Hello Vital MTB Visitor,
We’re conducting a survey and would appreciate your input. Your answers will help Vital and the MTB industry better understand what riders like you want. Survey results will be used to recognize top brands. Make your voice heard!
Five lucky people will be selected at random to win a Vital MTB t-shirt.
Thanks in advance,
The Vital MTB Crew
manuals / instructions for use (IFU's) in packaging of aftermarket components.
A few examples, 12" ruler for size reference (sorry the images are rotated funky, my phone was being weird, but i think you'll get the point):
a shimano quicklink. both sides printed, 4L (languages)
xt shifter. both sides printed. 4L
a pair of SPD shoes (ME5 model). both sides printed. 32L. Yes, it is close to 3 feet wide.
XT 11 speed cassette. both sides printed. 4L. know what it says? "contact place of purchase or bicycle dealer for installation or adjustment instructions." there is also a URL for the instructions online.
this is from a Continental road tire i recently purchased. looks pretty thick.
surprise! its actually 3 IFUs. all printed both sides.
"This item may cause cancer.............oh, but only in Cali".
Few weeks ago a cycling specific company in Cali wanted me to use a brand new envelope (specifically), clean the electronic part in hand wash, wear gloves putting in it..and on and on and on to prevent ChinaFlu.
It went out in a "Recycled" Amazon envelope, filthy from being on my bike and away it went - recycling and not using more chemicals (for a warranty repair). See, doing my part ;-)
FWIW - i work in the medical device industry, specifically orthopedic implants. that industry as a whole is moving away from printed / physical IFUs to electronic versions. if a heavily regulated industry like med device can do it, i'm sure the bike industry can too. it's not going to be as impactful as other changes, but its a pretty low hanging fruit when it comes to material reduction.
@jonkranked, honestly... Okay, selling parts in shops is still a big part and packaging has an influence here, but with the amount of stuff being bought and sold online, does fancy, colorful packaging even matter anymore? It's nice to get a fancy box for the 'oooooooh' moment opening it up, but that's what, 5 minutes vs. a few years of using it?
As for printing and co., just print a QR code somewhere? Or put a sticker on the box?
I have a dropper from One of the bigger post manufacturers, it was sagging due to a "nipped o-ring" in assembly. They sent me a new cartridge FOC, but when I asked about repairing the old one I got this reply;
Thank you for getting in touch.
I'm afraid we don't have an in house service center capable of pulling apart and servicing cartridges.
Please recycle your faulty cartridge.
Big fail.
its made from some biodegadeable material that should rot away in a few months.. with "soy ink" so....
I threw it in the bin, dissapointed.. Single use plastic sucks but I could've got useage out of the bag if it wasn't biodegradable..
AND the whole thing was in another single use placstic bag from the distro and then another single use plastic postage bag........
While it’s important to discuss bike frames, for most people that isn’t a regular purchase. Most people can make a much bigger impact by looking at their daily life. Replacing wardrobe is certainly a big part of that and one of the most underlooked aspects of waste in society. The biggest impact would be simply stretching your wardrobes use. I also buy the majority of my clothes second hand. Pretty sure I got more new clothes in my vital box this year than I actually purchased for myself. Also important not to horde clothes. If you aren’t wearing something donate it, but don’t replace it with something else you barely wear.
Debunking the 'green thing' is irrelevant as even if science on climate change is flawed, the material waste and chemical outputs are visible, tangible and are obviously not good for the planet, so surely for the sake of things just being cleaner and less polluted reducing these waste outputs is a win. How much would you sacrifice to do it?
Would you give up carbon as a choice of material? Would you be happy to pay more for parts built and sourced from your own country? Would you be happy to wait for something hand built locally rather than shipped from across the world? Would you be happy to have dramatically less choice if you HAD to buy product that was made more sustainably? Not sure many of us would but the industry can be steered by our buying decisions. The drastic changes to the industry can't happen without sacrifice somewhere and while we all guzzle it up, the industry is not going to stop serving it.
As you so eloquently pointed out, if folks "really" want to help they will stop riding bikes altogether.
It is the economy we live in.
For sake of argument and ignoring components and tyres et etc, would you be happy if as an American consumer you could only by Intense frames welded in California, as a British consumer would you be happy if you could only buy Orange frames?
One thing is for sure if we all decided right now to ONLY buy 'local' and ONLY buy from responsible vendors the industry would collapse, but then adapt. But though I maybe naive I don't see real change coming from less paper and packaging.
I think this can be a big win for mountain bikers, because instead of looking like all we want is "me, me, me" when we ask for trails to be developed, we can point to social responsibility and climate change. Similarly, it's popular for the opponents of trail projects to point to environmentalism when they want to keep mountain bikers out of potential riding areas, but that argument falls apart when you consider the added carbon footprint of "offshoring" outdoor recreation to surrounding counties.
People are going to recreate somewhere. Given that fact, it seems pretty obvious that we should be developing recreation areas near major city centers so people can recreate closer to home. It doesn't make sense for an "enlightened" environmentalist city like Portland, Oregon to have 4 wilderness sanctuaries and no mountain biking.
The county I live in is creating a long-term plan for our local riding area, a 4000 acre wooded area 10 minutes away from a medium-sized city (Port Gamble Park near Poulsbo, WA). There were three options proposed for long term planning, ranging from minimizing human usage as much as possible to developing the area for passive recreation like hikes, runs, bikes, outdoor classrooms, concerts, etc. I voted for option C, and here's what I put in my "why" answer: "There is a crushing need for sustainable local outdoor recreation and parks. Look at weekend traffic across the Hood Canal bridge headed into the Olympic Mountains! Let's cut down some of the carbon footprint of outdoor recreation by giving people a great alternative that's closer in! This is not a pristine remote wilderness, this is aggressively-harvested timber land close to a major population, so it's a perfect park to develop for human use."
Small parts from shimano and sram are almost non existent as well so if you bend your cage good luck finding a replacement even for you new AXS.
This would mean that there would need to be liability laws (in the US). Some states do have these in place (FL I know 100% does). Until such time that the lawyers are not out all day every day trying to find someone "at fault"...well, we get what we get.
I agree with your idea 1000%...the reality however is just not that cut and dry.
@mtbman99 - I have I think 7 or 8 Fox lock out levers...broken...sitting in a drawer. No parts to be had.
One of my goals in my local area is to expand access and some trail mileage so more people can bike to our small closed loop system rather than drive. The roads here are extremely busy and bad for bike commuting. However there is a ton of double track, single track, and open space to allow people to commute to the trails on their bikes. This is particular can open access for kids whose parents may be far more comfortable if they can get out without being on major streets. It also would give much better opportunity for commuters than road riding. The state park here is very thin and connects much of the community despite not being a ton of acreage. Honestly it’s a wildly under appreciated asset.
-yes. Already have, since quitting racing XC in 2008 I haven't owned a carbon frame and could somewhat make the case for carbon only in road cycling (as I'm not up to speed enough to argue against it). I will every single time go for the aluminium MTB with better equipment though. No questions asked, there is not a single benefit of carbon that could sway me over.
-If there was a measurable quality benefit or some other benefit, I want to say yes. While I realize going local and supporting garage shops is important, I am also a consumer and I do want the best for least amount of money... I know, it's a bit two-faced, but it is what it is at this moment
-Same as above, if there was a tangible benefit (custom geometry or something similar), then yes. Again no, if the only difference is local sourcing.
-Don't know what to say here. I could argue there is very little choice as is - for example, buying complete bikes it's hard to get a well specced Al bike, if it also comes in carbon. Add to that different geometries and if you're a slight (right...) nitpicker, the choice is limited as is.
As for buying decisions, for sure, we drive the market. But it's hard to drive the market, if there isn't a product that fits the wishes, if the market doesn't know what it wants at all and if the market can't communicate what it wants as well.
As for only local, we actually somewhat had this before - Commencal, Canyon, YT and Propain used to not be present in the US. Canyon and YT, for one part, likely because of the FSR patent. The patent expiring I think was a major driver for these two to go to US with the other two following at the same time? It would though depend on the health of local markets (if enough brands were present, I don't think it would be a huge issue) and the few persistent buyers would still manage to get that exotic brand over.
Regarding trails close to population, look at Ljubljana. It was even the green capital of EU in 2016 and it has well known (and busy!) trails a few kms from the old city centre, within the highway ring surrounding the city. And there's a lot of riding with ~10km of the ring. But I guess talking about that in Slovenia is kinda moot as you can drive across the country by the longest axis in under 3 hours...
While I do drive a lot (150-ish km in each direction) in the winter, to go ride near the coast, where there is no snow and it's warmer, it's unimaginable to me to have to drive everytime I wanted to ride. Well over 50 % of my rides start at home and a vast majority of them are over 2 hours and around 1000 meters vertical.
We have it good over here and not enough people realize that -_-
@mtbman99 this needs to be fixed, yes.
Now obviously I don't need busses to be shuttling me (except on Burnaby mountain... U-pass laps!) But not having a vehicle for much of my university time meant I could barely get to north shore trails.
Obviously this is a niche example fraught with external factors (traffic to the north shore is bad already, transit is bad already) but I use it as my only lived example of how trail access isn't just about them being nearby but them also being accessible.
I remember on a trip to Spain, seeing a bus drive by with 6 bikes on a rack in the back. Busses around here can only fit 2 bikes (and 29ers are very snug in the racks). If the city can recognize that mountain bikers are a significant user group, running just one or two busses a day two and from trail centers could take dozens of cars off the road. That is, assuming those dozens of bikers can get their bikes onto the bus in some way.
Somewhat rambly, not very well thought out, but yeah having transit options for trail centers would be a great way to decrease emissions. Plus then you can have an extra trailside beer and not worry about driving
Similarly in Alpe d'Huez, dropping all the way to the bottom of Megavalanche in Allemont, you used to do a bus ride to Oz-en-Oisans, where the bottom gondola station taking you back to Alpe d'Huez was. For this year they made an additional gondola covering the old bus trip though.
I also remember that somebody put up a two seat chairlift somewhere in Colorado I think, didn't put in any groomers and just catered to freeriders. The chairlift took people to the ridge, where they could gain additional height by skitouring, but there was a bus going back and forth in the valley, picking up the skiers and taking them back to the bottom of the chairlift.
Incorporating transit into schemes like this could make a lot of sense. The beer is an added bonus too.
See, that is the thing. Many folks claim "debate" when it is nothing more than conjecture based on potentially flawed hypothosis. From there, turns rapidly into virtue signaling and venomous judgment on this here Internet thing. We all do our parts...I even stopped using fuel oil to poison the manatee that are about a mile from my home...thank god the trails and riders there are too occupied being more alike than different - while we are there.
Fortunately, Robot and DCamp covered a lot of my sentiment. Its refreshing to see so much forethought around the idea of "sustainability".
Few things to add...
1) There is a difference between sustainability and carbon footprint. Right now there is a lot of focus on one's carbon footprint, but this doesn't mean wasteful actions with respect to materials that might be more carbon neutral equals a total free lunch. I don't want to make this more complicated than it already is, but there is an argument to be had around sustainability beyond carbon neutrality. EG, as a non-bike example, nuclear power is (basically) carbon neutral but we still have to manage the nuclear waste. (I'm still for nuclear, but it illustrates what I'm saying). In the bike world e-bikes might be good if they somehow reduce the amount a person drives, but we still have to manage the batteries at the end of the bike's life cycle.
2) Consumerism drives the (entire) outdoor industry. I often get into it with Protect Our Winter athletes who are sponsored by big companies selling us shit we don't need all the while telling us our government must "fix this problem through legislation". While I agree government programs will be important, so too will human behavior. The only company I know of who really aims to "sell less" (but somehow still sells more) is Patagonia. They will openly tell you to not buy a new jacket if your current jacket is fine. The culture of "fixing shit you have" is not very prolific in any outdoor industry. And why would it? Its a surefire way to make less money.
The bike industry is maybe the worst offender when it comes to incremental gains & engineering for performance over durability. Though I agree with David, and I know there are cut offs around what people are really okay with as far as weight and performance actually goes, I also know if we put as much energy/effort into chain durability as we did adding another gear to our cassettes we'd be better off, but there isn't any incentive to do this (really).
3) As it stands, I'd bet most normal riders are totally okay with the durability of a bike. Vital is not a good representation of the "norm". Most people don't go through bikes at the clip we all do. That said, I'm still very impressed with how much more durable my stuff has gotten over the last few years.
We've also hit a plateau with respect to technology & "good" vs "bad". Though I often make fun of the "perpetual 4 star reviews" the truth is there aren't many truly bad products on the market. The incremental gains made year to year are harder to feel & see with respect to performance. We've seen this in other industries such as skiing, moto, and climbing. What this should equate to is longer product life-cycles & more focus on durability, replaceability and cost. Obviously, we haven't seen this in full yet, but in theory the market should go this direction.
Ultimately, if bikes are designed around being maintainable for the long haul, less of them will meet an early demise. Its unfortunately really difficult to track product life-cycle right now (one good use of blockchain...but difficult to implement). If we can better understand failure points, why consumers put a bikes/parts in the trash can etc. we can do a better job fixing problems. "Racing durability" isn't the end all be all.
One closing thought, we are really grasping at straws here. Ultimately this is not the make or break around climate change or the environment, as I'd argue there are big qualitative/behavioral benefits to people becoming passionate mountain bikers (city centric people care more about the environment). However, the droves of K-Mart & Wal-Mart bike are offensive and frankly should not be built. There should be focus on very simple low cost bikes that are designed to last, not knocking off what looks to be a mountain bike and relegating these products to the dump in a matter of months.
This is where we can find more fertile ground.
Just my $0.02.
No clue if it's different in other states, but the liability issue isn't that big of a problem on public lands. Even private landowners are getting a lot of local protections for allowing recreational use of their lands.
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