All

Right or wrong, I think some of it comes down to the fact that nobody else on that hill could have done Brandon’s run. Meanwhile, Syzmon and Adolf had identical tricks on two of their biggest contributing features and three people flipped Price is Right. That being said, for the first time ever I’m not convinced they got the top three correct. But if they re-ordered them in any combination I think I’d say the same thing. My other notes, Brendan is too special and too rad to be confined by Rampage. I don’t know how you score him (objectively...

Not gonna lie. I saw the 75k thing (and the 30k thing that I mentioned another team floating), and I thought.. "I could just send my kid to go race with other people and probably end up saving money, but definitely end up putting much less strain on my work life." But... the whole reason we race is to spend time together as a family in interesting places doing something we all enjoy. And while it's not done economically, because we don't "dirtbag" it and instead treat most race trips more like a family vacation, the experiences are priceless... and...

One of the biggest complaints of the RS-1 was how fiddly the wheel install was… There are lots of trade offs to manage with either design, some are 100% not performance based but important regardless.

"A ttitudes about the math-probability-statistics tools haven’t shifted in step with attitudes about the measuring tools." Please expand on this thought. Of course I know what you're saying, I'm just asking for a friend who's not as smart as you and me.

I thought it was funny and didn't read as insecure, but I'm debatably funny and/or insecure so probably not the best judge. Wild to see the same argument about scoring (creative vs. hucking) has been part of the event since the beginning. Knowing the background about how you could hear everyone's conversations across the whole venue makes the Litter cover art with all the talking bubbles that much funnier.

Topic aside, sometimes I think the past wasn't as cool as I thought and I'm just looking at the present through the wrong tinted glasses. Then I see something like this and immediately go "nope, I was right, there was something special way back when" This writing is awesome, graphics top shelf and entertainment factor very (very) high.

For 2) it's a combination of feel and sorta-quantitative measurements; a section of trail I ride a lot and have very consistent times on (according to Strava, so big grain of salt there). I also ride almost every day and track a bunch of metrics w/ a Whoop so have pretty good baselines established, and I try to replicate as many factors for each run as I can (sleep, recovery, etc). I don't have a power meter though, so controlling for fitness is a guess; I go w/ RPE and call it good. tl;dr a dash of metrics and healthy...

Love the vid and your explanations. I also had to take the hub apart and fiddle with the mechanism to figure out how it works. Based on 5 rides so far, I pretty much agree with everything you said. Now for the long-term beatdown test. At 7:00 minutes into the video, I was reminded of another Fabien Barel quote that isn't real because I just made it up: "Hyperbole, not accuracy."

😅 We stubbornly wanted to make the sliding bushing work so bad, probably delayed the whole project by a year. At the end of the day in blind A/B testing, riders couldn't tell a difference so it was ease of service and manufacturing consistency that pushed us to fixed bushings. Mountain bikes are similar to motos in many ways but also different, so not every moto concept is a good fit for us. Sure, putting sliding bushings as a feature on our spec sheet would look cool, but if it isn't actually better we're not interested. And yes, it is...

Trying to visualize myself gliding through the woods with my e13 hub, rimpact spider, and STFUs strapped to my 30a durometer wavy chainstay protector...

Correct terms… please. We must be proper

What a time to be alive

Broil Yourself

I already have the marketing figured out.... "Buy this awesome bike and you too can have C.R.A.B.S." "Don't be the only kid in town without C.R.A.B.S. when you hit the trails"

That is far more eloquent and clear than I could ever hope to express it. Truly an artist with words.