From heated handlebars to ultra-premium Australian wheels, here are the smaller things that caught our eye at Sea Otter 2026.
Suvi Loponen
Sea Otter Classic 2026 wrapped up on Sunday, and while the Laguna Seca infield is now presumably quiet, those who visited are probably still buzzing from the few busy days of expo and racing time.
For someone attending for the first time, it was quite the occasion. The contrast to European trade shows – Eurobike being the obvious comparison – could not have been starker. For one thing, Sea Otter is outdoors, and as I was reminded more than once, this year we were blessed with nearly cloudless skies that left many of us, myself included, nursing sunburns on skin that hadn’t seen sun in months.
But beyond the weather, Sea Otter is a genuinely different kind of event. Walking the show, trying to spot all the new tech and say hello to brands was a constant exercise in sensory overload: dodging young mountain bikers practising track stands between the booths, watching kids complete sticker scavenger hunts across exhibitor stands, seeing people simply excited about bikes rather than mere business. Compared to the serious, older, more homogeneous crowds of the European trade shows, Sea Otter felt like a celebration of cycling as much as an industry get-together – and a refreshingly inclusive one at that.
It also managed to put the biggest brands in the industry – Giant, Specialized, Shimano, SRAM – in the same space as small builders and companies which you’d more commonly expect to find at something like Bespoked.
And the tech kept coming. Josh and I clocked five-digit step counts each day and still missed things. Here’s the first of our bigger roundups, focusing on the parts and accessories side of the show, in no particular order.
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