All

I was about to say something similar. Honestly I'm split, On the one hand $20k for a bike is bonkers. On the other hand I understand why a company like Specialized wants to build a halo product. It's about brand image and also it makes the regular (non S-works) models seem like a better deal. An $8k bike (e or normal) looks much more reasonable sitting next to a $20k model.

bowling ball visual flair ain't cheap

someone on the other site broke it down and you're right, there's about a $3k premium added on top of MSRP for everything part-out. wild

Lol, people buying a $20,000 S-works (the most expensive mainstream bicycle on the market) are not worried about 'shady' markup behavior. A $150k Mercedees isn't anywhere near 6x the cost to manufacture than a Ford Focus. A ton more margin in higher-end products. And people who are buying those products know it.

Finally! A proper electronic DH rear derailleur. I've been wondering when we'd be able to pay $1500 to ruin three derailleurs on the same rock in one race weekend. Can't come fast enough.

Hm. Shame. Not inverted. Its trash.

true, Ryan is on Yeti Shimano and Richie on Yeti Fox. But, based on past race builds both have either fork at their disposal. So its still same bike, same course, different forks.

Oh good, a power meter on my O-chain DH crankset. Finally.

Gran Mal Blindside Preston BottleRocket Covert TR250/450 Bandit Double Not all of those were freeride bikes but some good legacy names to revitalize

Transition Dirtbag

I doubt anything is coming anytime soon. And I wouldn't expect it to become any less spire-ish. The whole reason the sentinel got a steeper STA and was able to be shifted back to being more on the "all-mountain side of enduro" in this most recent version was that when the last version was first released the spire hadn't launched yet so the sentinel had to be their big enduro bike. But, with the launch of the spire, the sentinel could now be a bit less of a super slack, hard charger. My guess is that the spire gets the...

Have you noticed over the past few years that there has been one frame dimension that people obsess over? One year was head angle, then reach, then seat tube angle, stack now it's chain stays.. Now seeing more people who are realizing that all those numbers have to work together...

The second law of thermodynamics in the Vital Forums: all tech rumors eventually devolve to a discussion about chainstay length.

Next Megatower will be virtual crab

All suspension designs will become Crab and all tech rumor conversations will become Long Chainstay

One of the reasons I bought a Raaw. Seat tube length and dropper insertion is not great on the Banshee and was worried compared to my Firebird I had previously. After getting used to a 240mm dropper post, there is no coming back. Riding Mount7, BC and all these steep trails around, you really appreciated having the saddle out of the way.

Be interesting to see how these plastic gears last on such a powerful motor, but at least it seems like they have a gradual power tune so hopefully they have it all thought out! Don't love the idea of how many idiots are going to use that full power mode where they shouldn't!! But fingers crossed it doesn't cause issues!! Sure nice to see weight come down without loosing out on capability! Seems the tech is just about matured enough...

No so sure about the strategy of, in fairly quick succession, having a huge sale and taking a bunch of people's money, sending them an email telling them neither the bike nor a refund are imminent, and then launching a new version of a bike called the "decoy."

You're dead wrong. No other live competition stops for cameras. Complete disservice to the 20 other riders who laid their lives on the line for a time. No one's making Jett Lawrence pull off track if we can't see LaRacco's Leap!!! This is yet again WBD being the worst of the worst. Final result has 6 riders from pre-rain, Vergier's course designer outlier miracle run & the rest post rain after they "postponed" the race. WBD fokked our sport again yesterday for their own greed.

Okay big conspiracy time. The podium fork has been made for a long time. Fox was waiting for the traditional design of their forks to plateau in innovation and sales before “being the first”. It weighs so much on purpose because their next gen of the fork (which is already made and designed) will be bigger news than the second coming of Jesus. Then after that it will be even bigger with slight updates to the damper that work for USD forks even better, and EVEN LESS WEIGHT. But if they released the fork as perfect on day 1, what...