Technology. Innovation. Disruption. These are words that, for better or worse, have become virtues of the cultural moment we’re living in. And while nations around the world try to outcompete each other for the tools of tomorrow, this pattern is nothing new to mountain bikers.

Our culture is built on technology: the promise that shaving a few grams, adding a bit of stiff ness, or changing a fraction of an angle will make us better riders. And sometimes it does. But as a cohort obsessed with minutiae, we also know you can easily get lost in the weeds, and real-world benefits are harder to come by than hype.

These days, most of us are skeptical about reinventing the wheel. OK, wheel size has changed, but that doesn’t make circles obsolete. Our sport’s history shows we can be sober about one thing: Often, we get things right closer to the beginning of the iterative process than the end. And, on the evolutionary tree of design, sometimes the lower branches are the better ones.

To wit, our rear wheels are back to being small, oval chainrings have re-emerged, handlebars have high rise again, alloy rims are surging on racetracks, and coils have made a full comeback along with downhill bikes. And while these are indeed better iterations than we had in the past, the basic concepts remain the same.

The derailleur is a great perennial example. Put a 2025 SRAM XX T-Type next to a 1990 Shimano XT and, in principle, you’re still looking at the same machine doing the exact same thing. What the intervening years have held is refinement, not revolution. Narrow-wide teeth and servos are slightly different techniques to do what drivetrains have always done: move a chain along cogs.