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I’ve ridden it a little as a riding buddy works for DJI and it’s a big step up in terms of power compared to Bosch, brose and Shimano motors. The software and a few little extras built in seem really clever, the adaptive power mode (like Bosch e-Mtb) uses some built into the bike pitch and yaw sensors so it knows when the bike is going uphill and gives more assistance. The bike they’ve built it into seems decent (simple and well executed 4 bar but not going to get anyone overly excited) the main promise is in the motor...

I mean it may seem comical in a way but theyre thinking ahead. They know people are going to do this anyways. Or at least are curious to do this. Why not just make it a 1 stop shop.

Having spent a bunch of time on the new Optic, it actually does make sense. It's the single best descending 125mm bike I've ever ridden, and with the x2 you can easily stroke it to just shy of 140mm. It pops, it's agile, it jumps extremely well, it plows. On single black chattery tech I kept up with my buddy on his range without issue. It does EVERYTHING downhill and it does it extremely well (within reason, it's obviously no superenduro/dh bike). The increased oil volume over the float X makes a ton of sense for a lot of the...

Remember when Dodge slapped a hellcat engine into a Pacifica

https://www.norco.com/bikes/mountain/trail/optic/25-optic-C2-mx/ ok im kinda laughing at this. I know they already made one with a vivid and that was funny enough but for some reason seeing an X2 stroked to make 125mm just tickles me. Norco went so unhinged with the Optic build and I absolutely love them for it. Short travel high pivot... Entire separate linkage to run MX... and offering stock Vivid/X2 options for 125 travel lol. Surely these product dev team meetings have gotta be a blast.

Seems odd that SRAM would drop a non-Transmission/UDH style DH groupset. Unless this is some sort of old proto they made a while back?

"Try our new Pendulum pedal. The MOST BALLER way to raise your effective stack height."

As a taller guy who runs too many headset spacers with a 50mm rise bar and high COG, I'm really interested in these. I'm not sure they'll hold up, I'm an axle bender and thin pedal axles have never survived long. The standard bearings should be an easy swap when they inevitably toast themselves. But I'm dubious that they'll hold up given the amount of leverage on those bearings. I'll try them if I can buy a spare left axle from day 1. Say it's a 15mm drop from my existing Scarabs. That's 15mm less rise on the bars/spacers, 15mm...

I know this is framed as a joke but I know so many people who got same day local service with We Are One on rim warranties and wheel rebuilds.

The Pendulum pedals join the MRP Noken as another recent product release fulfilling my MTB fever dreams. Stuff I wished for but didn't think would ever actually exist.

Coming from the same town that gave us this

I'm waiting for some actual tech rumors. Maybe a specific chat on product copying/sourcing/geo-cultural-politics

To a point. When I was working as a design engineer not in the bike industry we'd use local manufacturing for prototyping and often it was fucking pathetic, nothing like the drawing, totally unusable, and then you'd have to have arguments or pay extra to get what you actually wanted. Often the machinist "knew better" so disregarded the spec. Or you'd send your drawings off to China and you'd actually get what you asked for, with similar turnaround times, and pay FAR less. You just have to communicate your design intent extremely well, and have your drawings perfect. I work...

I own a set of Trickstuff and Lewis LHT’s. The TS brakes have a higher end finish and a smoother lever feel with a bit more power, but the Lewis are very nice and I think they are pretty sweet. I prefer the Lewis brakes over the Formula Cura’s I ran previously. Hate to say it, but the Lewis brakes are legit.

You must either have a vivid mind or a great inability to read and comprehend, I haven’t said “Lewis is shit” I said, at a similar price point, why would one get some knockoff brakes ( despite the good quality and “improvements” these are effectively Trickstuff knockoffs ) when you can get a real brake, no copy, properly made, like Hope. In this example we have a British company operating for years, with knowledge and cheap and mostly easy to find spare parts, Vs a newer company with a sketchy background and business strategy, you do you. I had the...

I suppose one potential upside of them copying that design is people will probably get to test how good their customer services are. It'll be interesting to see how they deal with things in comparison. 😅 FWIW I think there are already a couple of 5DEV copies available on Alibaba.

Don’t take this as defence of Lewis. But since when were 5dev the pioneers of cnc’d cranks and lattice structures. Pretty sure guys like Goldtec played with stuff like that in the late 90’s that was just as snappy. Of all the companies to copy Lewis have really chosen badly this time. At least Trickstuff are expensive and work bloody well. Apart from being on Neko’s bikes 5dev’s reputation is not glowing.

Oh, they have R&D - Rip-off and Duplicate 😉

Yeah that's pretty blatant copying imho. Oh and the brakes are ok at best - I bought a set to test personally and it felt unpolished. Had one handlerbar clamp screw not able to tighten the clamp properly right out of the box. The power was OK, but for the price (I think it was $500 and change when I bought it) you can get yourself just about anything...Dominion A4s, Trp DHR Evos, Mavens, Maguras... Compared them side by side with the real deal Trickstuffs, and the difference was apparent. Even just the lever pull the TS had a bit...

Yup. And they were told to not be a copy cat again before release but apparently ignored it. Copying arguably the best brake on the market and even doing improvements AND then iterating on them with more improvements is one thing. Blindly copying the most well known CNC crank on the market that is not even the best design for. A crank is just pure laziness... I was in the give the benefit of doubt camp before this release, now there is no helping them.