RAAW Best of 2024

And just like that, in the blink of an eye, 2024 comes to an end. But if we pause to reflect on all things RAAW that have happened throughout the year, we’ve got a lot of highlights. Maybe it’s the sheer amount of things that happened that made it fly by so fast.

From launching new bikes to simply just getting them covered in mud, we’ve done a lot of things this year that have made us smile. Here’s a look at some of our personal favourite bits.

Jibb V2

Back in April, we launched the new  Jibb . While the Madonnas refinements from V2.2 to V3 were significant, the Jibb saw quite an evolution overall. Despite all those changes, we never wanted to lose that excited dog spirit that made the V1 such a blast to ride.

Secretly, the Jibb V2 is the favourite bike of many of us at RAAW. Well, depending on the season, it might be the Yalla. Ahh fuck it, we love all our bikes. But there’s just something that plasters a grin on our faces every time we grab the Jibb for a ride, no matter the weather or trail we’re heading to. The Madonna and Yalla are built more for speed and sometimes need the right trails to get up to working temperature. But the Jibb, it’s always ready to go.

And it’s as versatile as the people who throw a leg over it. You can build it short travel and surprisingly lightweight and cover enormous amounts of kilometres on it. Or you can build it up as a bit of a beast and go embarrass people on downhill bikes. But you can guarantee that no matter what you do, you’ll give it a loving pat on the head before you chuck it back in the shed for being such a good dog.

Awards & Accolades

We kind of just keep our heads down and focus on making the best bikes that we’re stoked to ride. There’s no hunt for glory in what we do, and fame certainly doesn’t drive any of our decisions.

But it’s simply heartwarming when we receive praise from the media and customers out there. It shows that we’re on the right track, that a bunch of you are also stoked to go ride the bikes we get excited on, and that we should keep our heads down and do more of the same.

In 2024 we received three notable awards from Enduro Mag:  The Best Buy award  for the Madonna V3 in their enduro bike group test, 3rd in their list of Best Brands of 2024, and probably the most heartwarming, 1st in Your Next Mountain Bike list.  Those last two  really mean a lot, as they were voted for by the public.

But perhaps more important is that every time any one of us at RAAW bumps into another RAAW owner out on the trails, or at the wonderful  Bikefest Thunersee  test event we attended, your kind words about the bikes and brand make us smile for days. Thank you.

Champéry in the Mud

It’s got nothing to do with the day-to-day running of RAAW, but there is a little slice of that Swiss mountain town ingrained in the company. And there’s probably still a bit of it still engrained in our clothes after riding the  World Cup track  over and over again in the sticky mud at the opening.

It doesn’t matter what colour your bike and kit are in those conditions, you all end up the same poo brown at the end of the day. But my God was it a blast rut bashing and slipping around like a salmon all day long. Conditions went from hero to zero to hero in the space of two days and a whole host of mates and Yallas were out and, at times, pointing in all directions.

One that was always pointing in the right direction was that of original influencer Ronan George Wallis Brown. Maybe you’ve never heard of him through the usual influencing channels, but he does an amazing job at being an ambassador. So it was a joy to see the video from when we strapped a camera to his helmet at the  2023 Summit in Champéry  reached over 3 million views.

Champêry went on to host the European Downhill Championships later that year, and we had a bunch of Yallas representing across many of the categories. We simply can’t wait for the World Championships in September 2025 and to feel like kids again as we watch our heroes fly past at light speed. Long live vert berms.

Finding Speed

Jack Reading’s Gravity School Racing team was devised to help foster downhill racers with potential and give them an environment to succeed in, no matter if that was on the world stage or at national level races.

We don’t have bucketloads of cash for sponsorship at RAAW, but we really do want to help out where we can. We know we have a good bike that can easily get through a season’s racing with little to no worry, so it just felt fitting to get involved with such a cool grassroots program.

Coming from 18 years of racing, Jack knew the importance of documenting the journey of the team throughout the year and his  Finding Speed series  was always a great watch whenever a new video came out. There’s a lot to say when you get so excited to watch a new video about a team you’re involved with, even if you already know what’s going on and can see behind the scenes.

Showing the World RAAW

Since starting as a one-man band, which sometimes doesn’t feel that long ago, RAAW as a company has now grown quite a bit. As we end 2024, the team is now ten strong, and it’s a little scary to even write that. But it’s been such a delight to see RAAW evolve and grow as a thing since the very beginning.

It’s also grown in the number of racers, ambassadors, and guides all out on our bikes and representing the brand in the best way possible, with face-to-face stoke. We saw that at our  2nd Summit , which we hosted at our HQ in the Pfalz. We’ll make up any excuse to go for a ride, and really, it was just a bunch of idiots going for a bike ride in the woods. But it was great to see almost everyone together, and the breadth of styles of riding. Even if Man of the Match was Nevio for absolutely sending it as big as anyone with such speed and style at only 14 years old. We look forward to future excuses and hope that one day, we’ll be able to get absolutely everyone from across the world of RAAW together for a ride.

It was great to start to show you the people behind RAAW in a bit more detail. We’re proud of our employees, especially when they can boost to the moon and blow most people's back doors off. The first in our  Inside Out series  showcased Jo, the fastest man in logistics in Germany and his Madonna V3, which still has parts on it from when he road-tripped in the US.

You

A final highlight, and shout-out, goes to each and every one of you riding a RAAW. And we don’t mean just riding it, we mean really giving it the beans and hammering the living shit out of it. This is the reason RAAW started and it’s still our driving philosophy today - bikes are for riding. So thank you, to all of you who throw caution to the wind and send it aboard all that aluminium. In doing that, you’re the best ambassadors we could wish for. Whether you are a random person we bump into high on the hillside one evening, or 100kg of lust mates that can rip tyres off on demand, we salute you. Seeing this community of riders grow in 2024 has been our biggest highlight by far.

Here’s to more of the same in 2025.