All

Whiteface is a large resort, and I’m pretty sure all the oils and waxes from winter sports every winter does a lot more damage then cutting 32 trees. I just can’t understand how a tree is worth 50k, just because it is on state land. Next you are in placid or the near area, look how many massive houses are being built, clearing at least an acre of land of trees just a house that will only be used for maybe 2 months out of the year, but I guess it’s on private property, so it doesn’t matter.

It's so frustrating that they aren't interested in opening the bike park again. Lots of new trail networks are popping up in upstate NY so the interest in mtb is there, seems like re-establishing the bike park would be a no brainer

This is why European venues have the upper hand through local government subsidising tourism projects. Nobody knew about Loudenvielle 15 years ago, then they put the gondola linking the pretty village by the lake to the ski resort up above and developed a trail network mainly below the snow line. This takes years and a sustained effort to make destinations tourist honeypots.

Gotta be a different surface coating on standard aluminum, my wild speculation is WS2/tungsten disulphide based coating.

Imagine looking through your gear bag and choosing white pants for a day like that. More importantly, it would be super interesting if the Specialized team riders were using steel stanchions, but I feel like there's no way that can be correct. Even if they didn't care about weight, they would either be a) enormously stiffer than alloy stanchions, in a bad way, or b) require paper thin stanchion walls, new top caps and hardware, and couldn't use any of the same internal seal sizes (although I don't know if the Ohlins DH38 uses any seals that interface with the...

Hoping the vital pit bits is Spec doing proto hillbilly radial. That and the cannibal in radial would rip, but radial hillbilly is first on my wish list.

Nathan Pontvianne looks to have gotten his hands on the same unreleased fork stanctions (steel?) that the Specialized team have been running for a while. You can see them better in the latest Vital RAW.

I was listening to a road biking podcast recently. One of the guests on the podcast is currently a DS for a bigger team and used to be a world tour rider. One of the things that came up in discussion is how absolutely insane the new generation of riders are. They are SO fast. They are SO good in their training. They are SO dialed in their nutrition and recovery. The guest made a point to bring up an interesting-to-me factoid: They can't let the younger riders anywhere near the big-name riders during team training rides. None of them...

sorry, it's not ebike talk, but here are pit bits photos from leogang https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/pit-bits-2026-leogang-world-cup-dow…

The etiquette piece might be my single biggest grievance from the ebike crowd. I'm a big guy and climbing is not my strength, so I have PLENTY of experience with being passed on the uptrails by both regular and ebike riders. The ebike riders are exponentially worse at saying excuse me, on your left, or simply making some noise to let you know they're behind you. I've even seen groups of ebike riders talking and laughing about how fast they're cruising past other riders at the top of the climb. These aren't new riders. At the end of the day...

btw, first day back at work and had an old geezer already that was interested in the levo 4 rack, but for his gen3 levo. those things will sell…

Tech Rumors and innovation

Fair point

Charlie no

Guys, I know you don't want to hear this... but the racks on that new Levo 4 X monstrosity are really cool. Those ugly Levo X racks move all of the cargo on the bike from unsprung mass to sprung mass. As forum dwellers, we should all be able to appreciate why that's going to ride better, even if the XX cranks, the paint job, and the S-works price point are all serious headscratchers. If you don't believe me, check out this writeup from Travis Engel at the Radavist on a similar front rack design that he bodged together on...

I would answer this question but we're not allowed to talk about ch__n__ay _ength in the tech forum anymore.

The German market isn't reflective of North America; and possibly other core MTB markets like Australia and New Zealand, however small they might be. The amount and quality of riding in North America, for example, fosters a completely different riding culture. Of course eMTB has a place here in North America, but we still have a large percentage or riders that want the analog experience. Squamish is a good example of a super core area for riders and, while eMTBs are seemingly everywhere there, my anecdotal perspective is that the split is still in favour of analog. My prediction is...

The headset cable routing edition of suspension layout.

Yo dawg! We put your shock inside your frame so it’s covered and we put a hole in your shock cover so your shock isn’t covered when it’s covered 🤘