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I'm a big fan of E.13's stuff, and having run a ton of stuff from them from dropper posts, cassettes, chainrings, etc, and longevity, particularly with wheel and dropper components, has never been their strong suit. Hope this one's different.

As a current St Evo owner as well as a Madonna V3 owner, the Madonna pedals 2-3x better than the Stumpy and tracks the ground like Velcro. I have a hard time wanting to ride the Stumpy that weights almost 11 pounds lighter than the Madonna because it doesn’t pedal or track as well as the Madonna. Some of the new suspension gizmos are pretty rad but it seems that they are trying to make up for poor kinematic design that comes from trying to maintain a certain design aesthetic and not from trying to push the design envelope. Trek...

I like the ski analogy. I feel like there was a golden age for powder skis around 2012-2014. The Bent Chetlers from that era remain one of my favorite skis ever. Since then, powder skis have walked back a bit in terms of how purpose driven they are. I think largely because it didn’t make sense to have so many skis made for conditions few were accessing. I wonder if we will see something similar with bike design where what’s considered a big bike gets a little smaller since most trails aren’t akin to bike park laps. That said, I’m...

Competitive Pokemon was not on my Vital bingo card for today lol

It seems like 2.5lb is about the average weight penalty for an aluminum frame without the frame being a flimsy soda can. Adding in frame storage is probably a massive weight penalty too.

Seems like a whole lot of bike-related brands/companies are learning hard lessons this year about the promises made during a buyout.

Almost all the EDR teams are calling it a day. Basically everyone will be going back to the privateer days with their own “non factory” sponsors

Couldn't agree more, so many people getting angry about misinformation and conjecture. World Cup racing has been in flux since it's inception. This is just the next change in a long line of changes. Seems to me that the main source of anger on the forums and comments sections is that it's no longer "free" to watch DH racing. But for those of use who have paid to watch the DH racing (especially the womens) has been some of the best ever. What I gather from this forum is that the World Cup should be free to enter for anyone...

If you used a credit card, and it's within the last 6 months, go hit the "dispute" button with your bank. Going by the email it won't be Rob and Mike getting hit with the reversed charges, it'll be the company that took over MI and fired them which gets to involuntarily refund you.

My interpretation is the idea of returning EDR to what it was in the beginning. An intent to design courses that better suit a 160mm bike with a 36/Lyrik on it vs a bike that is basically a single crown DH bike. What round was it that had a boat load of pedalling and complaining of it being too long and tight transitions? More of that.

It's not just you, they really just don't break. I swapped out the 15 gram UDH that I carry on both of my bikes on the trail (don't even carry the bolt, but just the plastic) and this 11 speed just continues to shift lovely. Also, 11 speed X01 weighs about .6# less than GX Transmission. I've had both, maybe it's in my head but it feels like the rear suspension just works better on the 11 speed. It also has better clearance, has all steel cassette & is quite affordable.

Don't forget come 2025 pretty much everyone needs E TIAS to enter pretty much every European country. Once again another thing that favors the European athletes. They don't have to fly across the glove to get to races which saves them tons of money in travel especially when they can go home a lot easier in the breaks. This schedule is just more proof they only want teams wity money who can pay for there non euro athletes to stay in Europe for large periods of time. Maybe the non European sponsors should stop giving money and see what happens...

Probably the venues. As we're seeing, climate change is affecting snow seasons in European ski resorts, so they'll be allocating more tourism marketing dollars to MTB. They have the need, the infrastructure and the budget to bid. The bigger question IMO is why aren't more locations round the world bidding to host world cups?

So two in XC Brazil and then Europe. Not even a fake Europe destination in Canada anymore?

Fastest turnaround of a podcast I’ve ever done, we only recorded this morning… https://pod.co/making-up-the-numbers/racing-reform-rumours We talk through the doc & then talk team rumours 🔥🔥🔥

Leaked document reveals MTB World Cup plans for 2025 https://singletrackworld.com/2024/09/leaked-document-reveals-mtb-world-…

When it comes to derailleur cages, there really is only one way to do things. Two pulley wheels on an arm. If I’m not mistaken our cage is the only one where the structural arm traverses from the outside of the upper pulley to the inside of the lower pulley. We wanted it to at least be different in some way. Kogel cages maybe look more similar for what it’s worth. The reason this annoys me, though, is we developed a novel chain guide a few years ago. The design is actually patented in the US. That design was copied...

Nah, that dude from Sick Bikes!