Finally someone’s spec’ing a Shimano drivetrain

482mm of reach in XL with a 67.5' HA. It's an old XC bike.

According to the rules, anyone top-80 who started should be good to go for finals. Had there been more than 80 riders at the start, you would have had to worry about actually qualifying (unless you were protected as a top-20 rider in the current UCI World Cup standings).

For me, this article highlights the fact that there should be a better payout to at least share a bit of the profit from the races, and those payouts should go a bit deeper in the field. Lets say you make the cut in the world cup, race in the top 20 or 25 qualifiers, and get RedBull TV coverage. You end up 11th, the payout is exactly $0 according to this. Even more insulting might be the 200 Euros for a tenth place finish:

https://www.uci.org/docs/default-source/financial-obligations/ucifinancialobligations-mtb18-multi_neutral.pdf?sfvrsn=5e611d8a_12

Interesting. I draw parallels to other industries where an athlete partners with someone to start a brand. Thing I can't really figure out is if the volume of bikes produced through a company with a model like Robot Bikes is significant enough to float a WC race team. Yeah, yeah, speculation I know, and not really fair in some ways. In my mind the only reason World Cup racing is worthwhile is to help a bigger company's brand image, especially with Grade A talent like Gee, Rach and Dan (where real salaries are part of the equation...not just a free bike and enough money to go to the races)

Regardless, I see custom bikes being one of the only remaining progressions in the near term in terms of "performance that matters". Nothing matters more than a bike that fits you just perfect. Just seems custom and high volume doesn't go together, making this a head scratcher with respect to the dollars and cents.

Maybe I'm wrong and Robot has cracked the code as to how to do high volume custom bikes at a semi-affordable price. If I am wrong, and this is true, well...that'll mix things up!

...But my guess is it'll be something like Folsom Skis. Rad. Cool. Exciting. A piece you can buy, never sell, and always love, but not something that is easy to scale.

The medium suited me well. Bikes over the 460mm reach mark are hit or miss for me. Many feel a bit like seesaws in steppy sections, so I tend to stay in the 440-460mm range.

We do have a Stumpy EVO review video in the works for the coming months.

I wish it was easy to find demos.

I recently test road the S2 and S3. I’m 6’ and can say I could get along with either size. The S3 is big but I managed just fine. Loads of stability. I ride a 2018 Scott genius and compared to that the stumpy evo doesn’t climb near as well. Downhill the evo is awesome but honesty it’s not a good trail bike overall. I would get the ransom over the stumpy evo hands down. And definitely prefer the genius to the stumpy evo.

I rode a size medium at 5'10" tall, and I honestly never felt as though the absence of a piggyback shock hindered the Ransom.

Who's down to prototype test wireless brakes?

It's refreshing to hear an honest take on Sram's performance with this latest crop of product rather than just stroking their ego... I've been disappointed in the ability of Sram derailleurs to take a hit since they did away with X9. Thanks for the honest review!