All

Obviously everyone has riders they watch and are interested in. Out of curiosity, who and what piques your interest? For me, the Norco revamp brought some fun into things. The portraits were ridiculous (and reminded me of the Royal Tennenbaums, which I love). Just... different. Regarding Brage, I'm about as opposite from a viking as you can get (full mennonite heritage over here. Pacifism and peace and farming and all that jazz). Not into the whole black metal thing, but his riding is so head and shoulder above anyone else in the free ride space, he's absolutely one of my...

Toe overlap.

It's less that they want a bike that works with x fork, and more that bikes with x travel work best for x style of riding. While there is now a lot more cross over in bike capabilities than there used to be, especially in the 130-160 mm rear travel area, there is good reason to design bespoke frames for each category. A lot of modular frames boil down to "we designed a bike with 160mm of rear travel, and the strength / weight that a bike like that needs, but you can use these other parts to reduce the...

I have noticed that a lot of bike genres are being defined by the suspension categories- frame makers want to make something that aligns with the Fox 36 SL, for example. So I think they'll continue to aim for that 120-130 rear travel section of the market with the Tallboy. The modular frame approach is going to continue. It means less molds and tooling, fewer SKUs and easier warranty repairs. I think in a few years it will be uncommon to see "bespoke" frame designs for different bike categories. Basically, what Trek did with the latest Fuel lineup will be...

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...

Don't know if this was mentioned. New tallboy is no longer VPP, 140 130mm

Imagine you're a average user that doesn't have a workshop, the tools, the knowledge and the heatshrink to pull apart the fork, change the spring, apply heatshrink to it and put it back together. If the fork is knocking, is too soft or too stiff, you need to go to the shop. How much will it cost you to have the correct spring installed? How much to make it quiet if the shop didn't apply the additional heatshrink on their own? How much does changing pressures on an air fork cost? In the eyes of the average user, is a...

A masshole. Wait, that's taken already.

"Weight Unbothered." ...but if they bring it up as a badge of honor more than once in a conversation it's called "look-what-I-can-do-ism."

Ease of use and less SKUs. An air shock or fork adapts to everything from an XS to an XL rider with a shock pump by the average user. Changing coils is more involved, requires a workshop for the fork at least, different sizes come with different springs so you have 4 or 5 SKUs. And it's heavier. And more expensive as you have to buy another spring. Air is free.

the guy reached out to me after 3 years of silence to ask if ive learned anything since our last chat. . . hes just mad cause i use Reach and Stack on my geometry when i design bikes

What are you smoking brother? Jan completely changed the entire road and gravel categories. Grant’s bikes have inspired an entire new and ever-growing category of alt-cycling. I can’t speak for the others but confidently going against the grain, having some kind of evidence of why their ideas are sound, and then having the cycling industry learn more and more each day how right they are doesn’t seem like a problem. I don’t even ride those kinds of bikes anymore but game recognizes game.

Maybe it's just how the Italians call it? EDIT: it is https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quoziente_d%27intelligenza

All “bikes” counter steer 😉

I was genuinely intrigued and was thinking of buying one of his stems because the BMB ones are so damn expensive, but an advertisement that calls people who disagree "haters and low IQ" immediately kills any chance of sending money his way.

it's not $500 per team... the 25 UCI series teams don't pay this. and they all have media teams at each round, some with as many as 5 photo, video, social media people. it's not 20 teams sharing the same 5 people, or a small group with access controlling all the content as you're claiming there's no charge for any team, rider, etc to shoot photos. and outside the series teams there's a fee for video because of TV and broadcast rights. anyone saying they lost their team job over that fee likely wasnt getting paid in the first place...

Hi, long time WC media guy here (14 years long).. I'm also very curious to hear some names and facts about this from you But in the meantime let me share some of my own. Each team is allowed to register photographers and videographers (each team then receives a set number of photo and video bibs for the season). if someone doesnt work for a team they can register as independent media once they have letters of assignment from a verified media outlet. there are little to no restrictions as to what can be shot/posted. This hasnt changed since the...

Double crown addict… is that you?

Thank god. I was shopping for bars and stems but just didn’t feel like there were enough options. This might just be the perfect one.