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Let's not pretend mountain bikers are any better. The number of people I've had to assist trailside who had no clue what a barrel adjuster was or how to put a tire back on a rim is kind of nuts.

Damn, I knew Triathletes have money but $800 to ship your bike??? I flew with my bike to Sedona last year and the airline counted it as a checked bag, I didn't pay anything. And when I went to Iceland it was only $75 each way.

Great idea and love the test.

I would wholeheartedly agree with the tire change statement. I went from the light casing T9 Butcher on the front to a gravity casing T9 Hillbilly and unwanted trail chatter ceased. Now it’s much easier to assess rebound adjustments in the fork.

Butch for sure lives in a fantasy land, mostly his head.

Aaron Lutze isn’t just a YouTuber but all good in the echo chamber if you don’t care to learn anything. But for those that do he ‘has over two decades of experience working with companies, athletes, and events - most notably with Red Bull for twelve years as an Athlete Marketing Manager and as one of the original producers from Freecaster, the company that brought the first World Cup livestream to the public in the mid-2000s.’ So he might offer a good perspective on racing and a lot of the discussions that have permeated this long forum post and discussion...

@bizutch do you live in Hyrule? ”…the mountain would burn off the nights cloud cover and moisture pull out of the soil by the fauna, especially in the long exposed sections of slope...” I know this ain’t no spelling bee… I think you mean flora…but there’s a non-zero possibility you mean magical anteaters sucking up dewdrops or something, and I love it!

Agreed. WBD still need to do one with the semi final bulls**t, but it's definitely an improvement none the less. Now if they could confirm we'll have commentators who don't talk bollocks and bore us to death that would be great...

Great question. My understanding is that 35mm was invented to give more surface area for stems to clamp onto slippery carbon handlebars to prevent unwanted rotation. This has never been a problem with 31.8mm aluminum bars, and stiffness (too much or too little) has never been a problem as far as I know for 31.8mm aluminum bars, whereas the general consensus on 35mm alloy bars is they feel like a jackhammer. If I could snap my fingers and uninvent carbon bars I would, but that's not realistic, so let's just let the carbon handlebar crowd have 35mm bars and they...

I do. I have the bikes that I ride plus some older bikes that I keep for friends to ride and sometimes I rent. Pretty much all of them have Shimano BB's and cranks or compatible ones (Race Face), for cross compatibility. I actually changed the new GX DUB cranks on my Foxy to 4-arm XT because of this and I don't regret it. All my ”serious” bikes are 29”/30 mm iw with 148 mm rear and my front hubs can be converted to either 20 or 15 mm Boost. They are all 12-speed XG, except for the DH bike...

Same. Had one come loose mid-ride. Tightened it by using a rock to hammer the flathead on my multitool into the splines. Was happy to get rid of that wheelset. But I guess if I wanted my rotors to cost more, weigh more, not be serviceable on the trail, and not fit on the vast majority of the wheels in existence, I'd be pretty excited about centerlock.

Potentially unpopular opinion. Some of the newer cable routing systems where you just slide the housing into the chainstay and have it come out at the headtube is the best to me. Yes you have to cut your brake lines to install but that has to happen most of the time anyways. External routing isn't bad but fussing with zip ties(which break and scratch up your frame) aren't my favorite. Neither is the GG/Canyon solution because you spend more time messing with the covers and getting the cables to lay flat than you would zip ties. Headset cable routing can...

I’d change all headtubes to the same diameter top and bttm so we could run reach adjust headsets that didn’t add any stack.

Nooo! "Screw" torx. Seriously, I have been guilty of using torx screws in stuff that I have designed and I can tell from experience: there is absolutely no advantage in real life. Torx screws do not last longer and these rounded-flat-head bolts used for rotors are the worst! We could talk about multi-tooth, these are nice, but really we're trying to solve the problem that does not exist. Buy quality tools (hazet, swisstools, stahlwille etc.) and you'll be fine.

I forgot about Centerlock! I hate that too, mostly because there's no way to tighten them trailside if they were to get loose. Granted, I've never had one come loose but I hate the idea that they require a tool too large to fit on a multi-tool.

I want everything externally routed. This isn’t a standard I guess, but no more rim tape. Something like the Enve strip standard on all wheels.

SO HARD TO PICK Headset cable routing dies forever. Passing a law that all stems and handlebars have to be two-piece on new bikes (you can buy your stupid one-piece bar/stem combos aftermarket if you want them so bad). All mountain bikes run a 73mm BSA BB. Downhill bike engineers, see next bulletpoint if you're worried about chainlines. One front and rear axle standard for all mountain bikes. It could be 15x110 and 12x148 and it would be amazing. It's easy to build downhill forks with too much torsional stiffness (see: OG Fox 40), so you don't really need a...

The SuperBoost. If you have companies who can make 148 mm rears on DH bikes, you can make your enduro bikes with 148 too. The Millyard bike had a narrow rear end for a reason. It's nice to have wheels that can go on any bike. Feels a bit like 1996. Mx

Dh bikes and forks using the same boost sizing as trail bikes. Quite a few bikes have gone this route it would be nice if everyone including forks was on the same standard.