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The Vital MTB Crew
The minutia in F1 is far more important than it is in MTB, how cannot hope to design a bike around a tyre, too many variables.
But say that it has little effect to those that have to run crap tyres. The goal is to stop teams looking for a budget running crap tyres to get one and that holding riders back, which it has.
Michelin / Maxxis et al ditch their individual budgets and compete to supply the WC circuit, giving all teams an even playing field.
Meh, just feel bad for Jack, but he's in a better place now.
All of the components his team run go to the highest bidder.
Brakes can also be tweaked to preference, tyres can't.
Though not all brakes and suspension are created equal, they can both be made to perform, tyres can't, maybe spoke tension or cutting little knobs off, can arguably help with grip or rolling speed.
Never gonna not feel bad for Jack.
They worked really well for him in MSA in the wet!
Those Kendas they're running now look like they work as well as the IRC Kujos I had in the late 90s!
As for tweaking suspension, how do you tweak a linear leverage ratio bike blowing through the travel to run a coil shock if your rider requires it? And to drag out the argument to ridiculousness, it can't be done with a simple rocker link switch, as the shock is driven off the swingarm for example
Everything can be tweaked, if there is a strong enough wish. With tyres, the strongest tweak applicator is the humble sharpie. It has enabled running Maxxis tyres to the likes of Continental sponsored Athertons and Specialized Gravity Republic.
He's chosen to run Kenda and take their sponsorship $.
No one at Intense is forcing them to run them.
https://bikerumor.com/soc13-vee-rubber-teams-up-with-intense-its/
Maybe the return of ITS or Intense-branded tires?
Should be a good team. Hope the kiwis don't completely overwhelm Trummer, but Tuhoto seems like the real deal and his interviews are the best around.
FRO tires that weigh approximately the same as a small truck are back, BAYBEE! (maybe)
edit: a set of 29er FROs on MAG30s would probably weigh north of 15lbs... I'm pretty sure the 26" set i weighed a few years back was over 12lbs.
Would I bet on Vee? Nah personally I've got Maxxis rubber on all my MTB rims.
-Smaller companies willing to pay him more and/or pay royalties on tires like the Pinner
-Smaller companies willing to let someone like Gwin direct their R&D and steer them to develop exactly what he wants. Which (in theory) could be a huge advantage. This also results in 'Gwin' tires that he can get royalties on. He has said he loved the Butcher and some things from the Minions, which is why he created the Aquila with Onza. Then that relationship fell apart for some reason and I'm assuming Kenda claimed they'd do the same for him and pay him royalties on the Pinner, etc.
Where this all went wrong:
-Intense has failed to develop the frames he wants and progress has been slow (he said this on the Vital interview)
-The tires have taken way longer than he'd hope (He may show up with final production rubber 2 years in).
Both of these issues, coupled with some injuries have hindered his results.
Maybe he will have his bike and tire sorted out by this season. If he does, and can stay healthy, he will be a threat again.
Oh, also, to add... Gwin developed his 'dream tire pattern' with Onza. When that fell apart he was kind of screwed because Kenda couldn't/wouldn't make an exact copy of it. So the compromise was the Pinner, but apparently they already sort of had that in development so it wasn't a full Gwin design.
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