All

When I worked at a bikepark we had a bike rack in the back of the awd express van for crew rides and test rides. It sounds like you also have that going, loading it tetris style so everything is spaced is a big plus, and just using simple towels or other things on stanchions or parts that may rub was the other big fix. We also ran a strap on longer trips to keep everything in place.

I have an a 2012 LWB Chevy express van, its been a good budget camper/mtb van, but the mileage does suck. Had to get the transmission rebuilt at like 190K, but im steadily driving into the 200's now. Hopefully it last me another 5 years. I got it to do a big 8 week trip in, and have since done two more of those trips, but if I needed something for just weekend/short haul trips I would happily rock a used Sienna. I would love something smaller, but the beast is paid off and the running cost are pretty cheap...

Are any bikes other than e-bikes selling at close to historical numbers? I think this dealer might be mis-diagnosing what's going on. Looking at who's out on the trails, the ~130mm bike's sweet spot has always been the casual rider who wants a chill experience. These days those riders are on eebs. This kind of goes back to Jeff's monster analogy. I have a different take than he does. Human-powered MTB has become niche and ebikes are where the market has moved to. The market is fine, the monster is still there, it's just changed.

i was gonna go with a title that rolls off the tongue like 'Jeff Brines megathread for riders who want to understand the bike industry, and general economic advice regarding the market too'

1. I've always left other spokes where they're at in terms of tension, and re-tensioned the replacement spoke until I seem to have found the sweet spot. I try to avoid touching the other spokes unless it's absolutely necessary, because my operating assumption is that spoke tension was great in the wheel until that one spoke broke, so I should try to fix the one problem without creating new ones. I'll only touch other spokes if there is no tension I can find for the replacement spoke that brings the wheel back into true/round/dish, in which case I would assume...

Big fan of the Osprey Raptor 14 here.

Use a forwarder… https://www.forward2me.com

I didnt put it in the original post just to see the reactions haha https://www.rczbikeshop.com/ Here it is. But there are some catches, the real deals are sent via email, at the bottom there is a subscribe button but they must either confirm each one manually or have set a long delay due to the demand as a friend said few days ago he had to wait for several months before he started receiving emails. And a second thing, shipping is really expensive... (not long ago I ordered a pair of 35€ shoes and paid 20€ for shipping)

I bought a lyrik fork, maxxis tires, and pedals from jenson a few months back and the pedals were the only thing in real packaging. As others are pointing out the bike industry has a lot of parts to move at the moment, the fork and tires I got sounded like they were destined for complete bikes for some brand but the demand just wasn't there.

Sounds like Death Note for bikes only works if they buy a pair.

Get a Speshy ebike for yourself and a Trek ebike for the lady and REALLY test the universe...