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And Sam Hill this year and last.

Glad that info was helpful! Yeah, regarding cutting bars leading to increased stiffness, Race Face said that their testing showed a 24% increase when cutting an 800mm down to 760mm. I also saw that Merida did testing that showed about a 10% increase in stiffness for every 20mm reduction in width, which works out to be pretty close to the RF figures. Given that, it seems like it should be relatively easy to extrapolate how stiff a given cut-down bar like the ProTaper will be vs. a model from a different company that offers a "native" 760mm width, assuming the...

The "flip chip" is essentially built into forbidden's adjustable chainstay dropouts. The 27.5 or 29 options simply move the rear axle's vertical position, as well as growing or shortening the stock chainstay length. I change them pretty regularly on my dreadnought v2, depending upon where I'm headed for a trip. Cascade has a link coming out for it soon to that should allow for a progression adjustment. Then I have one more thing to blame for being misadjusted, as opposed to my lack of talent. It's hard to imagine buying another bike that does not have adjustable chainstay length now.

This bad boy: https://www.vitalmtb.com/community/agrade/norco-optic Short travel, short chainstay, high pivot, mullet, burly trail bike. Just put a Switchgrade on for better winch-and-plummet. I went from a 170/160 enduro bike to the older Norco Optic, and then to the newer high pivot one almost immediately. It got all the old bits off my enduro bike sans the fork, which is now a Lyrik so still somewhat burly, and it's fun as all hell. The high pivot Optic is the most capable bike that can possibly be built with 125mm of travel. It has the stiffness and weight of an enduro bike...

I've been dealing with a knee complaint for the last couple of years that eventually limited rides to either 100% shuttles or no more than about two hours of pedalling a week. It appears to be calming down so a lot more riding is back on the cards for this year, I hope!

Planning a Moab trip in the fall. I'm thinking about stopping in Richfield to ride Spinal Tap, then on to Moab for some Captain Ahab and maybe UPS/LPS, etc. Gonna get out there on my big, yellow Earthmover of a bike and just smash it all.

it was poor Pinky. He could've won that race too..

I hate to drag on the way too old coil vs air debate, but there absolutely isn't a difference in maintenance between coil and air. I've used both for well over a decade now, and it's just simply a myth. Heat shrink in hot Whistler summers and oil/grease bath doesn't last forever, meanwhile I still have one boxxer kicking around with air seals from 2015. I'm sure there's a thread for this and I have no interest in it, just not a fan of misinformation

I don't think it's high pivot and the rear axle/pivot/drop out is the wrong shape.