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You're an amateur. I carry a ton of tools, but every other year or so something goes so horribly wrong I STILL have to walk back to the car. Bikes are pretty good though. My proudest trailside repair was actually roadside...blew a shifter cable 40 miles from home on a cold February day on my gravel bike. I had an extra cable in my little revelate gas tank bag. Fixed it, rode home.

Re: IMBA (and other trail associations) besides them building almost exclusively flow trails, I find the biggest drawback is the mob mentality of people that take part. -Come in and gaslight local government into letting them be the judge jury and executioner regarding how the entire trail system will be built and managed moving forward. -Build exclusively flow. (Requires excavators) -Gaslight local government into requiring parking permits to support excavator trails people didn’t ask for. Parking used to free. -Extended and unnecessary trail closures whenever it even slightly rains. “It’ll ruin the flow berms bro, be a good trail steward...

100% this. Think about how heavily regulated baseball bats, golf clubs, and tennis rackets are at the elite level. Do you remember when Tom Brady was accused of playing with under-inflated footballs? Almost every sport that relies on equipment has very strict rules about that equipment to create a more level playing field. There's no such thing as a truly level playing field, of course, but deliberately making it less level from the top-down is typically viewed as a negative in sports. And while arguing about rules seems off-topic here, I think it's extremely on-topic, because the regulatory landscape of...

Haha oh god, and then cycling became the next NBA. I do appreciate that mountain biking by and large doesn’t seem to be a sport that favors a certain body type and would hate for that to change

Yea it’s wrong . Also , on this point, on a modern 170 travel enduro bike with high stack , 29inch front wheel then add my height. My head is miles away from the trail. Then add a rutted in uk off camber turn . I find big bikes very hard to balance. 32 inch wheel my head would be touching tree tops. On average , we large folk arent known for our graceful balance. 150 mm fork with a 27.5 wheel is a lot easier to ride them ruts

I'm the absolute last person you'll need to convince when it comes to inverted forks and the advantages! 😃I believe springs should be coil, and forks should be inverted! 😁

Doesn't it seem obvious that the optimal wheelsize for XC racing would be: 1. The biggest wheelsize you can fit into your frame and fork without significantly jeopardizing bike fit, and 2. The biggest wheelsize that's still available with a competitive tire (casing/compound/tread) If you can check both of those boxes, I don't see why it wouldn't be faster than running a smaller wheel. I'm sure we would see diminishing returns for 36", 39", or even 42" wheels (as you mentioned), but diminishing returns are still positive returns. As long as you can build a wheel with featherlight spokes and...

and an interstate at the foot of the mountain.

There's some great trail names in this slide. "Zone of Fear" "Area of Influence" "Silent Scare" "Invisible Footprint"