Has there been any rumors at all about what Bosch, and spesh have been up to? I
No.
Bosch will be in a tough place I'd imagine optics wise, and relationships with the perceived top brands (mondraker orbea santa cruz yeti etc) is cruicial, yet diminishing.
Bosch have enjoyed the premium high end market for years, and that is reducing seemingly every month. They do have a huge amount of lower end to mid segment bikes, trekking and touring bikes and they should be fine for a while - until Avinox (likely) start to take some marketshare from that segment too.
Spesh - They have to do something urgent right now and huge fundamental changes are needed. They must have blown a huge amout of Capex developing their latest turbo system. Bespoke software, batteries, motors aint cheap. If they dont sell, thats not good enough. Innovate or die. To me, Spesh is the most interesting of "what happens next" - They were dominating the eMTB world from 2015 - 2023 with hit after hit. But like anything in life these peaks only last for so long. Its cyclical. Look at anything in the world, it all has its time, and must have insanely good innovation, leadership and business savvy to succeed. Not many companies in the world continue at the top for long.
Now without being political here, China brands have sucker punched the entire world on pretty much anything consumer related in the past 5 years. eBikes,, Electric Cars, Batteries, Solar, Drones, Robitics, Phones, Semiconductors and AI which is the next "arms race" with the USA.
But what also goes hand in hand with their rapid success, is the public acceptance and perception. In March 2026 , in the UK, the China made Jaecoo 7 was the biggest selling car in UK as an example. What might have been perceived as a cheap, inferior product years ago is no longer the case. Chinese products = good value, advanced, faster moving, sometimes better than western stuff.
Folks are totally happy now to buy an Amflow, Teewing, Velduro or any other bike brand using the latest tech/motor that didnt exist 24 months ago. Taking nothing away from the hard work that the teams at those brands have made, they simple would not have been able to compete with a juggernought like Specialized 10 years ago. Now they can.
My honest 100% thoughts are that the brands of old, that enjoyed success though racing, suspension design, cool factor, brand history and nostalgia - their time is limited, unless they can really change fundamentally to what they can offer to the consumer. It doesnt take much to engineer a frame at all (compared to a motor / battery as an example).
Orbea have done the best job at making their product have point of difference between anyone else in the market, with their complete interconnectivity, that at the moment, no one else offers.
There is barely any intellectual property remaining in a frame or suspension design. There's really marginal differences between them all, and now, the motor, battery , electronic and tech are king, and that is what is selling bikes