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i guess the real problem is we're all pointing fingers at either Markus or Sam (and the PE peoples) when they had a CFO position and that guy is sneaking under the radar. somebody check his social media! Find me a boat!!

Hey everyone, not mad at anyone in this thread (besides maybe myself). I clearly have ideas and a delivery style that probably isn’t ideal for a mountain bike forum. Robot wrote a genuinely great post (he’s a better writer than me), and I realized there was no way for me to counter it. Not because I didn’t have anything to say, but because I started turning into this (actual photo Tucker took of me this morning): Any frustration you see from me is with myself, not anyone else. I like friction. I like debate. What I don’t like is knowing...

This might be the only mtb forum where people actually get along 84 pages in, talk about REAL books in both finance and philosophy, and say sorry. Long live vital

Sure hope Jeff comes back. Completely agree a forum is a tough place to debate this type of stuff (especially when we're all just speculating with very little info), but I thought we were doing a pretty good job! If any of you guys are going to be in Whistler for Crankworx, I'm down to debate over some beers!

Jeff, thank you for your insightful contributions on here, they are much appreciated. As someone who was out of work for a while due to the bike industry implosion it has been great to get a deeper understanding of the global and organisational factors that resulted in me and many of my colleagues finding ourselves out of work. It's been useful to rationalise the personal lived experience against some objective analysis from yourself and others. While I'm now working in a different industry I can see a lot of similar factors at play here and have my eyes open to...

I thought Jeffs initial reply was brilliant. And I value both jeffs and robots posts, particularly as an owner of a YT bike. I'd much rather read this back and forth convo than tire/tech talk. Along with the fact that when you are addressing a company failing, it's fairly likely you are in a 'both things are right' scenario. A la, the things that could go wrong went wrong. As easy as it would be to look at Markus' social media and point the finger solely at him (despite running the company fine for many years, Gwin fans need not...

Hey Jeff, I'm so sorry that my forum post bummed you out so much. It sounds like you want to stop posting on Vital entirely based on what I wrote. I'm so sorry it was so disrespectful. I have really appreciated your insights and analysis, and I think everyone has, and this bike industry forum in particular has been like a mini "intro to finance course" over the last 3 years based on everything you and other people (who know way more about this stuff than me) have contributed. Rereading what I wrote, I can see how my words may...

Jeff, respectfully, there's this theme in your posts where you assume (I'm paraphrasing) "if only these companies had a good CFO things would turn out differently." If only YT had "sophisticated financial planning and analysis tools," if only they were "watching macro indicators to understand where consumer demand is headed," and "looking at appropriate comps to learn from," if only they'd "started to stress test their model and realized they had a problem with respect to volume and turns against their debt obligations while running a low margin business." Instead, it looks like "CFOing was absent. Nobody was ringing the...

"Victim mentality is a helluva drug" And again, it's a criminal shame Stark isn't higher up in the 2 wheeled world. But he's never been a great marketer of himself. Not in the BMX days and arguably still not now, though he's gotten much better and matured a ton (as ya do). Been stuck in the same culture, using the same music every video, and using the same excuses whenever things don't go well. When being a core lord goes wrong... (I still hope he gets in cuz I'd rather watch Stark/Brage/Gee than all the big slope trick runs.)

And he's already whinging about it on instagram stories. Sadly this is the same 'yes man' mentality and aversion to criticism that held him back in BMX. And I've been supporting Stark long before he switched to MTB when I used to work in the BMX industry. This dude is amazing and should be much bigger than he is, but he's stuck in the core lord crusty demons cali desert mindset and not really broken out of that pocket. Always stoked for Stark, I think he does belong in Rampage even if he's not really a win contender, cuz I...

It really went on didnt it, I had to stop it.

Prediction for the new Ripmo AF: all frame sizes will come with an 87mm head tube length.

True. In the era of disc brakes, I've been less and less concerned with the lateral runout as it doesn't matter as much anymore. Even tension, at the expensive of lateral, and even slight vertical runout, is where I prefer to focus on. And you're right with tenacious oil suggestion; keeps them free later on when you need to make adjustments. Linseed oil is my go to.

On the bright side, at least the visual lines of the sleek industrial design look cool: