Mike Sinyard Returns as Specialized’s CEO, Bosch Riders Log 62 Million Miles, Mondraker Recalls Carbon Handlebars │ TWR Ep 100

Our first episode went up on October 20th, 2024. A hundred episodes later, the show has been watched roughly 505,300 times, and that’s just this series.

Griffin and John got the show off the ground, and give or take a few sick days and vacations, Griffin was part of 76 episodes. John ran 16 of them on his own. Ryan joined the desk in Episode 93.

We’re doing a few things differently to mark the occasion. There are bloopers, Trivia gets a twist, and we’re sending t-shirts to five people who comment on this episode. We’ll reply to let you know if you’re one of them, and from there you just need to fill out the form.

Our Take:

Nearly two years of weekly episodes is a milestone we didn’t want to let slide by without saying thanks. The show exists because people keep showing up in the comments with questions, corrections, and stories about their own bikes. If you’ve been watching since the early days, or you found us last month, sharing an episode is the single biggest thing you can do to help us keep growing.

Mike Sinyard is stepping back into the CEO seat at Specialized on November 1st, taking over from Armin Landgraf, who is stepping down.

Sinyard founded Specialized and ran it as CEO for 48 years before handing off the job in 2022. Scott Maguire, a former Dyson executive, held the role for about two years before passing it to Landgraf. Since stepping down, Sinyard has carried the titles of Founder, Chairman, and Chief Rider Advocate.

On the change, Sinyard said the same focus on riders and retailers is driving him, and that he still thinks of Specialized as “a big bike shop at heart.”

Our Take:

Three CEOs in four years is a lot of turnover for a company this size, and the founder coming back is usually a sign that a brand wants to reset around what it started as. Sinyard is 72 and going strong. We wish him well in the return.

Bosch has released a summary of anonymized data pulled from the past three years of its Flow app. The app directly measured 52 million miles from the odometers of connected bikes belonging to riders who opted into tracking. From there, Bosch conservatively extrapolated the figure to an estimated 62 million miles across all of its smart-system-equipped e-bikes in the US.

For scale, Bosch points out that 62 million miles is nearly 2,500 laps around the equator, or about two-thirds of the distance from the earth to the sun.

The company also nods to recent analysis from PeopleForBikes showing riders shifting away from using bikes purely for recreation and toward daily transportation. Jocelyn Vande Velde, NA Marketing Director for Bosch eBike Systems, described the numbers as real miles from real people on ordinary days, split between eMTB riders squeezing in one more climb and the commutes, errands, and school runs that used to happen in a car.

One caveat on the total. The data only goes back to the Flow app’s release in 2023, and riders in the US have been on Bosch-equipped e-bikes since 2014. The actual mileage is almost certainly much higher.

Our Take:

Bosch works with more than 100 e-bike brands, and we’ve tested models from plenty of them, including Tern, Trek, Canyon, Scott, and Salsa. The motors are consistently good, with controlled, precise, natural-feeling power delivery, and the Flow app is one of the most useful and genuinely high-tech apps we’ve spent time with.

The competition is stiffer than it used to be. Avinox is putting up serious numbers, and even Bafang is closing the gap on features. But for riders who appreciate the way Bosch does things, there’s a good reason its systems show up on so many bikes.

Mondraker is recalling the OnOff S9 carbon handlebar, which comes specced on a number of the brand’s mountain bikes. The handlebars can break during use, and the CPSC notice warns of falls that could cause serious injury or death.

There have been five reported incidents of breakage so far, with two of those resulting in injuries. Fortunately, the injuries reported have been minor.

The recall covers 16 Mondraker models spanning the 2025 through 2027 model years, including Crafty Carbon, Foxy Carbon, and Zendit bikes. Roughly 177 of these bikes were sold in the US and another 52 in Canada, through stores nationwide between December 2024 and June 2026.

There’s a link in the video description to the CPSC recall page with the full list of affected models and years, plus a serial number verification tool to check your own bike. If yours is affected, stop riding it and contact a Mondraker dealer to arrange a free replacement.

Our Take:

It’s a bummer to see that some riders have already been hurt. The numbers here are small, which means there’s a real chance the remaining owners get their handlebars swapped before anything else happens. If you’re on one of these bikes, go check your serial number now rather than next weekend.

The Povec C1 is a pair of sunglasses with an electrochromatic tint that you adjust on the fly. Instead of swapping lenses when the light changes, you swipe along the right side of the frame and the tint shifts in about a second.

The rest of the spec sheet is built for riding. There’s UV 400 protection, an IP65 rating for water and dust resistance, and impact-rated construction for sport use. Battery life runs up to 28 days based on four hours of use per day, and three different bridge pads come in the box to dial in the fit.

What we like most is that they don’t announce themselves. They look like a normal pair of sunglasses. The tint change is also noticeably faster than traditional photochromic lenses, and the swipe control is responsive enough that you’ll actually use it mid-ride. For riding in southern Utah, where you can go from full sun to deep shade in a canyon and back again, that’s a useful thing to have. They run $249.

Image Source: Povec Optics

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