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Also sounds like the days of Intense fabricating protos and stuff in-house is no more. Which could explain the crappy development frames and disconnect seen the last few years.
Related: What is the final verdict on why Neko left? Was it the bike (interviews point at that)? Was it program/ sponsors as a whole (not a ton of crossover when he went indie)? His videos, granted they are all hero shots, show him flowing and in ways that I have not seen him in some time.
https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/news/Kona-Bought-by-Kent-Outdoors,1408
That being said: I think it's also pretty clear that Neko is a different breed and has a lot of interests alongside his racing. He definitely seems to have an entrepreneurial mindset and enjoys taking on diverse challenges. I know a lot of businessmen like him who are inspired by new challenges and new undertakings. So... while there may have been some negatives associated with Intense that inspired the decision, I think it' more about the positives associated with Neko's personality and growth mindset that led to this decision to create his own path forward.
YT marketing decisions are weird. Abandon racing programs (while mainly making trail bikes) and sign a bunch of hybrid slope/bmx/freeriders (Fedko and Stark) while not actually having a ton of offerings in those categories.
A race team needs a ton of support from manager to mechanics to physios to cooks. Plus, you're handling the travel arrangements for the entire team and support staff and equipment. Freeriders and slope riders are almost self-supported. So, yes, you may have to pay the rider's salary and some travel budget, but you're not also paying for an entire support staff to go along with the rider.
I mean racer support: we need the mechanic to put on a new chain after every run, new wheels after this race, restroke this shock.. cancel that... we're going with a coil shock this weekend, acquire new tires before race run, the physio needs to go over the racer and nutritionist needs to adjust the macros before next race.
Dylan Stark support; yo.. can I get another bong rip before we do this shoot?
The older gen bikes slowly developed geo and some kinematics but a bike from 5 years before could arguably be competitive on race day. Once wheel sizes started to change, bike development went wild. How many mules did each company have to build to get everything right for 275, only to have all of those bikes, their expensive carbon molds made moot overnight with 29 and then have that half flipped to mullet for a bike that sells in the hundreds, maybe thousands for YT, Commencal and Canyon.
Meanwhile for slope, although the bikes have most certainly evolved a lot in slope, you could arguably use a 10+ year old bike with barely any updates or a copy paste catalog frame and win a comp with an order of 50 bikes that they'll sell to dirt jump kids in 24h and throw and throw entry free and a few bucks for gas, beer and tacos to the rider who sleeps on their local friends mom's basement couch.
And free ride they take the current Enduro or a last gen DH and send it until it breaks.
He's still on his Sender and Torque afaik.
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