15/10/2025
Interesting post. I think the cost of cycling has played a part.
I just watched the bike industry commit su***de.
And they still don't realize what they did.
A couple of years ago in Bali, I discovered something fascinating on the Gili Islands.
They have 7 nightclubs.
Each club is only allowed to open 1 night per week.
Every single club is packed every single night.
Cycling, however, tried the opposite approach:
Ireland: The Gorey 3 Day used to sell out 200 spots in days. This year? 21 people registered. The race was cancelled.
UK: Road racing is in "crisis" with races and organizers disappearing from the calendar. Some races now have fields of only 35-40 participants.
US: USA Cycling membership peaked in 2012 and has been declining since, "driven mostly by road - it's road where we're seeing the biggest drop".
What killed road racing?
Choice.
The bike industry gave us:
Road bikes for racing
Gravel bikes for adventure
Cyclocross for winter
Mountain bikes for trails
E-bikes for commuting
Time trial bikes for aerodynamics
Each discipline got its own:
Equipment
Events
Communities
Media coverage
Sponsorship dollars
The participation got split across everything.
Gravel events, gran fondos, and cyclocross "have all grown in popularity while road continues its slide".
My hot take:
Road racing didn't die because people stopped wanting to race.
It died because the industry created too many alternatives.
When you have unlimited choices, participation fragments.
The Gili Islands figured this out:
Restrict the options = concentrate the energy.
One club, one night = guaranteed crowd.
But cycling went the opposite direction:
Seven disciplines, seven events, seven communities = nobody shows up to anything.
More options don't create more customers.
They create smaller crowds for everything.
Netflix has 15,000 titles. Average viewing time per title is plummeting.
Restaurants with 200-item menus vs. In-N-Out with 4 burgers.
Software companies with 47 features vs. tools that do one thing perfectly.
The most successful businesses restrict choice:
Apple: "Think Different" - by giving you fewer options.
Starbucks: 3 cup sizes, not 12.
Amazon: "Customers who bought this also bought" - limiting infinite choice.
The bike industry learned the wrong lesson:
They thought more categories = bigger market.
Instead: more categories = weaker individual markets.
Road racing was the biggest, most established discipline.
Then they gave people 6 other places to spend their time and money.
Now road racing can't reach minimum viable participation.
Poor optics kill momentum.
Empty races discourage new participants.
Sponsors move to disciplines with better attendance.
The fix isn't more innovation.
It's fewer options with better ex*****on.
Smart businesses concentrate demand rather than fragment it.
What's the best example you've seen of success through restriction rather than expansion?
