Sea Otter Trends 2026

Ed. note: I wasn’t able to make Sea Otter this year. Jasen Thorpe shared his thoughts about the show with me over email.

Disclaimer

Byron couldn’t go to Sea Otter this year. But he made a really smart move in asking Charles Manantan to cover the show for Hugger Enterprises. Then Charles got hit by a car (he’s ok). When Charles reached out to cancel the Otter meeting I had scheduled with him, I jokingly offered to cover the show for them.

The joke became a little serious. A little serious became a negotiation that started with the idea of video booth tours and interviews with exhibitors and concluded with me agreeing to share show trends and other things I found amusing. I also promised to keep in mind that you all, being Hugger readers, don’t need or want the typical media round-up and spec-by-spec coverage of every new product at Otter, and that you’re smart enough to consider the world holistically. Your mileage may vary on that last point. Sorry, and good luck. – Jasen

Italian version of a gravel bike puts the emphasis on going fast.

Panda Podium

Panda Podium was not the most standout story of Otter but they were a story, for sure. Watching from their booth, I saw that most consumers and industry types would walk by without a glance. Or would look and blow by, anyway. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t one of those tradeshow ghost-town booths of despair. Plenty of people also stopped to check things out. But it’s the ones who blew by that are important to this story, which is important to the context of the next story.

Joe Whittingham is the founder of Panda Podium. He moved from the UK to China a little over fifteen years ago, abandoning his hobby of tuning JDM vehicles (it’s neither particularly possible nor entirely legal in China, apparently) and picking up bikes and cycling in its place. As he got into cycling and began consuming cycling media, he was struck by how, at least in English-language media, the experiences, brands, and technologies common to him in China were nowhere to be found.

In response to a void in the cycling community and marketplace, and to share his experience with his peers in China and back home in the UK, he started a YouTube channel.

China Cycling

As he became more enmeshed in the local cycling community and began building relationships with local manufacturers, reviewing bikes and products on ChinaCycling, he started to field inquiries from his followers: “Hey, where can I buy that?” And a lot of times, the answer was, “Well, outside of China, I guess you can’t. “That gradually morphed into, “Maybe I can help you with that.” (You can see where this is going…) And, yeah, it eventually led to Joe starting Panda Podium – a website through which consumers can buy Chinese-made bikes and products that have been selected, tested, vetted, and generally approved by Whittingham and his team, including some frames and parts that have been used at a world tour level, raced to world titles, and private-labeled by some very well-regarded brands.

Panda ships directly to consumers globally from China. And, as you can imagine, value for the cost is a part of their model, because of that.

Breaking down how people react to this model is one of the areas where things get interesting. Some people are threatened by the business model. Others are skeptical of the product quality. While another group are freaking stoked. And some are more like, Chinese-made D2C curious, or open to it. And there’s a lot baked into that. Some of it is fair, some of it is racist, some nationalist, some protectionist, some evangelical. You choose. From a US perspective, it’s not so different than what we might have seen with electronics or cars over time. Depending on your age and interests, you may remember when Japanese cars were considered low-quality. We all know how it would sound to say that now. Korean cars, anyone? Hyundai seems to be doing ok these days. And yeah, you can’t not think about Chinese cars now, right?

Direct to Consumer

The reality is that every nation has companies that are capable of producing garbage products. The reality is that China also has serious manufacturing capabilities and can produce amazing technology. So the thing is – how can consumers filter products that are good from bad or great from ok, or whatever? And how do you feel about navigating customer service in this setting? Those are the gaps that Panda aims to bridge through its experience with Chinese manufacturers, its cycling experience, and its growing testing protocols.

As for consumer and industry reactions to it, well… if there’s one thing that became clear at this year’s Otter, it’s that Chinese manufacturers, who have already been making a considerable contribution to the industry as OEM suppliers, are no longer content to stay behind the scenes, and pretending they don’t exist is no longer a viable option.

Shenzhen’s US coming-out party

Speaking of China, generally, and Shenzhen, specifically… Otter 2026 felt like a coming-out party for brands with some serious manufacturing chops. Big booths, lots of bike models, proprietary designs, slick displays, creative ideas, and clean execution were all prominently displayed on the premier exhibition row at Laguna Seca this year.

How about if we start with DJI/Avinox/Amflow?

DJI is a Shenzhen-based manufacturer of cameras, camera stabilization equipment, drones, power packs, solar generators, and more. Their e-bike motor division, Avinox, issued a press release a week before Sea Otter, announcing two new ebike drive systems and commitments from a large number of bike brands to use them. Most noticeable among those brands, at Otter, was DJI’s e-bike division, Amflow, which showcases the Avinox motor technology across a number of models.

Stablead

You would also have been hard-pressed to miss the Otter presence of Stablead. Established just last year, with a presence in Southern California and the involvement of Brian Lopes (you know, former world MTB champion Brian Lopes) and Tom Rogers (Yeah, former world up racer and suspension engineer, Tom Rogers). They showed several complete bike prototypes, including their own frame and suspension system designs, suspension components, drivetrain parts, and more. And while those of you following along closely might be thinking, “Burbank isn’t Shenzhen!” Well, Shenzhen is Shenzhen. Stablead is the bike division of Tilta, a Shenzhen-based manufacturer of cinematography and photography equipment. (Think cages, control systems, car mounts, stabilizers, gimbals…).

Perhaps the most traditional business showing out of Shenzen at Otter would be XDS. I say ‘traditional’ because XDS is already a major manufacturer of bikes for widely known, widely distributed US brands and others. (So, not a camera company, for example). But they’re now moving into the US market in a more meaningful way with their own brand – X-Lab. Their bike lineup includes road, gravel, and e-bikes, many of which feature attention-grabbing specs and/or pricing, and the road bikes are already being used at the World Tour level by Team XDS Astana.

Vertical Integration

From a business perspective, these brands, as well as Panda Podium, will face similar challenges and choices as existing bike brands in terms of how they navigate the market – Through retailers? Consumer direct sales? Both? How do they handle customer service, maintenance, and initial assembly? Stuff like that. But they are also bringing energy, innovation, and a fresh look at things – and they are relatively free of legacy/baggage, but also relatively free of track record.

Time will tell how this plays out for each company and the others that might follow. And it all kind of reminds me of a conversation I had with my son a few weeks back, about how sometimes it might be easier to start a company than to try to get an existing one to change its methods of working or its goals. That said, it feels like the market is right for enough disruption for this to lead to something of an upheaval of the existing bike industry world order – or maybe just lead to some proper merger and acquisition kind of stuff.

Apologies to longtime Hugger readers. That was probably the highest number of non-...

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