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I think it’s also worth mentioning - since I completely missed that from the Albert press pieces - that Magic Mary’s are also available in Pro Radial versions now.
prices talk aside ( in NZ a Tacky Chan retails for 159$NZ and to me it's NUTS )
has anyone seen any info about the actual chasing construction on the new Radials?
the Gravity basically absorbs Super DH and Super Gravity into one chasing, and the Trail is the other option, and we got that, there's no information about the actual construction, like they shared on the Super chasing like in this pic, like.
How many layers? is it the same but with the radial threads? if so did they do a mix between Gravity and DH or what? i could find no info, that might help to understand how the actual protection mught be regardless of the angle the threads are layed
'in NZ a Tacky Chan retails for 159$NZ and to me it's NUTS' (conti's are like 189 lol these can be had for just over half from the EU)
Because We get screwed, Goes through about 2 or 3 middle men who all want a cut, not just in MTB but Rc Cars etc We buy from EU/UK/US and often get charged import Tax and still works out much cheaper than buying locally.
in Rc racing one of the importers Got Their ripoff shop Stamped on the chassis of the cars because they refused to help those who bought overseas, which has now turned into a legal case and has gained traction. In MTB frames we often have little stickers from the importer or shop on the frame which is easily removable which is fine.
Canyon is dumb cheap here compared to other brands because of all this, just shame their QC is so terrible.
I though the Dt Swiss price difference was the offset for Fox pricing
Maybe it would be too sensitive for Vital to do a story on, but I am curious as well. Ridiculous a MTB tire costs as much as a car tire in the US.
Maxxis is a Taiwanese company, so both European and North American HQ's/distribution adds a cost layer. Schwalbe makes all their tires in Indonesia (or Vietnam?), I naively thought they were made in Germany — which would make sense for the North American price gouging. 🤷♂️
The dollar being strong would make the tyres cheaper in the US, not more expensive.
But it is bizarre pricing. My theory is the US is just happy to pay more for it.
For years the default tire purchase was maxxis despite wobbly casings and knobs ripping off as their qc took a nose dive. Even though schwalbe, michelin and later conti had as good or better tires.
The word is out now, those 3 other manufactures, and possibly the new spesh cannibal are better than maxxis tech. It was cool to see Moi moi have the option to run what he wanted with yt. He started on maxxis but cautiously tried the contis, went bsck to maxxis and had a bunch of flats and went back to conti and stayed with conti. Maxxis are the tioga of yesteryear. The dogs breakfast
I hate how much tires cost and will complain every time I have to buy new ones, BUT, the reality is, when we're paying $130-150(cad) per tire, it would be like buying Michelin Cup 2 R's or or BFG Baja T/A KR3. Those are super high performance tires that are $1000+ each and made for Porsche's, Ferrari's and trophy trucks. And let's be honest, in the world of bikes, most of us are riding Porsche's, Ferrari's and trophy trucks.
I still hate that we have to spend $130+ on tires.
Hot take: MTB tires are a luxury item and priced accordingly.
Edit: @saskskier beat me to it.
You sound as if Maxxis tires are all the sudden unrideable. I'm glad Maxxis has competition now but calling them "the dogs breakfast" is fried. You don't ride like Moimoi - you'll be fine on exo+... (or if you actually know how to ride, doubledown).
Freedom.
here's a thread dedicated to mountain bike tires 🤘
https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/mountain-bike-tires
Exo+ wouldnt work for long. DD worked for a bit until flats and flexy sidewalls and generally poor qc put me on to the michelin 34.
Emtb now and i think the conti dh casing are better in every way than maxxis dh tires. Grip, durability, seal, rolling resistance, weight and qc.
Currently on v rubber snap flow/attack dh casing. Good inexpensive alternative. 80cad/pair with tons of grip. They wear a bit faster and a bit of a slow roller. If i was just riding steep dh trails id probably buy a bunch of those
Everything is supply and demand, right? Maybe the competition is a lot more aggressive on pricing in Europe, we have a bunch of european tyre makers also (no idea where they are actually producing the tyres though).
Personally, I'm still able to get my tyres around or below €50 (mostly Schwalbe, although I sometimes test conti, vittoria or spesh). This is all online however, most bike shops around me have only Maxxis for €80 on the shelves, and pretty much always EXO casing with some weird thread and sizing combo.
It'd be nice to keep this thread on topic "tech rumors and innovation". This thread has been so off topic the last few weeks / months even.
Ask yourself "does my comment have to do with tech rumors and or innovation"? If no, stop.
Heres a quick guide to others places to chat about various other hot topics.
Tires: New One by sspomer https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/mountain-bike-tires
Nerding out on Tires: https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/tire-chat-nerds-only
Brakes https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/nerding-out-brakes-shall-we-not-another-tech-deraliment
E-bike https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/e-bike-talk-not-tech-rumor-derailment
Debates on wireless : https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/poll-electric-shifting-vs-mechanical-shifting
These bikes have about 2/3s of their weight on the rear tire and about 1/3 on the front tire. And that is the exact ratio of their relative contribution to RR.
So, the front RR absolutely matters, it's just half as much as the rear so we should make less traction compromises up front in pursuit of lower RR than we might make out back.
A front tire change is very easy to feel and notice the RR change.
Richie running the new Fox Neo wireless transfer post
Duh, yes you're right. Dollar strong = cheap imports. Brain fart.
I just read the other site's review of the new Rock Mountain, and the reviewer thought the compression tune was too light and had both high & low fully closed. He moved up a compression tune and got along with the bike better (Fox X2). Rocky suggested that hard chargers could contact their local Fox dealer and get their rear shock retuned.
Wasn't this the whole point of moving to the twin tube design? Other twin tubers like CC don't have frame specific tunes as far as I'm aware since there is a massive range for those damp(en)ers.
If shocks still need to be custom shimmed for specific performance, could we see more companies doing what Formula does with the user-swappable shim stacks contained in a cool cartridge? Its a shame Formula doesn't seem to believe in negative air chambers.
Twin Tube designs reduce hysteresis as the shock transitions from compression to rebound. I don’t think they increase the range of adjustment.
As far as I know, Cane Creek was the only one saying that you didn’t need frame specific tunes.
I’m kinda skeptical of those CTS valves that Formula is doing. The pictures I’ve seen make them look tiny and I’m not sure how much shim tuning you could fit into one. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were just orifice dampers with different hole sizes.
It’s kinda shocking how half assed a lot of MTB suspension is, especially when it comes to dampers. I think that’s the reason a lot of riders just open their compression adjusters all the way and then try to support the bike with air pressure and volume tokens. With bad dampers compression damping just means harsh.
To add to this, there is a reason that MTB tires (other than XC) rarely make a appearance on 3rd party rolling test sites. Practically all utilize a rolling drum test, and unless we only care about rolling performance on the tarmac, the comparison of such results don't mean much.
Quantifying rolling performance on varying levels of aggregate or soil composition is a multi variable problem that is likely more costly than it is beneficial. I'd be interested to see such numbers, but I'd be even more interested to know how a tester came to such results.
As for the Albert, there is no denying that a larger contact patch equals more frictional losses. But that is not the full story (as was described by many articles and forum posters).
First, increasing the tire pressure above a riders usual preference would yield a smaller contact patch, but they would still reap the benefits of a more supple casing. Most reviewers have claimed a 2-3psi increase was a positive change.
Second, time or energy savings could also be found with the increased confidence of a supple tire, and maybe going to a more durable rubber compound since the casing is more dynamic.
Anyways, this is probably more fitting in that fancy new Tire Forum!
Paul Aston's latest bike runs a flat leverage curve and the results were pretty interesting.
"When testing the Commencal Supreme with two different linkages, approximately 40% progression and 20% progression, using a data system with Rulezman, we found on a 2-metre drop the less progressive setup actually used 10mm less travel and pushed only 20% of the G-force into the rider than the more progressive linkage - the opposite of what is expected. This is because the bike absorbs more force during the initial phases of the travel and has less to deal with when it gets to the end-stroke."
https://www.astonmtb.bike/reviews/pt4-kinematics
I do find it interesting that bike's generally run a flat leverage curve on the front and progressive leverage in the rear.
I don't find it perplexing at all that a more progressive design uses more travel for the same impact. The point of having progression is that it's softer at the beginning to absorb repeated small and medium impacts, but still retains bottom-out resistance. "Softer" means it uses more suspension travel for the same impact compared to a more linear design.
The RM Altitude is designed for janky riding where there are a lot of small, unpredictable impacts that sap speed. Think places like BC, the northeast US, and lots of Europe. Riding in such terrain requires suspension to quickly react and return to full travel.
More linear designs work better when the terrain has more slow-speed g-forces and being glued to the ground is less advantageous. Think places like Colorado, SoCal, etc. That's why you find companies like Yeti and Pivot designing bikes that fit that terrain well - home-grown companies tend to be solving for local conditions first.
I don’t agree that softer necessarily means it uses more travel for the same impact. It’s about the speed of deceleration. With a progressive system, it is possible to have a majority of the support could come at the end of the travel, creating a more abrupt deceleration.
With Aston’s linear setup, there is more support through the entire range of travel, so the suspension can adsorb the impact over a longer period of time.
Again, forks on our bikes are linear and everyone seems cool with that setup regardless of terrain.
A softer spring compresses more under the same load than a stiffer spring. That's where the softer means more travel thinking comes. But it is based in the general understanding of the world which is a lot more static than what is happening with bikes. With these kinds of impacts the dynamics come into play first and foremost, then we have the impact of the dampers taking a part of the load plus then the difference in progressivity.
So yes, while in general terms softer means more travel, it is not necessarily true for mtb suspension. Qed, if you feel your fork is too hard, raise the pressure it is running at. But this works precisely because (air) forks are anything but linear. The keversge ratio is linear, but the wheel force, because of the progressive air spring, is not linear.
If two bikes are compared and one is twice as progressive as the other, there are only two ways the more progressive bike uses more travel: a softer spring (it should run a stiffer spring to maintain sag) or a comparatively soft shock tune. The damping is the most often overlooked. It’s not uncommon to need a 20-30% stiffer tune if you make a 10% jump in progression and want damping to feel similar. This is just conservation of energy plain and simple. The issue WC riders have once progression gets past the mid 30s is their damping tune and spring rate become stiff enough that they can’t use full travel.
look, someone who never tried formula suspension
but with your cascade linkage, you talk more about 10% stiffer spring than the original one , not 20-30% stiffer ?
10% stiffer spring = 20-30% stiffer damping tune is what was said.