Whatever Happened to the Mountain Bike Frame "Platform?"
- Allan
- 23 hours ago
- 10 min read
I'm not sure why I'm writing this? You'll no doubt see the point of it when you reach the bottom though. It's really just my thoughts on a process I used to be very familiar with that I have rediscovered and ruminated on
Firstly, thanks to Merida Bikes UK, Vittoria Tyres UK and Ride Innerleithen for their amazing support.
There was a time when buying a mountain bike wasn't really buying a complete bike at all.
It was buying a platform. The frame was the investment and everything else was temporary.
You bought the best frame you could afford, built it with whatever components your budget allowed and then spent years refining it. Wheels changed. Forks evolved. Drivetrains wore out and were replaced. Control and contact parts came and went. The bike developed alongside you as a rider.
Here's a few examples of bikes I've built over the last 30 years.
"In many ways, my bike was never truly finished"
I know I'm generalising, but I feel like somewhere along the way, that mentality seems to have disappeared. So what happened to the mountain bike frame platform?
Today, most riders buy a complete bike, ride it for a couple of seasons and then replace the entire thing. The conversation has shifted from "What frame should I build around?" to "What bike should I buy next?" I've never actually been that bothered abot the next big thing in a "full bike" way. I'd rather potter away and build, build build!
It sounds like a small difference, but I think it has changed mountain biking more than most people realise. The thing is that mountain bikes have never been better. Geometry is excellent. Suspension performance is astonishing. Reliability has improved enormously. Even relatively affordable bikes are capable of tackling terrain that would have seemed extraordinary not that many years ago. The barrier to entry for great equipment has tanked.
Yet despite all that progress, bikes seem to have become more disposable.
Not because they wear out. Because we're constantly being told they're obsolete. Every year or two brings another supposedly revolutionary development. A new suspension layout. A new axle standard. A new storage compartment hidden somewhere in the frame. A slightly revised geometry chart. The message is subtle but persistent. Last year's bike is no longer enough. Instead, the next bike is the answer.
One reason that this all crystalised for me was that I was looking at a new hardtail frame. There is a current (new) version and a version that is 2 years older. The "old one" is on sale. It has 25% off. The new one is full price. The difference? The new one uses a UHD. Same material, smae sizes, geometry, everything. Ironically, I'm a big fan of the UHD for all the reasons that most will be familiar with. But jeez...
"The reality for me I think, is going to be rather different moving on."
Most modern trail bikes are already so capable that the limiting factor is rarely the bike itself. For the vast majority of riders, there is probably far more performance to be gained from improving skills, fitness and technique than replacing a perfectly good bicycle. But that wasn't always how riders viewed their bikes. To be honest, In my other life as a skills cinstructor, people still can't be convinced that the bike alone won't make them better riders.
Twenty (five?) years ago people identified with frames rather than complete specifications. Riders talked about owning a Heckler, a Five, a Fuel or a Stumpjumper. The frame was the bike. Components were simply whatever happened to be bolted onto it at that particular stage of its life.
Today we seem to identify more with specifications than platforms. We talk about GX versus XT, Factory versus Performance Elite, wireless shifting versus cables and electronic suspension versus mechanical suspension. All of those things matter, but they're also consumable. They wear out, can become damaged, get upgraded and eventually get replaced.
The frame (and perhaps a good fork) remains the foundation.
That is why I've always found it slightly odd that the concept of the platform bike has largely disappeared from modern mountain biking. And social media hasn't helped.
Mountain biking used to be influenced mainly by your riding mates, the local bike shop and the magazines you bought once a month. Today we're exposed to a constant stream of new bikes, product launches, influencer content and carefully curated garage photographs.Every day seems to bring another new bike day post.
Another unboxing. Another declaration that this year's bike is dramatically better than last year's. The algorithms love novelty because novelty generates engagement. Manufacturers love novelty because novelty sells bikes. Media outlets love novelty because novelty attracts readers.
What doesn't generate quite so much excitement is a rider quietly improving a bike over five or six years. Just look at the slop coming out of GMBN / EMBN It's not useful, it's clickbait to encourage engagement = Algorythm gains.
Nobody posts a photograph saying, "I've just fitted my third wheelset to a frame I've owned for 4 or 5 years and it's still brilliant. "Yet I put to you all that there is something deeply satisfying about exactly that process.
One of the reasons I find myself thinking about this more often these days is because I've been guilty of both approaches over the years. Like most riders, I've bought complete bikes because they represented good value at the time. Sometimes that made perfect sense. Sometimes it was probably because I'd convinced myself that a new bike would somehow transform my riding.
Occasionally it did. Mostly it didn't.
What I've realised is that the bikes I remember most fondly aren't necessarily the most expensive ones or the most technologically advanced. They're the bikes that stayed around long enough to evolve. The bikes that collected stories. The bikes that gradually became exactly what I wanted them to be.
If you've been riding mountain bikes for any length of time you'll probably recognise the pattern. You buy a bike, ride it everywhere and eventually discover what matters to you. Not what matters to reviewers. Not what matters to influencers. What matters to you. Perhaps you discover that reliability is more important than saving a few grams.
Perhaps you decide that a really good wheelset makes more difference than a more expensive groupset. Perhaps you finally accept that there is no tyre that does everything and start choosing rubber based on where you actually ride rather than what looked good in a catalogue.
Those lessons only really come from ownership. They come from time spent riding, maintaining and occasionally swearing at a bicycle. That process is difficult to accelerate and impossible to buy outright and get right first time. It also (for me) happens to be one of the most enjoyable aspects of mountain biking. The funny thing is that we seem to have become obsessed with optimisation at exactly the same time that we've become less patient.
Now I'm not wailing on any brand for any reason, but a large well known boutique (boak) brand do a full bike for around 5k with SRAM NX gears, a select fork and shock, terrible OE tyres and low end unbranded finishing kit. Now the frame is great, but it's almost 3k alone. Leaving 2k to find for parts if you want to follow my example. Can you do it? I would say yes, it's enough money to cover "core" parts. But for 1-1.5k more, you can have those parts or near as damnit on the "next model up" So spend more money on the one you might have built, then aspire to even BETTER parts! It's a racket. But it's an industry, in the game to make money and there's all kinds of pressures on companies that are all to evident today.
We're constantly searching for the perfect bike while spending less time developing the bikes we already own. The result is that many riders never really get to know a bike before replacing it.
That seems a shame. I have myself realised this way too late on a few occaisions.
The reason I'm ruminating on this now is I recently bought a Merida ONE FORTY-700. A very middle of the road spec aluminium trail bike. I have been luck to be supported by bike brands for almost a decade now. But what this did was drain some of the buzz I got from incremental upgrades and adding personal touches myself. In short, for the duration of the above, I had not bought my own bikes for years. Instead I was riding catalogue spec bikes. This is an awesome privilage, And I continue to be luck enough to be on the same journey. But I wanted to visit my 20 year old self and "build a bike" MY bike!
I wasn't interested in buying a bike that would look outdated the moment the next press launch appeared. I didn't even want a new bike at all. But I needed a bike to take half what round the world to Aotearoa (New Zealand) to ride bike parks, XC, Enduro, Bike-packing as well as just riding around. The intention was to buy it and either sell it before I came back, or sell it when I got home. But the "problem" was I absolutely LOVED it. So I decided to keep it. So unknowingly, I'd just got myself a great starting point to build a dope trail bike.
A platform...
What happened next was how I think mountain bike ownership should work. Rather than immediately looking for the next bike or shelling out for the next one up, I started refining this one. Not because there was anything wrong with it, but because personalisation has always been part of the enjoyment. I'm an accomplished rider, so good, highly adjustable equipment does make a difference to my experience.
A complete bike only really exists for a moment in time. The day after you buy it, the process has already started. Tyres wear. Brake pads disappear. Bearings need replaced. Components get damaged, upgraded or exchanged. The bike is changing whether you like it or not.
The only real question is whether you're guiding that process or simply waiting until somebody tells you it's time to buy another one.
For me, that's where much of the enjoyment lives (or used to). Not in chasing the next bike.
In building the one I've already got into something better than the day I bought it.
The bike industry doesn't particularly like this approach. A rider who keeps a frame for eight or ten years and upgrades components as required is not especially helpful to annual sales targets. A rider who replaces an entire bike every couple of years is a far more attractive customer.
Perhaps that's one reason we hear so little about frame even being available today. There are very few brands that will sell you a frame these days. There is also an environmental aspect that rarely gets discussed. Mountain bikers are generally passionate about the outdoors. We care about trails, woodlands and wild places. Yet we're increasingly encouraged to replace complete bikes every few years.
A quality steel, aluminium or carbon frame can remain relevant for a very long time. Replacing worn components as required makes sense financially, mechanically and environmentally. It seems a far more sustainable approach than treating bicycles as disposable consumer products.
Though E bikes have complicated the picture slightly.
The rate that people are replacing E-bikes in the enthusiast MTB world is honestly breathtaking. It's kinda gross actually.
I have nothing against e bikes (I own and enjoy my own). In fact, they have brought enormous benefits to the sport. They've enabled people to ride further, recover from injury, stay active longer and enjoy trails that might otherwise have become inaccessible.
At the same time, many modern e bikes are highly integrated systems. Frame, motor, battery and electronics are increasingly developed as a single package. When a new motor platform arrives, riders naturally start looking at replacing complete bikes rather than upgrading individual components. The platform mentality becomes harder to maintain. The rate that people are replacing E-bikes in the enthusiast MTB world is honestly breathtaking. It's kinda gross actually.
That doesn't mean it's wrong. It simply means ownership has started to resemble consumer electronics style upgrades and the pursuit of objective performance metrics and numbers more closely than traditional reasons. Maybe that's why the idea of the mountain bike platform feels almost old fashioned today. But I think we've lost something valuable.
Modern mountain bikes are incredible. I certainly wouldn't swap today's geometry, suspension or reliability for what we had twenty years ago. Progress has been real and, for the most part, genuinely beneficial. What irks me is the growing assumption that a bike has a short life simply because something newer exists.
A great frame should have a long future ahead of it. A great bike should evolve and perhaps the best mountain bike isn't always the newest one. Perhaps it's the bike you've spent years refining. The bike that reflects your choices, your riding style, your priorities and your experience. The bike that carries your upgrades, your mistakes, your experiments and your miles. The bike that has gradually become yours.
End of the day though, the best bike is the one you're riding in the moment that you ask yourself that very question. Keep the love of it :)
Cheers - Allan
Here's a few pics of one of the best bikes I've ever built. More details below the pictures.
For those of you whom are of the mind that upgrading and geeking out on "stuff" is still a thing. Then here is the before and after spec of the bike in question.
2026 Merida ONE-FORTY 700
Original | Current | |
FRAME | Lite Aluminium, Next Generation enduro geometry, internal cable routing, long seat post insert depth. Boost axles standard, threaded BB, trail mount and bottle bosses, flip chip for mullet or 29er. max tyre size - 2.5" | "The platform" |
FORK | Marzocchi Z1; Air; 150 mm travel | Fox Factory 36 2026 150mm |
REAR SHOCK | Marzocchi Bomber Air; Air; platform | FOX Factory Float X |
HEADSET | Acros ICR | Original |
STEM | Merida Expert eTRII | Hope Enduro 40mm |
BARS | Merida Expert TR II | One-Up Alloy |
BRAKES | SRAM DB8 stealth; 4 piston with | Hope GR4 |
BRAKE ROTORS | SRAM CenterLine; 200mm | Hope floating 200mm |
REAR MECH | SRAM Eagle 90 Transmission; T-Type | Original |
SHIFTERS | SRAM Eagle 90 Transmission | Original |
RIMS | Reynolds 329 Trail Comp; 32mm | HUNT Trail Wide V2 |
FRONT HUB | Shimano TC500-B; 110x15mm | HUNT |
REAR HUB | Shimano TC600-HM-B; 148x12mm; | HUNT |
FRONT TYRE | Maxxis Minion DHF; 29x2.5" | Vittoria Barzo XC Trail |
REAR TYRE | Maxxis Dissector; 29x2.4" | Vittoria Syerra Trail |
SEAT POST | Merida Expert TR III | Fox Transfer factory. |
DROPPER LEVER | Merida Expert TR | Hope dropper lever |
SADDLE | Merida Comp SL | Ergon SM Series |
CHAINSET | SRAM Eagle 70 | Hope EVO |
BOTTOM BRACKET | SRAM DUB BSA 73 MTB Wide | Hope 30mm threaded |
CHAIN | SRAM Eagle 70 Transmission; | Original |
CASSETTE | SRAM XS-1270 Eagle 11-52 | Original |
PEDALS | Not Included | Hope F22 |
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