All

Not too concerned about the appearance. IIRC Dak has said something about it being harder to get weight on the front end in corners

Nobody is making you ride with a derailleur.

I had the opportunity to spin the cranks on a new Demo 11 that was in stock at my LBS (shoutout to InCycle in Pasadena), and there was a CRAZY amount of stiction or drag in the cranks/chains/freehub/somewhere when I did a backspin on the cranks. My questions are: Does that drag get better over time, as seals and/or chains break in? And has Specialized quantified how much drag the HighGear system produces, in terms of watts lost to drag at various inout power or RPM levels?

How come they didn't design this bike around a Genie shock?

well I'm all ready there tbh.

Arguing about surrons and surron demographics on the MTB tech rumors thread. Sick. I wonder if SRAM considered 6 pistons when working on the Mavens. Maybe after the 1000th piston massage, some SRAM tech was like maybe we should just add 2 more pistons.

I know. I own one.

I don't have a specific recommendation, but I used to have an old Pearl Izumi vest (90s vintage, so hard to say if it was intended for road or MT that was wind breaker material on the front, and full mesh on the back. Super easy to stash away once you got warmed up, and didn't really get you too hot, so you could wait until you wanted to stop to take it off. Was great for those rides that started on a flat road to the trailhead

https://ch.monsroyale.com/products/diversion-merino-wind-jacket-black-m… the mons or the rapha windblocker jerseys are also really good

Chainstay shape, positioning (relative to the chain and drivetrain), and wall thickness will also contribute to how loud the clack is when the chain slaps.