What's Out and What's In - Mountain Biking in 2015 54

Vital MTB solicited 262 of mountain biking's most established industry and media folk to create a list of what's out and what's in for mountain biking in 2015. Abide by this list and you'll be totally on-trend while on the trail and on the internet this year.

What's Out - Mountain Biking in 2015

• Bitching about 27.5-inch wheels. We've heard you for the last 3 years.
• Pretending not to train.
• Energy drinks. Remember how back in the day they said smoking was good for you?
• Bolt-on chin guards. It wasn't a good idea the first time.
• Rob Roskopp's credit card at dinner.
• Vital RAW rip offs. You'll still make them, but you'll never know the magic ingredient.
• The selfie.
• Clipless pedals. Sam Hill is back and so are flats.
• Thinking clipless pedals are out to get you.
• Team Robot. No particular reason other than phishing to get a funny comment from them.
  
• Ratboy's member.
• Twitter. Do people outside of politics actually use it?
• @teamrumours. A supposed 6-figure lawsuit may slow them down a bit.
• Giant eyeballs and lightning bolt kits. Again, really?
• Fluorescent colors.
• Electric mountain bikes. Were they ever in?
• Enduro-specific anything. (psst, hey, does anyone have a good idea for another trendy term that means "mountain biking" so we can be first?)
  
• Hydration packs on any ride less than 5 hours.
• Duncan Philpott. He lost his hearing, got even bigger, blacker glasses and went to the fashion industry.
• Over-the-top marketing. Back up your claims or get called out.
• Any bike that comes stock with a stem that's 80mm or longer. It's 2015 people. You product managers don't even ride those things.
• Super thin pedals. That ship has sailed. Time to find a good balance.
• $3000 carbon wheels.
• 17 cables hanging off your bars.
• Hour-long, talking-head web edits. Who has time for that?
• Instagram filters on errrrr-thang.
• Pros riding fat bikes. You don't need money or product that badly, do you?
  
• Press fit bottom brackets. Let's all follow the ways of Santa Cruz, again.
• Noisy bikes. #mastictape
• #hashtags
  
• Stealing photos and videos for your super sweet, fake-ass Facebook and Instagram accounts. "Look how many followers I have, bro!" Is it really worth your time? #sostrange
• Following super sweet, fake-ass Facebook and Instagram accounts.
• Rider Instagram accounts that are filled with nothing but boring, uninspired product- and sponsor-flossing posts. Share your soul, share your failures, share your real life. It's good for all of us.
  
• Team race recap edits. Does anyone actually watch these 4 days after the race happened? Time to mix up the formula. gordo will sell you up to 20 rad, view-catching ideas if the price is right. Just ask Steel City Media.
  
• Melodramatic attempts at pseudo adventure created purely for a web video.
• The Kamloops Kickout; aka the butt waggle, aka the booty fling, aka the this-will-make-my-shredit-look-sick-rear-tire-slip. Not to be confused with the Scandi Flick, it's that little, faux dirt roost thingy seen in major freeride MTB movies before Blu-Ray and iTunes release. Three people know how to actually drift a mountain bike and throw roost. They know who they are. The rest of you? Just turn.
• Embarrassingly low prize purses for the World's best riders. Stand up and boycott that shit. You're worth more than that.
• iPhones on handlebars. Did you really think that was a good idea?
• My, my, hey, hey. Using washed-up MTBers to promote your products. It's better to burn out than to fade away.
  
• EpicTV's view counts. T-Mac, we love you, but there's no way your party video is pushing 1 million legit eyeballs.
  
• Riding in a wife beater for anyone who doesn't come from The Interior.
• Conspiracy theories. Nobody paid us to say a damn thing, we don't give marketing peeps direct access to edit our reviews like some sites out there and we're not even invited to half the media camps anyway. We do believe there's something hidden in Roswell though.
  
• Watermarks.
  
• Carrying two helmets in Enduro.
  
• Standalone back protection.
• Matching wheels and frame colors
• "Lifestyle” sequences in shredits. We all know how to put on goggles, and we’ve all seen epic sunsets equal-to or greater than yours.
• The term shredit.
• Facebook.
  
• Anything with  “Productions” in the name that doesn’t also have “Steven Spielberg” or “Clay Porter” attached. 164productions tried this angle back in 2001 with a VX1000 and 1GB RAID desktop PC and it didn't fool anyone then. 14 years later your DSLR and Macbook Pro still means you're still just a guy with a camera and a computer.
• The front derailleur. Why are we even still talking about that thing? (because gordo believes?)
  
• Asking Vital to take down a video embed we posted because your filmer didn't password protect the preview video on Vimeo or YouTube. We're not hacking and stealing shit like the North Koreans, but we do have some of the best internet scrubbers on two wheels. Can you believe this happened to us at least 15 times in 2014? Tighten it up people. If we can find it and post it, so can anyone else.
  
• Electronic suspension. Design a proper frame, get your damping dialed and move on.
• Steeze. The word. We can’t use it anymore, currently accepting applications for suitable substitutes.
• Little bikes at World Cup DH races.
• Reading long-ass list articles.
  
• Over-priced bike wear that claims to be technical but is miles behind a similarly-featured Gore-tex jacket you can get at Wal-Mart for $19.78.
  
• Weird geometry with 0mm stems. Teams have tried it, different companies have tried it and no one can ride it.
• Media information with an “embargo” on it. Apparently, “embargo” translates to “post before anyone else and play dumb” in German, Italian, Canadian, and most other languages.

What's In - Mountain Biking in 2015

• Bitching about axle standards. Brace yourselves. 3mm has never caused such a shit storm.
• Sam Hill and Remi Thirion battling for World Champ gold.
• Less-to-none slow mo in web edits.
• FEST series. This is happening again, right? Please? Pretty please?
  
• Drones. No wonder homeland security is bricking it. Easy to fly and with the new GoPro you can get some rad shots.
• Soloshot and drones that will just follow you. Who needs a friend or a filmer when you have technology?
  
• Credits cards that cover car rental insurance for all.
• $1500 carbon wheels.
• Pros riding fat bikes. You probably actually do need money or product that badly.
• Pit scooters.
• The Vital MTB forum. It only took what, 5 years?
  
• Going Hoff. We're too old to pretend to know what it means, but it just sounds so rad.
• Chicks loving the media guys. Getting with the top riders is so 2003. Plus the media dudes are such dorks, there's no way they have any STDs (or is it STI's in 2015?).
  
• Pro riders buying cameras and filming/editing. Good work Remy Metailler and Loosedog. You're ahead of the game.
  
• Short-travel, slacked-out 29ers. Those who know, know.
• The word shred. Zink tried to crush it, but just like Zink himself, the word shred can't be crushed.
  
• Rat's member with a Top 10 DH woman?
• Cut Media. Hope you already booked them to make your 2016 launch videos. (no offense Steel City).
  
• Downhill racing. The resurgence is coming.
• Rene Wildhaber's calves.
  
• Real adventures. Thank you Joey Schusler.
• Riding with your kids. Be a good parent.
• Luke Strobel. Women lust after him, trails fear him, men want to be like him.
• Ladies who shred. They're coming out of the woodwork.
• Metal. Down with dubstep.
• Electronic suspension. It's 2015 and everyone should be on hoverboards by now anyway. 
  
• Direct-to-consumer sales model. 60% margins are way bigger than 30% margins.
• Chainguides. Your narrow-wide ring isn't that good.
• Water.
  
• Coconut water.
• Instagram posting before the print cover hits the newsstand.
• Blogs.
  
• Fanny packs.
• Integrated hydration and back protection.
• Dropper posts in XC racing.
  
• Matching wheels to everything.
• SWAT-style stuff. Spoiler, in 2017 your downtube will have a bladder for your water, there will a be a goo dispenser built in to your bars and when you sit to lower your dropper post, you'll be able to simultaneously inflate your tires.
  
• Ghetto van camping in the pits at EWS and World Cups. Hide your daughters, sisters, food, showers and WiFi.
• Self-edits from Connor Fearon
• Roll-off goggles for Enduro (tear-offs banned?)
• Mountain Biking. It’s the new term for riding a mountain bike.
• Not getting flats. Schwalbe, we’re looking at you. Where's that Procore thingy?
• Awesome captions and more awesomer list articles.
• Filming with anything but a phone. Unless you actually LIKE infinite depth of field, no contrast and weird frame dimensions, then no, your phone isn’t “almost as good as a D4."
  
• Sam Hill, motherfucker.
• Dropping hammers. Skateboarding moved on from the term banger like 13 years ago. Then BMX used the Hammer thing in like '04, so if MTB picks up the term in 2015, we're right on schedule to remain off-the-back-cling-on-wannabe-skaters. We'll get to "after-black hammers" in 2017.
  
• Building interesting, sustainable trails, not just the bulk standard flow trail groomer.
  
• Trials skills on your trail bike.
• A bigger non-UCI race scene with real prize money.
• Gearboxes. We're gonna say gearboxes are in until they're freaking in, so get used to it.