Pivot Cycles’ Elorie Slater on Industry Trends, Bike Prices, & Female Participation in MTB (Ep. 30)

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TOPICS & TIMES

  • Elorie’s background (4:12)
  • Current bike industry trends (16:04)
  • “Entry level” prices (25:23)
  • Pivot’s frames (31:52)
  • Ride Tuning (35:22)
  • ‘Women Specific’ bikes (38:34)

Elorie Slater runs the marketing department for Pivot Cycles. She was in Crested Butte last week on bike-riding getaway with her husband, but she interrupted her vacation to have a long, wide-ranging conversation in Blister HQ, and I knew that I wanted to get her on Bikes & Big Ideas soon.

So in today’s conversation, Elorie talks about her quite unusual path to becoming the head of marketing for Pivot; her take on the bike industry in the time of COVID, and where the industry goes from here; bike prices and “entry level” pricing; and the notion of women-specific gear and female participation in mountain biking.

Pivot Cycles’ Elorie Slater on Industry Trends, Bike Prices, & Female Participation in MTB (Ep. 30), BLISTER
Elorie Slater

3 comments on “Pivot Cycles’ Elorie Slater on Industry Trends, Bike Prices, & Female Participation in MTB (Ep. 30)”

  1. Interesting listen, as usual. You do good interviews JE. You ask good questions.

    Yeah, gravel bikes: that moniker probably hurts their sales a bit. A lot? But I guess a “gravel bike” is a cooler name than SUV or allroad etc.

    Consumers are eating up disc brakes although I bet no tour for this year and maybe next may actually impact consumer want for them on top level road bikes since consumers don’t get to see the pros showcasing the brands’ disc product. The TDF is road biking’s greatest marketing vehicle.

    I’m old school and always feel the need to make it known that I am of opinion that they are stupid on pure roadies and do not look as good, especially with the industry spec’ing 160mm discs on most. If you’re a pure roadie you are probably well under 200lbs and 140’s are plenty and look much better. Again, just some nobody’s opinion.

    If gravel bikes could be marketed as a great road bikes (which should be easy because they are) you’d not have so many buying disc race bikes with the stem stacked and pointed up. There is nothing really wrong with that except I think a gravel bike is a better fit for the vast majority of those riding on the road. Heck, they take fenders! Imagine riding in the rain and actually needing those hydro discs! Plus a ~72 HA and ~420 CS’s really is more all round road friendly and is so much fun on long, high speed, amply cornered descents (with road tires, of course).

  2. Women-specific bikes: well, until they came on the market I could never find a bike small enough (other than kids’ bikes and we won’t go there). My standover height is 68 cm. and it took me years (about 10) to find a dual-suspension bike I could actually stand over (with no clearance). Yet I’m only 4″ shorter than the North American average for adult females. Reach is another problem. How would you feel learning to mountain bike when you can’t stand over the bike?

    So, Elorie and Pivot are correct in that people-specific design is the way to go but manufacturers need to design and build bikes for real women, not women who are models. And please, don’t make everything pink!

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