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I don’t understand this sentiment. Spec still makes a bike at a price point for you, now they add a bike that means they will actually make money and can continue making the bike you want. But then they are lame for that.
Imagine driving a Ford Focus and then you start shitting on ford because they build the GT40? Or maybe this would be more equivalent to driving an f150 XL then you whine because they build an F150 Lariat
I'm probably repeating myself but I still see more electric full suspension MTBs on footpaths around the lake rather than in the hills because they're a good way for well-heeled retirees to get out and about in comfort. The balance has been noticeably shifting over the last year or two, though.
It's understandable that people buy full suspension bikes to ride on bikepaths tbh. I don't know why suspension seatposts haven't become a new standard on hardtail eebs. Yes, they increase minimum seat height, but honestly, for the game changing comfort they provide on a hardtail eeb, I don't know why they aren't a design consideration at this point. The range of adjustment they have is pretty impressive as well. Goes from full waterbed, to barely moving on the SR Suntour one I use. I'm waxing poetic about this thing, but your average non-cyclist who rides an e-bike once a month has no idea that they exist, and that a $150 part will erase their desire to buy a $5,000 Levo to ride on the street.
Around here, I mostly see FS e-MTB on trails, self-shuttling more often than not. The hot ticket for retirees is electric fat bikes. I can hear them coming up behind me when I'm riding to the pub - an odd cacophony of electric motor at full throttle mated to the thrum of overinflated 4" wide tires - and zip past doing 40 km/h, no pedalling.
Yeah dude if you don’t have a couple e-fats hanging off the back of the RV don’t even bother showing up to the 50s diner sports bar in this town. Names like PEDALOOG and VICTROX in big silver letters on the big square downtube beam member are a bonus.
So you compare a Focus/GT40 with a Levo Al/S-Works? That's like comapring a pear with an apple. A GT40 is a total different car regarding that matter whilst a Levo in the lower Spec Config still is a Levo 4. Try asking brands like Mercedes or Ford if they could live off of their high end Models like the S-Class or the GT40. I can tell you they don't, that's why their struggling and that's the reason for the concern.
I will never forget the poor 20 year old lifty at Panorama trying to explain why the 80lb folding fat E-bikes with a 12 stack of black and chrome spacers could not go on the lift while the couple who owned them screamed at them until he allowed them to try.
I later saw them riding up the hill with no helmets at what must have been 45km an hour at full throttle.
a pear and and apple are pretty close bro
I don’t know the car stuff but I know upwards of 20 fruits.
Surprised no one mentioned the Pink site article on the new Lyrik and SRAM patent on what is actually inside that leg - "Published on August 28th for SRAM LLC, the document shows a fork with a user-adjustable bottom-out bumper located at the bottom of the fork leg. This could prevent harsh bottom-outs and act as an on-the-fly bottom-out adjustment tool."
I’m all for that Sworks. Mega price, but they’ll all sell and your LBS will do well put of it if they manage to get one. There’s a ton of sweet parts and that paint job plus the Sworks (M-Sport/AMG) badge and a few more torques from the drive unit.
Go take a look at the Pivot Shuttle LT($14499) if you want to see an actual rip off. Lots of own brand parts and low spec components (e.g. GX pod rather than XO/Ultimate). We priced it up at work and the parts even at retail only come to £8k, which leaves £8.5k for frame (with a mediocre paint) battery and DU.
You can hate on the SWorks all you want but at least its unique.
Don’t stress if you wouldn’t buy it. There are plenty of folk that buy high end cars to drive at 30mph around town and they’ll buy these at full rrp and your shop will pay its bills for another month or so. And you can still rock up with your reserve wheel that you saved £40 on because you bought it cheap online and need it trued after you cased that phat jump.
Yep - me too. Came here to see the comments about it but apparently bashing bike manufacturers for making expensive top of the range eebs is more interesting.. 🤷🏻♂️
Also wondering what role tariffs may be playing in that price tag. Perhaps they were originally planning a still shockingly expensive number and it inflated to 20 k due to the tax man.
I don't think it was meant to be a direct comparison of a Focus to a GT40. It's more about an affordable vs halo product. They'll sell most of them, just like how Yeti sells most of their special editions. People sure are talking about though, and that's the biggest takeaway. Specialized is on everyone's mind. That's the world. The Big-S is gonna be in a lot of people's minds like an ear worm, and if it results in selling more bikes, then who cares how outraged the "core" is.
To me it just seems like a bigger buttercup type thing with some preload? I don't know anyone who regularly claps out their forks enough to need a bottom out bumper, so maybe they've changed the air spring to make it hella linear?
I was about to say something similar.
Honestly I'm split,
On the one hand $20k for a bike is bonkers.
On the other hand I understand why a company like Specialized wants to build a halo product. It's about brand image and also it makes the regular (non S-works) models seem like a better deal. An $8k bike (e or normal) looks much more reasonable sitting next to a $20k model.
While none of are likely to buy the $20k bike, it's got us all talking about it...
Mission accomplished...
You already have a bottom out bumper in your fork. It's just not super fancy and is more like akin a fat O-ring. I suppose the one they introduce here might be more fancy. More like the ones we see in coil shocks, i guess. And the adjustement is just changing the location of the bumper, i guess?
Back to rumors, is the Syndicate riding OneUp Proto Grips?
With a OneUp clamp? Looks like they may be adding another grip that looks like the Ergon Vali Höll grip..?
My immediate thought when I saw the patent is that they have a coil version on the way and this is their way of controlling bottom outs.
I knew you would say that, that’s why I gave the F150 example. Why be mad that rich people subsidize our sport?
I mean or they could just use the far superior and proven hydraulic bottom out method. Rockshox is getting all nostalgic with shoving rubber in forks for damping.
Elastomer sprung forks making a comeback in 2027...
I mean for certain purposes rubber is a pretty amazing tool. Has a ton of properties that make it fairly incredible when used correctly. Especially when it comes to mass producing a product you know more than half of users aren’t going to follow service intervals.
I would just interject that potentially, not all HBO system designs are appropriate for all consumers. I find the HBO system in a smashpot effective, but pretty easy to setup wrong, impacting fork performance. Some rebound systems in forks I think are a bit more idiot proof, Manitou's HBO setup works well with a pretty trick rebound check system, so it's minimizing it's impact on HSR when a suspension event is deep enough for it to come into play.
The smashpot system has a VERY large impact on HSR. In addition, in it's stock shim configuration (qty 5), 90ml of rather high CST fluid, the adjuster is essentially an on/off switch unless you ride hard enough to go HUGE. Even with a lot of tuning that I have put into my smashpot setup (1-2 active shims at most, 50-60ml of motorex 7wt), there is a huge digressive knee to the adjuster. That's not a bad thing, you want to be able to feel when it's working... but the force that it can generate is huge and getting the setup just right requires a consumer that is very adept at suspension tuning, setup changes and feel. In my experience, only ~5% of consumers in this space are capable/ready to deal with that and follow through to get a result that makes the whole system worth it.
Using closed cell bump stops is honestly a great way to control bottom out events. Between material, durometer and shaping, you can do a ton to impact suspension performance with minimal weight, service concerns or setup. It's a way to deliver that performance the masses without really introducing any cons/negatives/complexity to the product then the consumer is already experiencing.
If you want your mind blown, do a deep dive on bottom out bumpers for spec racing. I've done a lot of that (spec miata, se30, srx7 and s944) and since you're limited to conventional shock setups, the money is in bump stops. You'd be shocked to experience just how closely you can mimic a very complex, 1k per damper, performance result with an off the shelf meh monotube shock and 250 dollars in engineered closed cell progressive bump stops. The bonus is, these always feel the same and require no setup/maintenance.
Having only recently ridden a coil shock I’ve come to appreciate just how effective a good bottom out bumper can be.
I'm not mad, I don't know why people tend to assume that if someone shares his opinion which differs from another they're mad. I like Spesh and been on S-Works Models (Stumpy '19, Evo, Stumpy 15 and Enduro) the last 6 years, just recently switched to a Bronson. I want that brand to do well cause it drives the market.
HBO affects Rebound? HBO converts kinetic energy into heat, or in other words, does not add to the rebound force at the end of stroke, in theory it should work better with the speed sensitive rebound circuits found in all fork dampers at the moment.
Does anyone have any information on the new Cannondale that Ella Conolly is running? I mean it’s out in the blue but no info?