The BPSA Trade Association Committee (TAC) plays a critical role in helping the bicycle industry navigate emerging technical, regulatory, and business challenges. This board meeting will explore where collaboration can best advance industry alignment on voluntary standards, trade and tariff responses, funding priorities, and best practices. Leaders from each of our six committees will also provide updates on key initiatives and action items emerging from the PeopleForBikes SHIFT'26 committee and working group meetings, seeking strategic guidance from the TAC on the issues that will have the greatest impact on the industry's future. This BPSA TAC meeting will also include optional participation from PeopleForBikes Coalition board members.

This combined session will identify industry priorities for navigating an increasingly complex global trade and tariff environment through 2027 and beyond.

 Topics of discussion will include:

1) Analyzing different industry scenarios to prepare for evolving trade policies, tariffs, supply chain shifts, and new trade agreements.
2) Anticipating key political, regulatory, and legislative developments over the next three to five years to strengthen coordinated industry advocacy and proactive business strategies.
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Strong, reliable data is the backbone of a thriving industry. PeopleForBikes is evolving our research program to help the bike industry make faster, smarter, data-driven decisions. This session will tackle feedback on PeopleForBikes’ Data Suite beta dashboard and report structures, examine the methodology behind our evolving market projection model, and walk through remaining steps to ensure a successful Data Suite launch in January 2027. With our 2026 participation survey concurrently live in the field, we'll also discuss preliminary findings and the best ways to address gaps in our participation data going forward.

This combined session will explore challenges facing the off-road eMTB category, including evolving products and product definitions, perceived and real threats to eMTB recreational access, and the future of responsible trail use. Bicycle industry leaders and product technical experts will come together for an open discussion about the opportunities and challenges ahead. It is important to note for this discussion that as a trade association, PeopleForBikes is not a regulatory body and does not advocate for one product or brand over another. Our role is to convene industry stakeholders, bring current research and policy expertise to the table, and help the industry work collaboratively toward thoughtful, consensus-based solutions.

Discussion topics will include:
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• What is our current understanding of the environmental and social impacts of Class 1 eMTBs on singletrack trails?
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• What access and policy wins have we already accomplished through our current Class 1 Only position, and how or should that strategy evolve in the future?
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• What is the appropriate forum for developing technical specifications and voluntary standards for Class 1 eMTBs?
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Participation is up, but frequency and sales haven't kept pace. PeopleForBikes' participation research finds that 60% of U.S. riders are casual. Most want to ride more, but what's stopping them has little to do with the bike. This session will test that reality against what committee members are seeing in their own businesses: where does it hold, where does it break, and what are we missing? How can we help our industry better understand and market to this new, casual rider and understand different consumer segments and profiles? With our 2026 participation survey concurrently live in the field, we'll also discuss preliminary findings and the best ways to address gaps in our participation data going forward.

Attendees will be asked to bring one observation from their own customer data ahead of the session.
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Getting someone on a bike is just the beginning. While 67% of riders say they want to ride more, the majority remain casual riders. This joint session will explore what prevents that interest from becoming a lifelong habit alongside lessons from young riders on what makes bicycling something they want to keep doing.

Together, we’ll hear directly from young riders and tackle one of the industry's biggest participation opportunities by defining what riders need to keep riding, where the bicycling ecosystem is falling short, and where our industry has the greatest opportunity to act. The goal is to leave Bentonville with a shared set of participation priorities that industry leaders, advocates, and youth-serving organizations can collectively advance to help more people ride bikes more often.