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"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.

Omg that dog is fast

Phil, how/where did you get a 210 x 57 shock? A Trek take off? Sounds awesome. I'd like to try that...

It’s basically a 216x63 with a 6mm top out spacer fitted...

I actually ended up liking that DPX2 more and more, and I had the opportunity to test a few "special" shocks on that bike. There is room left on the table here, but maybe see if you can't slap a cheap coil on (with the right spring of course) as that might be a better option.

Perhaps saying I disagreed with your take on the rear suspension wasn’t the correct wording. You are probably able to push the bikes much harder than I can so I’m sure you are noticing something I can’t make the bikes do. My comment was just meant to explain that as a similar weighted but slower rider, I didn’t notice what you discribed. I haven’t ridden the EVO on a trail so I couldn’t comment on any flex it may have. On the same trails I didn’t notice much of any diffenence between the carbon and alloy frames. But again, I’m...