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I think the perceived smoothness of heavier vehicles more comes down to the weight of sprung mass compared to the weight of the rider/driver more than anything. You and your bike a plenty heavy and exert plenty of force in compression to not get bump jumped by even a heavy wheel assuming the suspension and tire pressure is reasonable and of course not wheels that are obscenely heavy. Obviously at some point they would become heavy enough to be an issue. The forces exerted by the suspension are also largely vertical so they do little to take away from horizontal...

The question is, can brands survive without making an ebike? Based on what I know about sales at bike dealers, pedal bike purchases are in persistent decline. In order for a brand to grow or even stay the same size, they will have to make an ebike. I think there have smartly been many hold-outs... and I agree, maybe producing a product like an EMTB is too intensive and requires too much warranty overhead to the point where that process can kill a small/mid sized brand. But I also can assume that most brands aren't in business to persistently struggle...

Eagle 90 DH would go hard. Maybe the cages will be compatible?

Mondraker proto DH bike will be in production for 2026, Also comes with a 2026 Boxxer, which has Charger 3.2 and "air preload" (I assume this is that bump in the left lower) And DH transmission will be under the XX label, with new cranks ,

took this from forbidden group Interesting

Unovation? I vote for the SRAM 70/90 mechanical derailleurs. The average rider has no idea that their bent derailleur hanger is ruining their shifting. In terms of performance improvement for the masses, this is one of the best advances ever.

I had one of the my ‘26 enduro frames in my hands a couple weeks ago. If literally hundreds of FTW built frames hadn’t passed through my hands over the last 25 years, I would be hard pressed to tell the difference, the start-stop marks on the welds were even in the same place Frank does them. Neko and Logan need margin and scalability to build a sustainable brand. That takes working with a more vertically integrated supplier- and there really isn’t anyone domestically that has the manufacturing firepower to match the amazing product and marketing firepower the Mullaly boys...

Here's another 2 cents. I love Vital (and its forums) and I love Pinkbike (and its comments). I've followed both for as long as I can remember. I started mountain biking when I was 12 in the year 2000. I've been around. Both sites are great. Both offer different resources. Both serve the sport we love. But I don't understand why so many Vital readers hate Pinkbike. Like, really really dislike a site that has been so important in building a positive image for mountain biking. I've seen more anti-Pinkbike/anti-that-other-site/anti-rhymes with StinkBike comments on Vital than I can remember. Conversely...

Finally something to yap about

Honestly the best format was the yearly. I think the single thread is ideal for rumors to start the discussion, then have it break out to individual. The BIG thread got bad, but the yearly thread was dialed. Just like race talk and team rumors. I get the web resource thing, so swapping it every year works. Also great for a recap every year/5/10 to see how bikes have developed. So my vote is yearly generic thread for discussion to break out to other subjects.

This is the way. Rename the v2 Tech Rumors thread to 2026 Tech Rumors, pin it, close it on Dec 31, 2026. Rinse and repeat. Kinda similar on the MTBR NorCal forum that I also inhabit, there is a monthly thread dedicated to ride reports (and all their tangents and side conversations). Works really well and is easy to navigate/manage.

brace yourself... at the end of the year, we're going to lock this thread. while it's been amazing (thank you all!) and fun that we hit 1000 pages and over 7.5m views, this thread is a logistical and technical resource hog. it's also not easy to access older information. while there are a lot of upsides to the ease and convenience of posting to this thread, the downsides are outweighing the ups with it being so massive. please start a NEW thread to the hub for anything that has potential for legitimate discussion. good posts will be homepaged and the...

Orbea also uses a concentric pivot at the rear axle, but considering they've already released their Rallon EN/DH in carbon, it would be surprising to see them testing another alloy prototype so soon. Devinci seems more plausible to me.

It relates to 6-bar and 7-bar link suspensions, sixfinity and sevenfinity for example.

Figured it out

That proto frame goes way back. I shot this photo of it in the early fall of 2023. Sorry for poor quality. The obvious heel rub and linkage swap-out (on your more current photo) shows it's seen a lot of hours. The guy riding it started working for a different bike company, so he may have offloaded this one to another industry friend. At the time, I was thinking it was maybe a Diamondback prototype that got canceled/never saw the light of day. He was fairly open with it; it was spotted at local Seattle area watering hole(s), etc.

Yeti human powered bikes going to sixfinity👀

Greeting people with "what's up assholes?" in videos is not poor attitudes. Leave Unc alone, he's honest and he works hard to spread the good word of long rear centres.

I re-read this post and couldn't understand what you were trying to say. Not to mention your response seems filled with unnecessary vitriol over someone just mentioning a persons name. Judging by your response I can only assume that you're harboring some deep seeded PTSD from him crushing you at the local beer league endubro. Which I do personally feel like that might be worth seeking some help for as it's never good to cary such such a burden mentally. All that besides, I'm glad you feel like Evil's 435 rear center is what you want in a size XL...