All

Had to say it.

Know of any carbon XC bikes that use a gearbox? For the downhill and adventure crowd, gearboxes may be a reasonable solution, but the current offerings are not great for those of us that like to pedal a lot. Maybe they'll get there eventually, but at the moment they would add about 3.5 lbs to my 22 lb bike, while costing me a bit on efficiency. I'll stick with the 1860's technology until something observably better comes along.

and most people don't care. They just want the best thing at the best price. Again; and this is where I'm pretty sure your assessment doesn't universally apply. Over here, people sort-of do care and it will take companies like XDS years if not decades to lose the China-stigma - even if they offer a good product at a good price, backed by perfect after-sales support. You need real product management, strong engineering, credible distribution, at least some kind of dealer or service network, and a serious effort to show customers that you are going to stand behind the product...

Yes, but I think other people in this thread have clearly explained why those efficiencies don't offer any unique benefits to high pivot, gearbox, or idler-based designs. Yes, electronics would make high pivot, gearbox, and idler-based bikes more efficient, but at the same time they'd be making all the other bikes more efficient, too. If Dave has four apples and Lisa has six apples, and you give them both four apples, Lisa still has more apples than Dave. Now, I guess if you're saying that electronic lockouts give them both the equivalent of 100 additional apples, then I would concede...

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