewed.

Irish Olympian Max McCusker recently signed on with the Enhanced Games, and he says he doesn’t understand the negative opinions people hold toward him and his new colleagues.

“People talk about, like, tarnishing your legacy and all of this, right?” says McCusker, the Irish record holder in the 50- and 100-metre butterfly. “I don’t even know how many drug tests I had over the years of professional sports, but I never had any issues, no failed tests. I was always 100 percent clean. I was a national champion, I was an Irish record holder, I was an Olympian, and all of those things were done in the way they should have been done.”

McCusker continues, saying he has moved on to a “completely different version of swimming” and sport.

“We’re in a different field,” he says. “That’s the way I see it. I’m not competing against people that are un-enhanced while I am enhanced. I think it’s even more of a fair playing field than I’ve ever competed in in the past, to be honest.”

Athlete Safety

Morality and fairness are subjective matters that can be debated endlessly. Martin isn’t going to change his mind on the topic, just as many people against the Enhanced Games won’t change theirs. A major concern that isn’t subjective, however, is the question of athlete safety.

There have been many articles published on the Enhanced Games in the past couple of years that paint them as the Wild West of sports; an event in which athletes could take anything they believed would make them better, faster and stronger. That’s not the case at all, Martin says.

“Everything that is a clinically approved substance that doctors are already prescribing to patients every single day is permitted,” he says. “Our real benchmark is the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] in the U.S.”

Martin notes that there are many substances that athletes, coaches and researchers believe could aid in performance and recovery that have yet to become FDA-approved. Until those drugs and tests meet FDA standards, Enhanced Games athletes will not be permitted to use them.

“That makes it so much safer, because all of the substances that are allowed are clinically approved and we know exactly their risk profiles and their benefit profiles,” Martin says. He adds that the athletes won’t simply be tossed a vial or bottle of pills and told to take them as they see fit. Instead, the Enhanced Games has a lineup of physicians and researchers who will administer the drugs and monitor the athletes regularly after their use.

“When you think doping, you think, like, Arnold Schwarzenegger injecting himself in changing rooms or something,” McCusker says. “It’s completely the polar opposite of that.”

Furthermore, before any athlete is even accepted into the Enhanced Games, they must undergo multiple tests.

“Every athlete needs to pass rigorous medical screenings before they go into competition and in the time leading up to competition,” Martin says. “We will monitor their health and safety over time leading up to the games so that we have a very, very clear understanding of where they sit.”

Martin says the medical team has set “certain biomarker guidelines” so they can pull the plug on any athlete’s Enhanced Games campaign should their tests raise any health concerns. This monitoring doesn’t end after the event, either, as athletes will have access to the medical team, regular checkups and treatments for up to five years after their final competition.

The Future of Sports?

Are the Enhanced Games the future of sports? Is that what Martin and his team want this project to become? No, not at all. They simply want to see what the human body is capable of — how fast it can go and how strong it can become with medical and scientific enhancements.

World record marks may be beaten on May 24 or at subsequent Enhanced Games events, but no one from the team will tout them as official records. Will that make them any less impressive than existing world records? In all honesty, yes, but does that mean it will also eliminate any and all impressiveness from the feats? For some people, maybe it will, but it shouldn’t.

These are completely different worlds. There are the Olympics and clean sport, there are the Enhanced Games and there is room for both.

The post The Enhanced Games: Dangerous Gimmick or Harmless Stunt? first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

We know, we know: it’s already the second week of January. Enough with the 2025 wrap-up stuff! We hear you.

But — we wanted to give you, our community, a peek behind the curtain that helps make Slowtwitch what it is. And in order to do that, we’ve got to take a look at the year we just closed up.

It’s our first full year with our new content management system online for the editorial side of the site. It’s also our first full year since we rolled out the revamped forum. In total we, in conjunction with our technical partners at Federated Computer, The massive task of migrating tens of millions of pieces of content, user accounts, etc. into their new homes. And although the move itself certainly had some minor hiccups, we are certainly glad we did it. And we are certainly glad we did it with them; if only so that our system can handle large-scale photos, consistently, across stories and in the forum.

I spent most of December on the sidelines on the editorial front, instead doing a very deep dive into our statistics, our stories, and what that data is telling us in terms of the direction we need to steer the ship in. (I hope some of you missed my patented Freezing Cold Takes.) Unlike some years, though, there was a ready team of folks contributing all month long. We’ve been fortunate here at Slowtwitch to add the likes of Kevin, Ben, and Sarah to our roster and to deliver the independent storytelling that is the core ethos of Slowtwitch. We produced over 500 articles last year at Slowtwitch — an 80% jump in our written output over 2024.

In total, between the front page and the forum, we had nearly 50 million page views. The editorial site had visits from over 3 million unique users, with the forum just under 2.5; we can’t tell you how much overlap there is between those two audiences, but we’re sure it’s a fair number of you. Those are up healthily over 2024 for us as well.

You can find some more of our specific stats below:

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There’s a couple of things that I wanted to call out that don’t sit in the above stats.

Our 10 Most Read Stories of 2025

As I have joked many times in our forum, there simply ain’t no drama quite like triathlon drama. Our most read stories of the year almost always involved some type of newsworthy controversy. And if it didn’t involve that, well, it involved bikes. Because we love bikes.

• Run Race Winner Disqualified for Wearing HOKA Skyward X
• Aero Evolution: Kona Pro Bike Positions
• Lessons From the IRONMAN x TriDot Break-Up
• On IRONMAN and Prohibited Running Shoes
• IRONMAN Announces Performance-Based Qualifying for Kona and 70.3 World Championship
• Update on Stolen Bikes from IM Copenhagen
• World Triathlon Updates Hydration Rules
• Canyon Wins the Men’s 2025 IRONMAN World Championship Bike Count
• Canyon Issues Multiple Stop Ride Notices, Including Speedmax CF
• Wahoo’s New KICKR Desk V2

As compared to our 2024 most read stories, we had 22% more traffic to these articles than we did last year. I’m almost begging for the current professional draft zone discussion to take on the kind of life that over 40 millimeter stack shoes and water bottles did…

…nah.

Moving Into 2026

We’ve alluded to the fact that we’re continuing to expand our coverage in various areas. IRONMAN remains a big news generator for us, and Triathlon is our home, but we’re continuing to meet endurance athletes where they are and what interests them. It’s triathlon, yes, but it’s also trail running, gravel racing, and road running that all are critical to who we are and what people are reading.

We’ll also be producing more exclusive content to various platforms. We toyed with this a bit during the IRONMAN World Championships this past year, with a variety of content hosted between our front page, our social channels, our podcast, and more. That mix of distribution gives us more paint and canvas to work with, and in turn, more engagement; we more than doubled social impressions alone during World Championship season over 2024, along with healthy increases in readership and engagement on the front page and the forum over the same time period.

That said, like with all digital media, there are challenges. Search engines and social platforms increasingly try to keep users engaged on their wholly-owned platforms, rather than distributing traffic to other channels. Users don’t click on stories posted to Facebook to come here; instead, people sit in the echo chamber of that social network. Increasingly, it’s the same with Google and Bing, as their AI Quick Answer boxes deliver immediate, skimmable surface-level answers to the query, and don’t send people to the actual deep-dive behind it.

There are three things that you, as a reader, can do to help out with that. First, you can set Slowtwitch as a “preferred source” when searching on Google. It means that, when you’re reviewing News content, we’ll appear towards the top of your results for a given related query. The second, of course, is sharing Slowtwitch when and where you can. I’m only here on Slowtwitch because, back in 2010, a friend of mine at the running store I was working at referenced a thread and introduced me to it. Whether it’s the forum, a story you found engaging, our podcast — we appreciate the sharing our audience does. Lastly — please join in the conversation on the forum. About 80% of our active users on the forum are consumers, rather than contributors. Not because they don’t have anything good to share, but we know that sometimes new members feel a little intimidated or scared. Don’t be. Let the community hear your thoughts, advice, and contributions.

We’re looking forward to a great 2026 together — hope to see you out there.

The post Slowtwitch in 2025: Behind the Numbers first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

The very first new bike I bought was a Felt. The first bike I ever sold to an online scammer was a Felt (that was painful). While working at SBR Sports in Orem, Utah, we were one of the very first Felt dealers in the state. They gave us great margin and our sales rep Betsy was always around to take any of our questions. It was a great relationship from the time we started to the time I moved on to go sell Internet for Cox Communications door-to-door — that, too, was painful.

The brand was super strong under its founder, Jim Felt. Well, until Jim got a little over his skis with the mindset of “Felt can be everything to everyone.” In 2017, the brand was sold to Rossignol and Jim left the company. It then played a bit of ownership hot potato, as in 2021 Pierer Mobility, the owner of KTM, took over the reigns from Rossignol. Pierer set their eyes on the concept of integrating gas powered dirt bikes with performance pedal and e-bikes.

The integration process that Rossignol and Pierer set out to do turned out to be challenging to say the least. And as of November 20th, Felt has new owners. The small group that had been in charge of Felt’s integration with Pierer Mobility, Florian Burguet and Cesar Tojo, bought 100% of the company.

How did they do it? Take a semi deep dive into the process over the last 5 years.

SPOTIFY

APPLE PODS

The post Felt Bicycles is Back first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

CUBE Bikes has announced a product safety recall for its Agree C:62 road bike from the 2025 and 2026 model years delivered and sold before Nov. 30, 2025. All frame sizes are affected.

“After analyzing a small number of reported cases of cracks forming above the brake mount on our Agree C:62 carbon fibre forks, it was found that a change to the resin material in model year 2025 has resulted in isolated forks having an insufficient resin content in this area,” the company writes in the release about the recall. “The forks affected by this issue do not adequately meet our own quality standards in the event of excessive braking force. Excessive braking force on the affected Agree C:62 carbon fork may cause the outermost carbon layers to delaminate, resulting in cracks and significantly weakening the fork structure, through the complete failure of the left fork blade. The described product defect increases the res of an accident, which can cause material damage, serious injuries or even death.”

CUBE states that “use of the bike must stop with immediate effect,” until the fork has been checked and, if necessary, replaced.

Bikes should be checked by a “bike professional” such as a local CUBE dealer or authorized retailer. You can check the affected bike and fork serial numbers here. Forks affected by the recall need to be replaced before continued use.

MODELS AFFECTED BY THIS ISSUE:

• 826100: Agree C:62 ONE foggrey’n’grey 2025
• 826200: Agree C:62 Pro blackline 2025
• 826210: Agree C:62 Pro polarlight’n’aquagreen 2025
• 826300: Agree C:62 Race flashlime’n’black 2025
• 826400: Agree C:62 SLX liquidred’n’prism 2025
• 826410: Agree C:62 SLX pigeonblue’n’art 2025
• 826500: Agree C:62 SLT nebula’n’white 2025

• 126100: Agree C:62 ONE storm’n’grey 2026 
• 126150: Agree C:62 EX topasblue’n’white 2026 
• 126200: Agree C:62 Pro blackline 2026 
• 126210: Agree C:62 Pro bali’n’prism 2026 
• 126300: Agree C:62 Race glacier’n’black 2026 
• 126400: Agree C:62 SLX nightshift’n’prism 2026 
• 126410: Agree C:62 SLX cosmicpurple’n’black 2026 
• 126500: Agree C:62 SLT black’n’black 2026 
• 126510: Agree C:62 SLT greenfusion’n’white 2026 

You can read the entire press release from CUBE here.

The post CUBE Bikes Recalls Agree C:62 Model Years 2025 and 2026 first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

We came. We saw. We counted.

There were nearly 4,000 bikes and their various components that we counted across the 2025 IRONMAN World Championship races in Nice and Kona. As we covered before, Canyon and Cervelo took top honors for the respective men’s and women’s races. Profile Design, as expected, was well represented in aerobars, along with Shimano in drivetrain choice. And in a surprise, DT Swiss swept both the men’s and women’s wheel count.

We wanted to take a deeper dive into some of the categories we counted this year, as well as present a unified look at the counts across the two races. Here’s what we found.

Bikes: There’s a Wide Gulf Between the Top 3 and Everyone Else

The top three brands should not come as a surprise to anyone within endurance sports over the last, oh, 20 years. Let’s start with second placed Cervelo; they have arguably had the most consistent investment in triathlon over that period of time, and it was only recently that they’ve lost the top spot in the overall standings to Canyon. It was perhaps notable that Cervelo led the women’s count in Kona this year, whereas Canyon built its overall margin in the Nice count.

Speaking of Canyon, they have exploded in popularity over the past seven years. Looking back at the 2018 Kona Bike Count results, they had a mere 130 bikes in total in the field — lagging well behind Cervelo, Trek, Specialized, and Felt. Between increased availability in the United States, a healthy sponsorship program for professionals, as well as the COVID-era cycling purchasing boom, the brand put in the kind of legwork that Cervelo had done in the early 2000s that led to its longtime dominance in the counts. (It’s notable, then, that most female professional triathletes who were riding Cervelo bikes opted to tape over the Cervelo logos in Kona this year.)

Trek, too, remains quite popular, with roughly one out of every six athletes riding one of their machines. That will be something we’ll need to watch over the coming years, as currently the least expensive complete Speed Concept you can purchase will run you $9,500 USD. That bike comes with electronic shifting Shimano Ultegra Di2 and Bontrager 51mm deep wheels, but it’s still a nearly $10,000 bike as the entry level complete triathlon bike. You still can purchase a rim brake Speed Concept frame for $3,630.

There’s then a 350 bike gap down to fourth place and Quintana Roo. If I were a betting man, I would suggest that QR is most likely to make a leap up the bike counts. It already has done so over the 2023 and 2024 counts as it opens up the European market more. Comparable builds to the above least expensive Speed Concept will run you, as of this writing, about $3000 less (note: QR is running a promotion for free wheel upgrades to HED’s Vanquish V62; typically, a comparable QR is still $2,000 off a Speed Concept price).

The other big mover upwards are the combined Giant brands. There were 207 riders aboard either a Giant, LIV, or CADEX branded bike at this year’s races, which as a single brand would have placed it sixth overall. I would suspect that they will comfortably move ahead of Specialized as a combined force next year for fifth place. It probably would not come as a surprise to find Giant alone as a brand ahead of the likes of Felt, BMC, and Scott.

There are a couple of brands who might have over-indexed over the last few split IRONMAN World Championships. Cube, in particular, will be one to watch; they have had very strong runs in Nice but with the move back to Kona may not crack 100 bikes next year. LIV, too, has benefitted from the single-gender races.

One last thing we’ll be interested to watch for are the numbers for brands that have taken their off of triathlon entirely. For example, Cannondale has not produced a triathlon-specific bike since COVID, yet still has seen a not-insignificant number of their bikes at the World Championship.

The total counts are as follows:

Drivetrains: Shimano and SRAM Only Apply

Perhaps more surprising than Shimano’s sheer dominance as a single manufacturer is just how few bikes are coming equipped with Campagnolo (or Microshift, for that matter). As far as we could find, there’s just a sole bike brand currently offering an OEM-purchase with Campagnolo components on board, and that’s Look. Otherwise, nearly everything is Shimano and SRAM fully. The days of piecemeal spec (e.g., my first triathlon bike, a Felt, featured an FSA crank, Shimano derailleurs, and Microshift shutters) to hit a particular price point are long gone.

Pedals: Power Drives Speedplay Downward

Shimano and Look have long held the top two positions in the bike count, and they have held roughly the same amount of marketshare for the past decade. But Favero and their Assioma pedal line up, along with Garmin and its various pedals, now make up over 1,250 riders. Power in the pedal has been a game-changer.

The company who has been hit hardest by that change is Speedplay. The relatively long gestation period after Wahoo purchased Speedplay in 2019 for new product, in no small part due to the COVID boom in indoor training, has meant that Speedplay’s lost about 30% of its overall IM World Championship marketshare since 2018. That said, it’s not like Wahoo is ignoring the power pedal market, either. The Speedplay power pedals are good product. It’s just a question of whether Wahoo can convince riders again of the benefits of the Speedplay system versus the more-traditional SPD / Keo style pedals on offer from Favero and Garmin.

Saddles: ISM Remains the Standard, But Selle Italia is Moving Up

ISM has been at the top of the saddle count for over a decade. The brand that popularized the split nose saddle trend continues to lead, but that margin is shrinking. ISM at one point doubled the count on the next closest competitor, which had been Fizik. Selle Italia, meanwhile, has stormed up the ranks, in thanks to its Watt series of saddles. They’ve quadrupled their saddle count over the past decade. It’s also notable that Selle Italia comes as a stock option on many of the top bike brands, including on select Canyon, Cervelo, and Quintana Roo models.

Trending downward are the likes of Cobb (aka jCob), Gebiomized, and Shimano / PRO saddles. I don’t think that has much to do with the quality of product they have, per se. I think it more has to do with the improved quality of stock options on bikes that is reducing the need for an aftermarket saddle purchase. (Editor’s Note: Yes, I understand the irony of that statement from someone who broke his pelvis last summer because he ignored saddle pain. That’s a Ryan is a moron problem.)

Wheels: The Rise of OEM-Spec Wheels

This is a bit of a similar story to the one we find with saddles; brands that more frequently come as stock options are making their way to the World Championship events. As mentioned by one of our counters in our reader forum, roughly three quarters of the bikes that were ridden in Kona this year appeared to have been rolled off the showroom floor, with just the addition of front and rear hydration being the sole modification from stock.

Still, that’s to take nothing away from the remarkable rise of DT Swiss. Prior to the COVID pandemic, DT Swiss had 124 total wheels in the race. Not wheel sets. Just individual wheels. They lagged far behind the likes of Zipp, ENVE, HED, Reynolds, Bontrager, and Mavic. They were roughly where Roval is in modern times. That’s a huge switch in fortune.

Again, it helps that you can easily procure DT Swiss as part of a complete build from bike manufacturers today, including Canyon and QR. Meanwhile, Zipp is harder to come by in an OEM-purchase; you’re more likely to have to add them on after the fact. That’s simply introducing far more friction into the purchasing journey at this point. It’s becoming apparent that people are making a single, one-and-done, purchase of their equipment. Roughly half of the Trek’s in the field came adorned with Bontrager race wheels. Quintana Roo’s almost all had DT Swiss, HED, or Reynolds wheels; all of those have been OEM options in recent times.

Those who are deciding to purchase secondary wheel sets also have more options than ever. We had nearly as many riders not on a CADEX bike on CADEX branded wheels. Swiss Side has steadily increased marketshare. It’s an embarrassment of riches when it comes to product. Zipp will need to do something to help make it easier for consumers to get their hands on product, and to give the brand the thought leadership position that it held onto for years.

The post Insights From the Combined 2025 IM World Championship Bike Counts first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency has issued a Withhold Release Order against “bicycles, bicycle parts, and accessories manufactured in Taiwan” by Giant Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

This means that the agency will detain any bikes, bike parts, or accessories made by Giant in Taiwan at the port of entry. Items held by the agency can be asked to be returned to the importer; destroyed at the importers’ request; or appealed to be shown to be admissible.

Bikes impacted by the order include all of Giant’s premium road, gravel, and mountain bikes, parts, and accessories. This also covers bikes under the LIV and CADEX brand names. It is not clear, however, whether the order will also cover bikes manufactured by Giant, but sold under other brand names. Giant has provided contract manufacturing for brands including but not limited to Trek and Scott.

In a statement announcing the order, CBP accused Giant of being in violation of 19 U.S.C. § 1307, the statute that prohibits goods made from forced labor from entering the United States.

“Importers have a responsibility to do their due diligence and know their supply chains,” said Acting Executive Assistant Commissioner of CBP’s Office of Trade Susan S. Thomas in a statement. “CBP will continue to investigate allegations of forced labor and take action when we find it in U.S. supply chains.”

During its investigation of Giant, the CBP states that it found the following indicators of forced labor:

• abuse of vulnerability;
• abusive working and living conditions;
• debt bondage;
• excessive overtime; and
• withholding of wages.

CBP alleges that Giant illegally profited by being able to produce goods below market value, undercutting other manufacturers.

A 2024 investigative report of labor practices at Giant found that the bicycle manufacturer frequently used migrant labor at its Taiwanese facilities. These facilities hired staff through recruiters that charged employees thousands of dollars for their services. In turn, Giant would deduct these fees from worker paychecks and paid them to the recruiters.

Giant has issued a response to the order, stating that the company plans to appeal the decision. Within the response, the company says it “is firmly committed to upholding human rights and labor protections, and has taken the following concrete actions: Since January 2025, we have fully implemented a Zero Recruitment Fee Policy, under which all recruitment, agency, and government-related fees for newly hired migrant workers are fully covered by the company.”

Giant also says it uses third-party auditors and internal controls to ensure the safety and conditions of its workers.

Taiwan relies on more than 750,000 migrant workers, with nearly half a million of them working across the manufacturing sector, which focuses on electronics, bicycles, and automotive parts. The practice of paid recruitment and, in turn, debt bondage, is commonplace across the entirety of the sector.

The US is the top destination for Taiwanese made bicycles, with two major players in the arena. There’s Giant and its assorted contract manufacturing relationships, as well as Merida. Other brands that at least source materials and work from Taiwan include Cannondale, Canyon, Cervelo, Pinarello, and Specialized. None of the work performed by Merida, or by these other brands, is currently subject to the order.

In its reply, Giant notes that “the company has activated contingency measures and is planning to work closely with CBP and are working closely with business partners to minimize the impact” of the Withhold Release Order.

There are 52 other active Withhold Release Orders being enforced by CBP that involve alleged violations of 19 U.S.C. § 1307. 37 of those orders are against Chinese manufacturers. The action against Giant is the sole case from Taiwan as of this writing. It is the fifth Withhold Release Order issued in 2025.

Giant had reported half year 2025 revenue at just over $1 billion USD over the summer.

The post U.S. Customs and Border Protection Will Withhold Release of Giant Bikes, Parts From Taiwan first appeared on Slowtwitch News.