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As a person who HATES marketing but had to work in it for a while as an advertising filmmaker (I made commercials and short form video; I loved telling stories) and currently does not work anywhere near the marketing world: Cutting marketing budget during a slowdown is very often a bad choice. Marketing doesn't have to be commercials. It's whatever your company does with the intention of making your target market feel more favorable about your brand. So much of selling a product is about being the brand/offering a product that is recognized and trusted by your potential customers as...

Something that also doesn't translate well across the Atlantic is our use of highly offensive words as terms of endearment: in Scotland, if you think highly of someone, it is more than acceptable to describe them as a "good c**t". Unlike a bike company executive who signed off on headset cable routing, who may instead be referred to as a "bit of a c**t". Context is everything.

I consider this a win, a statement from the Propain man himself on the other site regarding cable routing

A few years back I switched to an open-source alternative to the Microsoft Office suite of products (Excel, Word, etc). Microsoft was moving to a subscription-only model, adding complexity and network connection requirements that didn't improve the actual user experience. Now, the more I hear about bullshit AI integration in future versions of Windows, the more I consider abandoning Microsoft altogether and taking the leap to a Linux-powered computer that does what I need and no more. I bring this up because I think there's a possible parallel to the mountain bike industry. We're seeing the major companies push features...

fyi i deleted the thunder mountain screenshots b/c thunder mountain asked. they messed up with page being live.

About 6 pages back I had talked about my trick to reduce dead throw. This was exactly it, I was planning on writing up a power point with instructions but after spending some time up in the sierras with this done, I would highly advise against it. My understanding is that is disrupts the port timing of the reservoir and the piston. The issue that I had was the brakes would feel great but as they would heat up the throw would get less and less and less until the pads were clamping on the rotors without and input from...

Yes just came on here to report this issue today at the bikepark haha. Pumped up too much after a long descent. Even weirder : adjusting the contact the normal way with the small T9 torx would "reset" the lever. Meaning that turning the contact adjuster one way then the other back to the same initial position would somehow restore some lever throw... before pumping up again on the next long descent. Really confusing. I've backed off the ball head screw inside a little bit and then reset the pistons and bled them again to correct the fluid volume and...

Made some progress with the Hayes Dominion excessive dead throw issue! For anyone with who's interested, here's the fix : 1. Remove the lever - two torx screws top and bottom, then wiggle it out. 2. Loosen the small grub screw (green arrow). 3. Tighten the ball-head screw as far as you can without it rubbing (red arrow) 4. Tighten the grub screw again and reinstall. Doing this reduced the dead throw in the lever by 12mm. Still slightly more throw than my Codes, but massively improved. I suspect mine were set up wrong from the factory and the ball-head...

Here's a side by side. Factory setting on the left vs the throw reduced on the right.

They should sell these in limited quantities and call them the S-Works Stumpjumper Ultimate – a throwback to their OG lugged carbon bike the S-Works Epic Ultimate. I imagine there's a market for these even if they were a $9,999 frameset.

The problem with these XC courses at the world cups is they give the elite riders way too much time to practice. Days of ripping laps and hours with line/technique coaches and such practicing the 4 hard sections. Really levels the playing field as riders with lower technical skill can be coached up over 2-3 days to ride the hard lines, etc. What would be great is if they got a course walk, then minimum on course practice and then race day. Giving the riders who have higher level of technical skill something to separate themselves on. You'd actually see...

I'm all for gnarly XC trails. I see some cool steep sections but the man-made stuff is lame. It's not mountain biking to me. It's more interesting to have sections with different natural lines, part of the sport is to be creative and interpret the terrain not to be channeled into man-made features that are actually not that difficult. it's probably ridable by mot riders. I'd rather see a big line that only a few very best could ride and that might save 5 seconds every lap.. Here I'm not sure the tech differentiates the very best ( but it...

Every product release it’s the same story. We’ve done this we’ve done that, yada yada. Thing is, they are trying to cater to a broad market. New riders and advanced riders all in the same bucket with only 10 clicks to separate them. As bikes change and skills advance more quickly, this assembly line damping process struggles to keep up with the changes. None of the fork companies would ever do this, but wouldn’t it be interesting if they just offered a chassis? You could build the forks tuning from the ground up with whatever tuner you think is best…

Oh its working now. Interesting analysis on compliance vs precision. For trail and enduro applications, I'm convinced most aluminum and carbon frames are too stiff. I'd wager that most DH bikes are too stiff for us mere mortals, but I've never ridden a DH bike marketed as "compliant". Part of me wonders if the longer axle to crown of 200mm travel DH forks give the same practical compliance as a stiffer enduro/trail frame despite being stiffer from an absolute perspective. Or it could be that world cup caliber racers are riding so much faster/harder that a stiffer chassis ends up...

This feature has completely deterred me and many others from watching. The crazy thing is the gap isn't that huge in the scheme of things but, the shit transition, lack of safety and just shear uglyness of the feature is not pleasant. I understand it is hard line but this it putyourlifeontheline. I hope this is the last time we see this stuff.

I also think something is being overlooked here. If this is a race... Held in Wales... That frequently experiences delays or cancellations due to wind and rain. How in the name of the lord are you gonna run this safely? As much as I love some do or die shit... I was hoping Wales would go more in the tech direction and less in the whole 80-90 footers direction after last year's cancellation. This is beyond like safety and design bias, just logistically as a showrunner this feature seems like a nightmare. It's the kind of thing you build for...

That's just the thing, innit? If somebody wants a mid travel 29er trail bike with 435mm chainstays and 65 degree headtube and yada yada they are SPOILED for choice. So I don't see why they should go to battle in that market so hard, particularly if their bikes have little to no innovation. So may as well double down on the 'fun' aspect of Kona and pump out solid 275er and MX builds with 425-430mm chainstays and slightly shorter wheelbases with conservative geo. Or in other words, whatever the rest of the industry isn't doing. Cuz I don't think it's...

The shift that caused enduro to lose its magic and appeal to your average racer/fan seems to be a push from multiple high level race series to "legitimize" the discipline by removing aspects that made enduro uniquely enduro. Long days, chats on the transfers, community cohesion, privateer participation, accessible qualification, and affordable racing. ESO seems to think they can broadcast these races but still won't do it. If the races aren't broadcasted then why do the liason times need to be shorter? Why are many races staged entirely within bike parks? Why the same venues year to year? All of...