If you take a look at the Orange bikes site today you’ll notice an obvious gap in what bikes are available to buy …
Hardtails, full suss trail, long travel enduro are all still present and correct. But what’s missing? Yep – the downhill bikes are no longer on offer. It seems that Orange have hit the pause button on their big travel bikes.
We hit up Orange on Skype and press-man Sim told us:
“The short answer is .. Yep. Basically for 2014 we want to concentrate on our trail bikes. Trail, sorry, Enduro, bikes are the flavour of the moment and, as it goes, ours kick ass. To that end it made sense for us to really concentrate at making, promoting and selling those rather than the currently less in-vogue long travel stuff”.
Anyone who can remember the days of Steve Peat racing an Orange to World Cup victory or Missy Giove, Greg Minnaar and the host of other Orange downhill heroes will probably feel a twinge of nostalgia at this one. For all the foibles of single pivot, who hasn’t fallen in love with an Orange 22something at some point?
Looking with a cool eye at the industry though it isn’t a huge surprise. Orange’s Five and Alpine are their flagship bikes with sales hugely outmatching their DH bikes. The industry is charging hard towards enduro and ‘all mountain’ and the popularity of pedaling is growing and growing… Could Orange be the first of many? We hope not…
Reassuringly, Sim at Orange also left us with a teasing note:
“We’ve certainly got history when it comes to DH. We’re not ruling out a return mind, we’ve just pressed the pause button if you like!”
What’s your reaction? Do you think the days of the downhill bike are numbered? Does this just make you want to ride big bikes even more?
