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Since we were talking about Specialized and now about custom tunes, I've heard that new stumpjumper sales/orders are abysmal...

That is a really good question. In theory you can get identical reactions at the wheel, however it’s one of the scenarios where theory and reality don’t really meet. To get truly identical performance you also have to tune the shaft speed at which the shock transitions from LSC to HSC. Without doing that, the bike with the longer shock (assuming equal progression and all) will be out of LSC sooner. With the adjusters you’ve got on a typical shock there isn’t really control over that transition specifically. Whether being out of LSC sooner or later is preferable is debatable...

What’s old is new again. I’m going to use some freedom units here, so bear with me: Close to 20 years ago there was a trend of using longer stroke shocks on downhill bikes. 3.5 inch stroke to be specific. Most downhill bikes back in the day had a 3 inch stroke. (Close to 75mm these days.) Intense M6 is one of them off the top of my head, and I’m pretty sure the first generation Wilson also ran a 10.5 x 9.5 shock. These bikes were never over 9” of travel. Consequently spring rates were very low. The reasoning...

Did anybody notice that the quake has a 75 mm stroke shock and only 180 mm travel? I feel like I haven’t seen any bikes that achieve that. For example, patrol with Cascade Link and 65 mm flavor gets 180 as well.

Haha that’s some quality marketing. I say sealant weeping out of sidewalls you say state of the art precision dampening.

But then you are stuck with a transition lol.

Examples? AFAIK these were orders from customers that were back-ordered, not regular re-stocks for Mike's. Standard or not, it's one more reason (in addition to the examples above) that I won't give Spesh my money. Apologies for continuing the derail, there's a dedicated thread for this here: https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/brand-loyalty Here's a rumor: on the latest Geek Warning Dave Rome said he heard "early 2025" for the new XTR release.

Also this, which was apparently Sinyard's decision: https://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/article/industrynews/dutch-comp… tl;dr Spesh and Pon both wanted to buy Mike's, Mike's decided to sell to Pon and Sinyard had a hissy and cancelled a ton of bike orders that had been on the books for up to a year (this was during the Covid bike bom).

Sinyard did actually publicly apologise for those trademark/copyright sagas. Iirc they did resolve those cases too. How much knowledge he had of, and during them is a debatably hazy subject though. I really disliked them for buying Horst link and calling it FSR. Very shrewd business but shitty practice. I avoided them like the plague during that period, but thankfully live in the UK where it wasn’t too much ofban issue. That said I doubt the split pivot and vpp/maestro/dw-link variants would’ve been so prolific if Horst was public.

I definitely dislike them on principal. Their legal team is deplorable. They once threatened to sue a bike shop called “ Café Roubaix” because reasons…

It is always morally acceptable to dunk on Specialized.

I'll also argue that there's a meaningful distinction between word use in in casual vs professional settings. If your job is marketing/comms/similar I will absolutely mock you for making errors like that (and I'll be extra-petty about Spesh for personal reasons).

See, the difference here is that ten years ago Charlie and company had an entire blog essentially dedicated to being pedantic little shits about bike industry garbage and we all loved them for it. So when he does it now, it's nostalgic.

it's 4699.....USD also has ultimate coil With mavens & hs2 rotors.... Damn good deal imo.

That's normal for XD and XDr. Hope does the same thing. been like that for a few years. XDr 12 speed uses 11-speed spacing between gears so it needed a bit more room - just shy of 2mm as it would happen. I am assuming 13 speed comes about by SRAM using a narrower-than-11-speed spacing on the XDr driver. Certainly, it's possible that if/when SRAM releases mountain 13, they need to go on XDr to get every little bit of room they can.

I think the 3 sizes would be perfect, as others mentioned 30.9 and 31.6 are is a bit redudant, just pick one. It would be very restrictive design wise IMO to limit it to 2 or 1 size, with 31.9 and 34.9 as most likely. Maybe an XC/Gravel frame wants a thin seat tube to build some compliance? Or maybe a carbon 34.9 seat tube is too thick and would create a harsh ride. As others mentioned, a steel 34.9 tube would be way too large. Get rid of 30.9 is the only thing id say. Otherwise seat tubes (and...

For 90% of MTBs, 31.6mm is the simple answer. Had a conversation w/ Santa Cruz warranty dept. when they changed majority of their frames from 30.9 to 31.6mm nine years ago. They said they did it because feedback from consumers contacting them directly, from dealers, and from dropper makers was that there were *far* more complaints, shop visits, and warranty claims involving 30.9 posts due to ham-fisted consumers torquing the bejeezus out of seat collars. The thinner walls of 30.9 posts allowed for more deformation / binding / wear to occur in that scenario. Given how many MTBers I encountered...

That is a cost savings measure by the dropper post manufacturers. If 34.9 was the standard on frames , I would expect (though I have been wrong before) seatpost manufacturers to optimize for that size. Cost is the only thing preventing seatpost manufacturers from optimizing for every size now.

I think that making the standard 34.9 would be a good idea. Let the engineers have a little more space to make long and reliable droppers.

Well,here’s one thing I can already say that is very positive about Padmelon. I placed my order yesterday but was hemming and hawing about whether to order for my DH bike or enduro bike. I decided enduro and quickly ordered as I was late getting out the door. Apparently I had mistakenly added the mount for my DH bike instead of my enduro bike but had ordered the correct damper. The Padmelon team caught it, sent me an email and told me they would hold the order until I confirmed. This saved me a lot of time and money and...