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Back in May of this year a mate of mine took delivery of a 2021 Cannondale Neo e-bike. He had somehow managed to find two in the UK and his LBS got one of them for him. He was extremely happy with purchase even when a month or two later Shimano announced the EP8 motor to replace the E8000 that is on his bike. So my question is when is a 2021 bike actually a 2021 bike if you can buy it less than halfway thru 2020? Also does it really matter surely its the spec that identifies the bike not the year it was sold/manufactured/marketed? If Cannondale start shipping the Neo with the EP8 motor in 2021 is my mates bike still a 2021 bike?
I think this started with the US car industry many years ago. Slight changes to spec or trim each year to tempt buyers. They then started releasing the cars slightly earlier each year. It's all very keeping up with the Joneses
Traditionally, new model year bikes were launched each preceding autumn but with some brands it seems to be getting earlier and earlier each year - I have a 2021 Specialized Diverge which came out in June.
Yeah, it always used to be based around the new groupsets so the next years bikes would be available around autumn ready for Christmas. It started creeping forward as early as 1992 as Shimano released it's XTR-like LX groupset in the summer so Orange started spec'ing it and called the bikes 1993 model year.
Cannondale quite routinely used to do half-year or mid-year model refresh and then call it the following year because calling it a 2020.5 bike wouldn't have worked!
The bike industry is working about 2 years ahead a lot of the time anyway - some of it is fairly predictable like approx 4yr refresh on Dura-Ace which then trickles down the following year to Ultegra, the year after that to 105 and so on.
Another reason to like Cotic. Their 'gen1', 'gen2', etc. system gets round this model date nonsense. Although it does create a bit of confusion as to how old a bike is and doesn't get round the biggest issue with all of this which is 'I've just bought a bike and now they've gone and released an updated version'. That's life though I guess.
Which Neo has he actually got? Habit, Moterra, Trail or Trail S?
Pretty certain its the Moterra hard tail. He loves it, he previously owned a much heavier Haibike e-mtb.
Simple rule of thumb - the bike thats on sale on Jan 1 on any given year is that year's model. By on sale I mean the current, most up to date version of that bike. The release date for that bike could be quite a bit before then. Of course there's always going to be exceptions, late releases etc. but for most companies that would be a true statement. Those companies that don't run model years will just drop a bike when it suits them, the kit on that bike will then often determine its 'year', and again 1 Jan is a good marker.
The only bikes Cannondale list with a Shimano motor are the Trail Neo HTs and they are E-series. He's got what he should have expected, just because Shimano have released a newer motor doesn't mean it's automatically going to be on every bike, especially when those bikes are some way down the pecking order.
Moterra Neo 5 has Shimano 7000 motor . Cannondale don't do a Moterra Hardtail .