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There maybe funding streams for the team that are not necessarily just made on a business decision. Sometimes people with money want to see their friends succeed at what they are doing and are willing to support that without seeing a direct monetary benefit.

I wish teams could only be of a certain number and there were team points. It would provide a reason to watch riders outside the top 30 with more rooting interest and give those riders closer to mean reason to push harder. Martin's proposed structure makes all the sense in the world too. What's crazy, would simply require Some papering restructure.

Neko is like the guy that had the vision quest, and the quest turned prophetic. Amazing that being open and honest, showing passion and hard work culminate in success. However this team turns out, how couldn't you root for frameworks? At a time when companies are closing doors and shutting down support, Frameworks is growing.

I don’t think bike sales had anything to do with his team budget. I bet that was settled long before they confirmed they would actually sell a run of bikes this year. He puts out great content and has a lot of eyes on his project, that’s worth a lot to his sponsors.

Either way, Nekos done an impressive job with promotion and sponsorship, since 100 bikes haven’t even yet been sold. But somehow he’s pulling in a million dollars to run three riders on the WC circuit. Three riders, probably two mechanics, paying Martin Whiteley, travel, salary, taxes - surely this venture requires a cool mil.

"where's the money going" makes no sense. WDBsports didnt make a special platform for streaming MTB races They put the broadcast in with gcn/Eurosport or whatever you had here in the US. You couldn't expect them to give them away for free. Their other customers subscribing for road cycling etc. would not be stoked. Subscription for 6-9 months or even a year was less than some people pay for an MTB tyre. The argument that the money is not going back to MTB because the riders ain't getting it is silly. WDBsports are now covering all areas of organisation that...

Yes and the plan they showed the board probably included multiple scenarios of different viewership figure and on site attendance. Not sure the board are aware of just how tight fisted and entitled the gravity fans seem to be though

As a reference you could say this week is the pinnacle of cyclocross. Pretty much a solid week and half of racing. Spectators pay to attend the race unlike DH and the organizers want to the best riders there so the racers get appearance fees. The top riders like Pidcock, Van Aert and MVP get between 15 -20k euro per race. The race I watched the other day I noticed it was all non industry banners lining the barriers.

3) Five hours?? First, the vast majority of bikes will not be S-Works and any somewhat experienced shop should be able to have a box bike complete within an hour. You already mentioned they aren't paying for this in the first place, so treat it like any other regular bike order. Reboxing is an hour (at most), and I'm not really sure how any other part of that process adds up to anything more than a second hour. But sure, I guess in the rare cases of these returns, $75 is on the slim side. 4) Unless a shop either...

Just put demos in the shops for looking, riding and sizing and then click buy and ship. Shop gets a % and doesn’t have to carry lots of inventory.

Not sure when it started, but I know for a fact since I pulled mine from the box along with five others. It is now called a "pro build" and the shops receive a set amount of revenue direct from Specialized for each build. It is a significant amount of money. Very different from the approach of Canyon or Santa Cruz for example.

Good point, especially that shops get to just watch sales roll in without investing any time in customer interaction beforehand. Surely any loss in margins will be made up for with that fact alone, not to mention the opportunity to then build relationships with those customers. Seems like a win-win-win to me.

Have you seen an improvement with the maxxis tires? The OEM Grid tires seems to have not so much grip as expected! a lot of rebound, and not so confident on the front! I have you experiment this kind of behavior with aftermarlket ones?

Superpi, Yeah, I hated the stock tires, at least on the Evo. Total speculation, but it seems Specialized had a batch of OEM tires that were megahard compound (technical term). The tires on the non Evo were the same tire, but were a lot more compliant. Still, like you said, they didn't bite super well, at least on harder surfaces. They were great in softer dirt, but rock, roots, etc - EEEK! Going to my old friend the DHF was a good way to also test the capabilities of the bike, being tires are probably the 3rd leg of the...

Jeff, plug the negativ chamber of the DPX with an o'ring or something else and let us know!...

There is a way to reduce the negative a bit...if I was still testing the bike I'd actually give it a go.