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The Reaper 27.5 is indeed a XS Instinct Alloy frame, just rebranded. We did this to appeal to the kids market. I mean, who wouldn't want a bike with this saddle on it?

Let's stop arguing about boiling points and get back to rumors. I go by which mineral oil tastes the best anyways.

that's just plain wrong, there are options:

Yup, both fluids are about equally bad - I think its just a perception that people think mineral oil is "friendlier" despite being you know, a petroleum product.... So it seems weird to target dot fluid when so much more of it is used in cars and there are far worse materials like PTFE still being used in chain lubes and suspension oil

There have been numerous report where mixing and matching mineral oils between manufacturers caused some changes in the seals. Maybe not structural, but something was happening. And all manufacturers state their brakes can only be used with such and such brake oil. Any DOT x fluid can be put in any DOT x compatible brake. You can get the correct fluid in any local automotive parts shop, unlike mineral oil for a finnicky brake if it's too esoteric.

DOT fluid is a paint thinner but is not particularly toxic to humans. I mean, it is if you drink it and can be irritating for the skin after prolonged exposure, but it's nothing wearing gloves doesn't remedy. Otherwise it is more or less completely deactivated by just spraying it with water as opposed to mineral oil which is not water solluble. Based on the comments as to why Sram was pushed to move to mineral oil vs. DOT fluid, looks like it's mostly the paint that is the issue...

It was just a question. I will stop asking questions.

Aston lists some of the problems in his review https://www.astonmtb.bike/reviews/nicolai-nucleon-supre-drive I disagree with him on many things regarding bicycles, but what he lists here seem like valid first generation product issues that need to be fixed for it to become a more widespread alternative to existing drivetrains.

Check the hashtag… 🤔

...and for fun, Nvidia - $3,253,615 per employee (and operating margins are 65%, too) must be nice.

It's kinda wild how similar each of those firms employee/revenue ratio is: Santa Cruz = 1 employee per $283k revenue Specialized = 1 employee per $318k revenue Trek = 1 employee per $319k revenue

According to Growjo.com SC's revenue is around $93.4m with 329 employees, Specialized around $999.5m with 3145 employees and Trek with $1.4 billion and 4386 employees, making Specialized more than 10 times and Trek around 15 times the size of SC.

I see scenario 2 a lot in the tech industry, but they include the wider company org. Basically during the D/E/F rounds employees are allowed to sell a certain percentage of their equity into the round. I have also seen companies offer employees liquidity in between rounds as well through private placement. At my last company both founders sold over $100M in equity pre IPO which was a minor portion of their total equity. As employees we were offered something like $8/share during the same timeframe. The company later IPO'd at over $80/share so in theory anyone who sold in...

To quote a VC I know, "We expect the money to be spent immediately. If we wanted money in a bank, we would keep it in our bank." Basically when these businesses become over capitalized they are pushed to spend the money as quickly as possible. You could see this in the auction for TPC where they were selling multiple 25' square photo booth setups that had to cost thousands, if not 10's of thousands, of dollars each. No way they needed this many booths this size, but they had a dumb amount of money and were being pushed to...

on the flipside, all those goods tarrifed to shit will need to go somewhere, smoking deals for the rest of the world. Thanks Donny boy!

Did Specialized just break a new record of the most expensive MTB from a big box brand? The non-motorized version (SJ15) is $18,000 CAD

Nailed it!. My understanding is that this is exactly what they meant by the SC comparison.

I suspect "Canadian Santa Cruz" meant that they wanted to capture the brand's perception of value* and competence rather than "we're going to completely drop all our product offerings that aren't carbon mountain bikes and stop being one of Canada's main distributors". It certainly wasn't something they were saying publicly in any event. *value can mean more than "this thing sure is a bargain".