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Wow that’s a weird brake/shifter angle.
Cool looking bike, though it’s not clear to me why anyone needs a bike to make trails even easier than they already are in this era of shitty flow trails.
My hot take is if Brage wasn’t attached to this bike, the response would be much less positive.
Looking at the other image of the fork, some of the details appear similar to current Fox & Marzocchi products: the style of the serial number on the rear of the crown, the style of the driveside dropout and rebound (?) adjuster.
For reference, a photo of the Bomber Z2 dropout (from https://www.experiencedgear.net/home/marzocchi-z2)
enhance that serial code!
What makes you say that? I think similar bikes have been super well received lately. The two that come to mind are the bottle rocket and the marin quake. Both bikes are similar basic and people are hype.
Good spot.
Mike Curiak looks to have a Marzocchi on his Lenz 32". Different looking casting arch, however –– and his looks to have basically no tire clearance?
In a comment on the press release, Lenz said the fork is a prototype they can't discuss. The rear of the arch certainly looks like a prototype rather than a finished product.
As for Curiak's fork... could that just be a 32" wheel stuffed into an existing 29" fork? The position of the dust wipers relative to the tire/rim suggests maybe.
I think both those bikes are more race oriented and have more adjustments. This bike seems more in line with budget park bikes like the status park despite being full 200mm. Nobody talks about those bikes.
The serial number on the pic can be read as "1270890-0002-T" which translates to
Description: Bomber Z2, 29in, Marzocchi, 130, RAIL 2.0, Sweep-Adj, Shiny Blk, Neutral/Gloss Blk Logo, 15QRx110, 1.5 T, 58HT, 44mm Rake, YG, AM
I suppose the lowers might be from something else.
Not trying to be argumentative but I do completely disagree with that first point. Quake... MAYBE, but anybody wanting to race I think will look elsewhere. The bottlerocket is blatantly marketed as not a race bike.
I guess the status DH isn't talked about but I think its a sleeper sick bike. Maybe because there's one at my LBS that's for sale for 3k out the door. The industry needs as many cheap aluminum double crown bikes as it can handle. Bike park laps on these types of bikes is in my opinion the purest form of the sport. Just having as much fun as possible all day long with bikes that don't financially ruin you.
Neither of those bikes are race-oriented. The bottlerocket is a freeride bike 27.5 front/rear. And the other is a Marin.
"The industry needs as many cheap aluminum double crown bikes as it can handle. Bike park laps on these types of bikes is in my opinion the purest form of the sport. Just having as much fun as possible all day long with bikes that don't financially ruin you."
A super fun bike sold today means a super fun bike designed to be ridden a little more safely sold tomorrow. For sports like mtb, I think the hard part is getting people to try it. As soon as someone's in, they're in for a while and for at least a few bikes.
I think there's a business case to be made for lower-cost park bikes now that many peoples' primary bikes are eMTBs.
Back in the day, my cohort of friends had a trail bike and a DH bike. Later, I feel like it became an enduro bike and a lighter trail bike (aka downcountry). Now, I imagine a lot of mountain bikers' pairings will either be a park bike and an eMTB, or a XC bike and an eMTB.
This is basically me. Just converted my HP Range to a downhill bike, and I also have a Range VLT. I still want a third bike though. Actually have my eye on an aggressive hard tail. If not that, an Optic…
I have to admit, I do not love the side profile of some of the 32" bikes that are coming out. They end up looking like XS bikes with cramped triangles and kinked bottom/top tubes. Hopefully more progressive geo will enable these things to look like something other than a 2010-2012 era niner.
Optic, DH Range, and Rerun here.
First thing I thought is I'll see these all over the lifts as rental bikes
The only thing that any of these bikes have attached to them that make them actually cool is marketing. Especially from a brand like transition. Norco actually does some pretty cool outside the box stuff but brands like marin or transition make cheaply made bikes that’s survive only off marketing hype.
That's a hot take on things. A lot of us don't care if a bike is inside the box or outside it, we just want it to be a good time.
Oh, and pretty much all mountain bikers are uncool. That's fine with me, I don't really like the cool people anyway.
Extremely hot take in the bad way lol.
Marin makes awesome bikes, I regularly check them out. Transition as well, albeit a little spendier but also more dialed (imo).
The only reason I don’t buy either is because I already own a 6 year old Norco that has given me zero reasons to spend money on a new bike,
I will probably get flamed for this, and will offer the caveat that I have only been skimming this page, but I feel like these bikes are great propositions and are in my eyes cool bikes because they’re made to be cheap and practical workhorses for younger demographics that don’t have as much disposable income and want a playful park bike that they can maintain themselves.
Maybe I’m just haven’t been following the thread well enough, but I don’t see why the ebike bit is necessary to explain the appeal. Not everyone can afford bougie boutique racing machines, or ebikes, nor do many want the complexity of either one. These bikes would make a great second bike regardless of what your first bike is, or a good only bike, if all you’re interested in is a certain type of riding. In addition, if you don’t go to the bike park every week, all the more reason to not break the bank. All of this said, we’re still talking about bikes that cost well in excess of $2k when not on sale. I feel like we can hardly call them cheap.
Mountain biking is a privileged and expensive hobby. Bikes like these make it a tiny bit more accessible to many, which from what I have read, was much of what Brage wanted in the torrent, which I commend him for.
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