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
Carry on.
How much travel will the 'first' FS frame have? 150?
Also, gwins bike cooooould be an intense proto, nothing's keeping them from doing something other than VPP/JS, especially for testing. Could also be one of Niko's frames since they still seem be super tight
I've seen this bike now on PB and saw a video on GMBN about it. The thing that sticks out the most to me is the freewheeling chainring/crankset. Williams racing also has that amazing DH bike that does the same thing. My question is if the chain and drivetrain are moving the entire time the bike is moving which allows for the "shifting without pedaling" feature, will that eventually cause the chain and drivetrain to wear prematurely? I may be overthinking this, but if your chain is normally still while coasting but now it moves under coasting, how many more revolutions is that during a typical 1-hour trail ride? Maybe it's not an issue because it's not under load.
Also IFR running vee tires now 100% confirmed
Correct.
As for the benefits of it, I'd be afraid of the negatives. Imagine the chain jumping around a bit, going somewhere it shouldn't. On a normal drivetrain, you'll notice that when you'll want to start pedalling. With this system, it could crunch itself. Or am I wrong?
Plus it gives me the heebie jeebies knowing that the chain is 'pushed' forward (or being pulled around through the derailleur). I guess the stronger derailleur cage springs help here...
They put forth this image of being able to whip up these crazy exotic TIG'd prototype bikes. In reality, however cool it is to be able to do that, for a full blown factory team it is not out of the ordinary to have a team dedicated to that. They are just really in your face about it.
Then you have them chasing their tails in bike development. They have been and still are way behind the 8 ball. They lost it trying to play catch up with SC with the 29ers. Released a clearly less than perfect m29. And then totally redesigned the entire thing and have scrapped that one as well it looks like. Now they are even later to the high pivot party.
IFR is just chasing trends. Look at what Commencal is doing. Showing up with consistently different and very very fast bikes. If I was wanting to be at the podium I know who'd I'd go with at this point.
He also said that The intense designers had restrictions that had to be worked around when he wanted to try stuff ( I assume the VPP vibe that intense has always pushed).
Although a dual link HP like the Jedi but with counter rotating links could still be an option…
FSR, VPP & most all other linkage patents are open source now that their exclusivity has expired? Am I right?
And wow, third tire company in 4 seasons for Gwin. Let's hope Vee is up to Maxxis level so we can know his tires aren't holding him back. .. The SNAP tire has always looked great and the compound is sticky. Very similar to the butcher which he loved. The Attack HPL is similar to Assegai. But they're missing a center braking block tire like the DHR II and a mud cut spike like the Shorty 2. Once again, he's developing tires. Hopefully they're in had already and good.
As someone else in this thread pointed out, Vee has a relationship with Intense (or did in the past)... I hope this wasn't the only reason he's on these tires. I hope he really really wants to be haha.
Edit: Of course, there is always the possibility someone's just stickered their bike...
Edit: Looking at Chris Canfield's site https://suspension-formulas.com/ he has three more patents to be released