Putting the Fun Back in Functional: Transition Reissues a Fan Favorite Bike with Full-Length Freeride Edit

In the last few years, we have seen ’90s and 2000s culture return in earnest across the globe—baggy pants, countless movie reboots, and carefully repackaged nostalgia from the millennial good ol’ days are back in heavy rotation. While mountain biking remains an extremely small subset of the culture at large, the meta-modern apple doesn’t fall far from today’s mainstream tree. Take a look around your local bike park and you’ll see what I mean. Baggy jorts are taking over the lift line. Butt rock bands like Creed and Chevelle are blaring out of every car in the parking lot. And there’s a growing desire to rewind the clock to a simpler time, long before mountain biking became a hyper-optimized, super-serious pursuit. While most bike brands are looking ahead to futuristic geometries and Bluetooth-enabled everything, Transition is one of the few companies pulling a page from their playbook of old and, in 2025, has brought back a pair of unique callbacks to what many refer to as mountain biking’s golden age.

Earlier this year, we saw the return of one of the brand’s most beloved models: the Bottlerocket. A freeride-focused fun machine through and through, the newly revamped Bottlerocket features adjustable travel from 180 to 200mm in the rear, combined with their cleverly named C.H.I.P.S. and S.A.L.S.A. system for maximum adjustability, meant to satisfy a wide variety of riders. Rolling on dual 27.5-inch wheels and offered in a hot-pink colorway they’re calling “Disco Flamingo,” it’s clear that Transition is here to put the fun back in functional. And why not? In the last few years, mountain biking has become a weirdly serious endeavor, focused almost entirely on marginal gains and microscopic weight savings. Transition has made the bold choice to get back to their roots and has thus given riders a brightly colored callout aimed directly at the rest of the industry. After all, why ride if it’s not fun?

On the heels of this retro-inspired bike release, they have dipped back into the well of old-school mountain bike nostalgia once again and given us a full-length freeride edit that they have dubbed Light It Up. Inspired by the classic films that built the sport, and as part of a focused effort to rebuild the cultural relevance of mountain bike video parts, Light It Up is intended to be watched the old-fashioned way: on repeat until the summer sun returns, or gathered around your TV with some buddies while your broken ankle heals up after yet another surgery.

Featuring some of the sport’s heavy hitters, including Nico Vink, Hannah Bergemann, Jaxson Riddle, and Talus Turk—as well as a slew of lesser-known up-and-comers like Crew Turley, Kaia Jenson, Hayden Damon, and Julia Gutierrez—Light It Up embraces the classic full-length format at a time when TikTok doom scrolls dominate the media landscape. From the exotic high-alpine terrain of Peru to the massive hits from The FEST Series in Slovenia, and every trail type in between, the star-studded crew can be seen crushing spot after spot as the wistful sounds of Fleetwood Mac and other mellow tunes from forgotten eras ring in our ears.

While it would be easy to look at a bike like the Bottlerocket and a video like Light It Up and throw out words like antiquated, outdated, and niche, maybe Transition is onto something here. In an era dominated by analytics, algorithms, and data-driven marketing, Transition’s latest moves make their priorities clear. If The Naked Gun and Freaky Friday can find their way back onto screens in 2025, there’s room, too, for full-length freeride films—and a rider-driven culture that values fun over futuristic optimization.