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figure putting brage's latest AK insanity in here is appropriate 🤣

Atherton S.200 aluminum DH bike now for sale - https://www.athertonbikes.com/bike/s200-downhill.html - 3 builds £6,299, £5,650 and £4,165 (according to their website on this particular day) - 12 standard sizes and the combination of Atherton’s “perfect-fit" sizing - mixed wheel configuration - 200 mm travel front and rear. - DW4 suspension platform - single-piece CNC'd rear triangle S.200.1 build below

Paging Dr. Freud…

Yup Meta V4 and V5/V5 SX, they still have clevis extensions and using a longer 230mm shock means there is less tolerance to extra length than something like a stumpjumper or Levo which uses a 210 shock. And its the usual suspects - DHX2's snap eyelets but also the occasional old Super Deluxe or Bomber CR (alloy shafts). Float X2's leak air or suck air in to the damper even faster, and the older X2's crack front eyelets - I had one X2 eyelet that was halfway to cracking clean off in a V4 Meta! It's just bad design -...

And I have some terrible news for science-minded Top Gear fans: it's not even the same Stig behind the helmet in every episode. It's just entertainment. I'm so sorry to burst your Stig bubble.

I believe Transmission's effectiveness is partially dictated by having the exact right # of links in the chain. They have an app where you put in your make/model/year/frame size/chainring size and it spits out how many links you need. I'd wager to guess that Sram probably discouraged frame manufacturers from adjustable chainstays when they were selling them on UDH because it could potentially cause less-than-desirable shifting performance if the user didn't have the correct number of links because of chainstay length adjustment. Which would then make the user think that their Transmission sucks. Just a hunch.

My light bike is a '23 regular Stumpy as well and it's become my daily driver. I find myself choosing it for backcountry riding as well unless everyone in the group is on a bigger bike. I thought about doing something similar to you and consolidating to just one full squish with the option to change the fork and wheels, but my other bike is an alloy EVO. Considering I'd get next to nothing if I sold the frame, I decided it's worth more to me as a complete second bike.

I recommend some type of "piston massage" process on any hydraulic brake - will be slightly different for 2-pot vs 4-pot and mineral vs DOT but its good practice and I've used it on all kinds of brands over the years

Ironically, for the cost of 1 electronic dropper, you could buy 3 normal droppers and wouldn't need to swap anything. Bikers will buy the most stupid sh*t and electronic droppers is at the top of that list.

I guess for E bikes that makes sense for some people. I tend to drive on salty roads to get to trails so I swap cables pretty frequently when they get sticky. Personally the beauty of bikes are that you can accomplish everything with a mechanical system that I can work on at home. I'd rather spend an hour fishing cables through my frame (or better yet using external routing on 3 out of 4 of my bikes) than re flowing solder on surface mount microcontrollers or scraping off corrosion from battery contacts.

there is so much unused space under the saddle, more than enough to fit an external battery

I have edited my post and removed the shudder, so now I can get an upvote ;-P I know e-bikes are contentious and can sparks long discussions, so let us keep that out of this rumor thread. (I will still stand for my opinion.) I love than we have a proper rumor thread and look forward to finally getting mechanical Transmission for my Yeti ARC frame.