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That's been my experience too. Patrol frame had huge clunk in it right out of the box that was fixed by taking out and greasing all pivot bolts. To be fair it's not needed any attention in the 4 park seasons since, but still if I'm spending $2,400 for an alloy frame it needs to be perfect. Feels very catalogue comparing it to Ibis, SC, Spesh. Their frames would be fairly valued at $2k for alloy and $3k for carbon. Just like Norco I audibly laughed when I saw they were asking $4k for a frame. (both of those companies have their $4k frames on sale now)
The first version did not have a lifetime warranty, but the newer ones do.
I wonder if SC 10 year plan is to slowly move away from VPP on everything. Tallboy being the first "bike" bike. Hightower and Bronson are on their second color way, so there may be 2 more. It'll be a while before those 2 get a major change like suspension layout? Megatower is done and I'd imagine if they got rid of the Nomad, the hardcore fans would set them on fire.
Apart from eventual enshittification motives, why would they do that? The Bronson rides like a dream and is IMO one of the most versatile frames on the market right now. It is a joy to work on and doesn't use any proprietary of shitty standards. What would we get from a horst link layout?
Cheaper to warranty a busted chain stay versus the entire rear end.
Good point. They were able to make some sense out of it for the e-bikes, both from marketing stand point and the fit and finish (because motor). I'm not sure how I feel about meat powered bikes from SC leaving the vpp platform... kinda like biting into an oatmeal raisin cookie thinking it was chocolate chip.
This traumatized me as a child
current speculation on MTBR is that the Mega and Nomad will be merged into one model with a flip chip to convert between mullet and 29. Makes me kinda sad to see the Megatower nameplate die as an owner of gen 1 and 2.
I want to add to the Transition quality discussion: they have some of the worst paint I have ever seen on any bicycle, ever (worked in a shop for 6 years). Absolutely terrible. I like a lot of what their brand does but dang, get better paint please.
Crab
Seat post insertion is a big one.
Why isn't Gravel the segment championing and leading this 32" development? It's the place where this will make the most sense...
They've got that well sorted though no? I'm 6ft on a 5010 with a 210 dropper and have some room to go down. On the VPP Bullit though I am at max insertion and shimmed down to 190, but that's still plenty of drop. 240 would be diminishing returns imo.
It's more about the smaller sizes, shorter rides really struggle with both seat tube lengths and insertion. You can't really get away with designing a frame that plain sucks and doesn't work in some sizes. Seat tubes are getting short AF now in general though. I'm on a 472mm reach frame with a 385 seat tube. Which is bordering on stupid. I could run the largest size of this frame, with 522.5 reach, with my 210 dropper, and switchgrade which adds stack, and still have 15mm of exposed post that I could drop. That is definitely starting to get pretty stupid. I'm only 5'11" and don't have long legs.
What account did DJI/Avinox cancel for breaking embargo? That would be a real bummer to have cut molds and produced a bunch of frames, all dedicated to their motor fitment, only to have them tell you to the deal is off!😬
On the subject of the new M2 motor, I'd initially heard it would be a less expensive, heavier, but slightly more powerful 120nm model, and then there would be a separate refresh of the M1 motor keeping it as the higher end model, but if Unno is using the M2 it really starts to sound like maybe it's a replacement for the M1 as I find it hard to imagine a super premium brand like Unno using anything other than the top of the line motor. I'd also seen some leaks on the Forbidden bikes with the Avinox and saw they were going to have models with the M2, but the spec sheets I saw were for more "budget" models, so I wasn't sure if their higher spec bikes might have the M1. Given what Unno's doing, maybe Forbidden will be M2 across the board as well.
Stumpboy ?
Talljumper ?
Hopefully its all rumour as was looking at a 2027 tallboy to replace an ageing stumpy.
The road/gravel world are surprisingly hesitant to innovation and change, and the UCI really lock down formats to prevent development.
Minimum weight has been the same for 15+ years (6.8kg), bikes still have to be dual triangle etc.
For a while roadies went down narrower tyres falsely believing they were more aerodynamic and rolled faster.
I think it would take the UCI approving larger tyres before we set proper adaption for gravel bikes.
Are you trying to say that dudes who ride dropbars offroad don't understand comfort, performance and technology? What a surprise!
(I am actually in favour of gravel biking and know some hardcore roadies that ride gravel for very good reasons...)
You need to look up the 5.11 utility kilt.
It was an April fools joke, with a pretty funny launch video. So many people emailed and asked to buy them that 5.11 actually makes them now.
What frame are you on? I have short legs and love long reach. There are lots of frames I can’t run because the seattube is still too long.
If they're going to do that with their long travel bikes, and if they really are going to bump the Tallboy up in travel (maybe to make room for a more aggressive Blur?) then surely they would merge 140/130 Tallboy and the 5010 with a flip chip right? Maybe even the same with the Bronson and Hightower?
Trimming fat from product offerings/ getting two birds stoned at once with one frame for two bikes seems to be the solution a lot of manufacturers are leaning towards for navigating this slump. It makes sense to me, but maybe someone with a better understanding of what goes into engineering a bike with a flip chip to alternate between MX and 29 would disagree.
Could depend where you are looking for gravel.
This ultra-style rando gravel riding is what I first thought of as a place for 32" wheels. https://www.instagram.com/rufus_here/ rocking them at the Tour Te Waipounamu https://www.instagram.com/tourtewaipounamu/
This will be where it totally takes over in a few years. The small 'chatter' of gravel roads will be reduced with the larger wheels, and rolling speed increased. I would place a bet that more than 75% of gravel bikes being sold in 2028 will be 32" wheels. The only thing that could present a hurdle is the increased weight of the wheel systems on climb-y courses.
Santa Cruz has been pretty vocal about a dislike for flip chips for swapping wheel sizes, so I would be surprised if that happens. Their justification is mixed wheel bikes benefit from longer chainstays than their dual 29" counterparts and flip chips reduce the chainstay length when switching to a mixed wheel setup and preserving all other geometry. So you can either design a bike that rides well in in dual 29" but has a too short chainstay when in mixed wheel setup or a bike that rides well in mixed wheel but has too long of a chainstay in dual 29" mode.
It could also just be a convenient excuse to sell two of the same bike too, I haven't bother trying to verify that myself but my anecdotal experience is there are noticeable riding differences in bikes that use a flip chip for wheel sizes vs bikes designed around mixed wheels.
are these the new bars we might see?
maybe some 40mm rise 7 backsweep burgtecs
scope the bar label
Well 4 bar does give a designer a lot of flexibility and adjustment. And despite what SC has said in the past, PON could be handing down seriously limiting directives. If you have to make serious cuts to your line a 4 bar design would make it possible to preserve the setups even if you lose some badges.
As someone who owns both a SC Vala and the latest gen Bronson... they ride very, very similarly. I'd give their 4 bar implementation the edge for overall plushness and just feeling well rounded. VPP feels racier and will give you more energy back from pumping. I've heard others suggest that their implementation of VPP works best on longer travel bikes, where they end up feeling very efficient but can still soak up big hits thanks to the travel numbers. There seems to be some truth to that. So I could see them shifting their shorter travel bikes over to 4 bar. Plus 4 bar ends up being lighter - due to only having a single alu link instead of 2. Shorter travel bikes care more about that weight.
I will say though that the 1 feature I really miss from the Vala on the Bronson is the ability to run a 200/210mm dropper slammed on a size medium. On the Vala I've got a 200mm AXS v2 with about 1" above the clamp, but if I try to install it on the Bronson it bottoms out on the shock tunnel about 3/4" higher.
As far as I know, the Nomad and the longer travel bikes are going to remain VPP for the foreseeable future. The new Tallboy is not really any lighter than the last Gen either, and the whole thing doesn't make sense. I've thought that Pon has been sticking their fingers into their brands a lot recently, not just SC, but GT, cervelo, and Cannondale, and it isn't going to work out for them. They're trying to set up SC as their answer to Specialized, turning them into similar scale brands, but it just won't work.
SC could get more seatpost insertion with VPP if they went back to driving the shock from the upper link, eliminating the shock tunnel. Considering they used to do that, then moved all their bikes to lower-link driven, it seems super unlikely.
They could do a carbon upper link to shave weight from the tallboy, but the current alu link is machined out within an inch of its life. So maybe not much weight savings there after all.
Looks like another inherent weight issue with VPP is making a complete rear triangle- you have to connect the chainstay and seatstay with a long bridge between the pivot points. That's a lot of extra carbon/alu that crab link bikes don't need.
A flip chip plus a swappable/adjustable dropout (or some other chainstay lengthening method) is "the answer" to a lot of people's questions. Brian Chainstayhill and others can have their long chainstays and Santa Cruz can reduce the number of different triangles they need to make.
I think Pivot has a proprietary dropout that allows for length tweaks. I wonder if there's a way to engineer a similar approach without infringing on the design...I'd bet there is but I don't really know anything about that stuff nor have I looked at any filings.
Crestline added swappable dropouts to ther emtb from their DH bike. It seems like a must have for any new frame from any brand moving forward.
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