Sea Otter Classic 2026: Disruption, Development, and Why Cycling Is More Alive Than Ever
Every once in a while I get to write about my personal experiences within the cycling industry on this platform. These trips tend to become my version of vacation days, though I am usually out from morning until night networking and attending events. The first was when I traveled to Bentonville for the Big Sugar Classic, and the most recent before this was when I traveled to Austin for a Hill Climbers event at SXSW. This week I get to bring you findings from another industry event I attended recently.
Last week I took three days off work to attend one of the largest events in the cycling industry. Going as a member of the media, it was three days of nonstop action that blended the sporting side of the industry with the business side. If you are already deep into cycling you probably know exactly what I am talking about, but for those who are not, this week I will be sharing my takeaways from the 2026 Sea Otter Classic.
Sea Otter
For the uninitiated, Sea Otter is a four-day cycling industry event that takes place in Monterey, California. This year marked the 36th edition of the event and the fifth year with Life Time as the title sponsor. When I describe it to friends who have never been, two descriptions come to mind. The first is a slogan displayed at the entrance that reads “welcome to your bike family reunion.” The second is a newer one I love, courtesy of Built on Bikes friend Sarah Sturm, who recently called it “Bike Coachella.”
The actual happenings at the event make both references easy to understand. Sea Otter is one of the largest cycling industry expos in the world, with over 1,000 brands converging at Laguna Seca Raceway to launch, demo, and showcase their newest products. It is a premier venue for industry networking and brand press, and for someone like me with a deep interest in the business side of cycling, the access is unbeatable.
The other side of Sea Otter is the athletic competition. Offering pro and amateur races across nearly every cycling discipline, the event attracts over 6,000 athletes who pay to compete in marquee events. Since Life Time acquired Sea Otter in 2021, it has become the official kickoff race for the Life Time Grand Prix. Grand Prix contenders and elite athletes from around the world tackle Sea Otter’s demanding 90-mile gravel course for prize money and industry recognition.
Together, the sporting events and expo draw over 70,000 visitors across the four-day festival. This was my third year attending and it remains one of the events I look forward to most, especially now that I am actively engaged with the industry. If you love bikes, I cannot recommend it highly enough.
What did I do while I was there?
Before I dive into my takeaways from the festival, it makes sense to briefly fill you in on what I actually did while I was there. I love photography, so the mission on day one was to capture images of the pro gravel race on Thursday. Thankfully, I got pulled into another mission that complemented that goal nicely.
A few days before the event I received a message from my friend Deb Urewicz-Kocourek, one of the best bike mechanics in the sport. She asked if I could provide feed zone support for an athlete she had connected with through USA Cycling’s collegiate all-star program. My answer was an immediate yes. Anything that helps a developing athlete is an easy call for me. The athlete was Nathan Surowiec, and we hit it off right away, making the experience of supporting him in the pro race a genuine pleasure.
While I was in the feed zone I made two new friends who will come up later in this piece. The remainder of my time at Sea Otter was spent networking throughout the expo and attending a private industry event that had everyone talking. That event is where I want to start with my takeaways. I will cover the business-oriented observations first and then move to my takeaways for the sport and athlete development.
X-LAB, the elephant in the room
The private event I referenced was a US launch party for X-LAB Bikes, and it turned out to be one of the bigger storylines coming out of Sea Otter. So what is X-LAB? X-LAB is a performance-oriented race bike line from Chinese manufacturer XDS, positioned as their flagship offering. Much like Cannondale’s Lab71 lineup, these are the top of the line bikes raced by the company’s WorldTour team, XDS-Astana.
The event itself had an interesting energy. On one side of the room you had the Chinese delegation of executive leadership from both X-LAB and XDS, and on the other you had people like Nathan and me who were there to see what all the fuss was about. The venue was upscale by bike industry standards, held at a private golf course clubhouse. Everything felt deliberate: bikes were strategically placed throughout the space and X-LAB’s US team lined the perimeter in branded shirts, ready to answer questions and pitch the product.
The event culminated in a series of speakers including XDS CEO Yanke (Edwin) Tan. The central message was clear: X-LAB has emerged virtually overnight as the biggest disruptor in the US bike market in decades. The brand had officially launched in the US just one week earlier and had already sold 90% of its inventory to over 50 independently owned bike shops across the country. The biggest selling point was price. Top of the line, full carbon race bikes with mid-tier groupsets retailing for well under $3,000. Everyone in the room had the same reaction: the hype is real.
That realization landed differently depending on who you asked. For some it was an alarm bell, for others an opportunity. I could not help but notice the parallels to broader macroeconomic conditions. We have heard increasingly that the US is ceding its position as the dominant economic force in the world, while China has accumulated leverage through an enormous stockpile of resources, low-cost production, and government-funded innovation. X-LAB is that dynamic playing out in practice.
The other theme that stood out was X-LAB’s self-described startup mentality. They have a lean, scrappy team moving fast and taking the market by storm. Working in tech in the age of AI, the pattern feels familiar. One day brands like Canyon and Specialized seem untouchable despite their financial headwinds, and then almost overnight a new product emerges that threatens to unsettle them entirely.
X-LAB’s most significant structural advantage is vertical integration, which feels timely given my recent piece on ENVE. XDS produces their own carbon fiber, which substantially reduces the cost of building bikes and is a core reason they can price so aggressively. They have also secured a partnership with Shimano and have plans to introduce their own componentry in the future, putting them on a path toward near-complete vertical integration. Currently selling through a combination of direct-to-consumer and independent bike shops, I have little doubt that once they reach maturity in the US market, XDS-branded retail stores will follow. That feels like a matter of when, not if.
The potential for significant industry disruption is real and could cause genuine turbulence in the US market, but a lot of it feels like self-inflicted wounds from the incumbents. The point was made at the event that the average US consumer cannot afford a race bike with mid-tier components on one or even two months of earnings. X-LAB is meeting consumers where they are and delivering a legitimate product at a price that actually makes sense. My view is simple: if this gets more people on race bikes and ultimately into the sport, then the industry needs to take a hard look at what consumers really need.
For development, a brand like this is significant. Young riders who do not come from wealthy families can access competitive, great looking equipment at a fraction of the traditional cost. For bootstrapped development teams and collegiate programs, that is a genuine breakthrough. Time will tell how far X-LAB and XDS can go, but they are absolutely worth watching over the coming years.
We will be getting more investors in the right rooms
A few weeks before Sea Otter I connected with Brian Bonham from PeopleForBikes. PeopleForBikes is a multifaceted organization that promotes cycling in the United States through lobbying for better policy, improved access, and broader adoption. They also function as a trade association that helps bring together investors, brands, and communities. It is exactly the kind of work I talk about regularly on Built on Bikes.
Brian and I planned to meet at Sea Otter to discuss an initiative that shares a lot of the same goals as Hill Climbers. Without getting ahead of myself, there is an event in the works that will bring notable investors together to learn about and discuss investment into the bike industry. I have already been involved behind the scenes in making some things happen and I look forward to sharing more as the details come together.
People want to be like the cool kids
I will admit upfront that I may be biased here given some close affiliations I have with this brand, but one newcomer to Sea Otter that absolutely stood out was MAAP. My first touchpoint with MAAP was at last year’s Big Sugar through their activation with Leni from Holy Spirit of Gravel. Since then they have worked directly with the Life Time Grand Prix to help shape the future of gravel racing, and I think they continued to build on that vision at Sea Otter through their Pro.Fwd gravel development team and the sponsored leaders jersey for the Life Time Grand Prix.
In my opinion, MAAP was a top contender for best experiential marketing at Sea Otter. Their booth was designed to be a genuine hangout spot, complete with coolers full of water and beer, bean bags, and a rotating cast of representatives who embody cool cycling culture without an ounce of pretentiousness. Walking around an expo you sometimes dread awkward vendor interactions, but that was never a concern at the MAAP booth.
The brand also showed up strongly through their activations throughout the weekend. They partnered with Movemint to streamline event signup and organization, giving participants an easier way to keep track of what they were attending. The activations themselves were equally well conceived: fun group rides, making beaded jewelry alongside pro athletes like Payson McElveen, and a rowdy afterparty hosted in collaboration with Away Message. Taken together, they represented the brand perfectly.
MAAP’s products are flashy but deeply performance oriented, and their Sea Otter presence captured that balance exactly. They celebrated the high level performances of their athletes while making it clear that everyone is welcome to have fun along the way.
Development was on full display
I left Sea Otter with a full heart because I saw so many athletes, brands, and organizations making development possible for young athletes. The following are some highlights, but they don’t even begin to scratch the surface when it comes to all the developmental programs and activities that were happening at Sea Otter.
Nina Machina - Mach1 Devo
While waiting in the feed zone to hand off bottles to Nathan, I somehow ended up standing between some people who I quickly realized were awesome and easy to get along with. One of them was Nina Machina, who asked me to take a clip of her handing a bottle to one of her athletes. One after another, more riders passed through wearing the same kit. When I asked how many athletes she had, her answer was seven, to which my reaction was something along the lines of: holy shit.
An accomplished athlete herself, Nina channeled her passion for performance coaching into an opportunity for U23 riders with Mach1 Devo. She has even convinced several of her sponsors to support her team with bikes, nutrition, and kits. There is something genuinely exciting about meeting someone like Nina, a high-performing athlete who chooses to turn that energy outward and invest it in the next generation. You will be hearing more about this team in the newsletter because I will be joining them at Unbound in just over a month!
Bike Tennessee
Although I fully claim California as home now, I was born in Tennessee and spent the first 22 years of my life there. The day before Sea Otter my mom called to tell me about an organization she had seen featured on the local news. The state government was working with a group to designate and build more off-road trails across Tennessee, similar in spirit to what Bentonville has done in Arkansas. I filed it away and planned to look into it after Sea Otter.
As it turned out, I did not have to wait that long. Walking through the expo I stumbled across a booth that read “Bike Tennessee,” and sure enough it was the very same organization my mom had been telling me about. The concept is straightforward: take what Bentonville did with bike access and apply it across an entire state. With support from the state government, Bike Tennessee has already developed over 90 road and gravel cycling routes to promote cycling among both residents and visitors. Expect to hear more about them in this newsletter as well.
Kate Courtney - She Sends Foundation
Kate Courtney needs no introduction, but for the uninitiated: she is an American mountain biking legend with two world titles and a career full of results that speak for themselves. Rather than focusing solely on her own racing, Kate founded the She Sends Foundation to strengthen mountain biking development programs for girls across the country. The foundation writes checks, provides guidance and visibility, and connects youth programs to a powerful network of allies.
Kate recently made the move to racing as a privateer and has put the She Sends Foundation front and center in that effort. Wherever she races she will be wearing a She Sends jersey from Rapha and riding a bike from Allied Cycleworks. At Sea Otter, despite competing in two of the most demanding events over the span of three days, Kate was still out on the ground connecting with and mentoring young athletes through activations. She is a legend on and off the bike.
Gravel live coverage is ready for the mainstream
There was no denying that Life Time significantly raised the bar on live coverage of the pro gravel race compared to previous years. Standing in the feed zone felt like being at a WorldTour event. Tension was already high as everyone waited for their athletes to come through, and then in the distance you could hear the faint drone of a helicopter and the whole zone knew it was game time.
Life Time has used camera-equipped helicopters for a while, but that moment crystallized just how high the production level has become. Beyond the helicopter footage, there were camera crews and reporters stationed on course, nonstop live commentary, separate streams covering the entirety of both the men’s and women’s races, and cameramen on e-mountain bikes providing point of view footage from inside the front groups.
As most people know by now, the men’s race came down to a sprint finish between Bradyn Lange and Keegan Swenson. Everyone in the feed zone was watching the final moments play out on their phones, and the energy was indistinguishable from what you would feel watching the finish of Paris-Roubaix. With a few refinements, like the introduction of time gap tracking, these streams deliver nonstop action that is genuinely worthy of a major streaming platform. I believe we will see that happen within the next five years.
Leaving with renewed energy
Cycling is a hobby, a culture, a language, and a family. Sea Otter presents the sport in all of its glory. It kicks off a busy season for me and for the athletes I follow, one that will run all the way through October, and I could not feel more energized heading into it. For all the doom and gloom that has surrounded the industry over the last few years, Sea Otter is a powerful reminder of how deeply people love bikes and why this is a resilient industry that will outlast any one brand.
To all the wonderful people I met last weekend, thank you for reminding me why I spend hours of my free time writing these stories every week. And to all my industry friends, I cannot wait to see you out there soon.
Ride and rip,
Kyle Dawes
Great post! Thanks for sharing, Kyle.
Great report Kyle! Thanks for sharing.