All

I dont have anything to add but just wanted to say i think E-bikes and meatbikes might be my new favorite term

funny you mention the Y160E, I didnt like the demo bike i tried. Currently on the new Marin Alpine Trail E2 with the bosch and its a damn good bike, Bought both the E and steam bikes together, they are both seriously good bikes and rare to find an Emtb that feels similar to the normie bike.

It works as advertised for the most part. There are still scenarios where pedal kickback can be encountered, but they should be pretty rare. Let's consider the current generation Nomad for an example. The suspension has to compress about 80mm to get 18 degrees of pedal kickback. Because you are always guaranteed the same amount of slack in the hub, on any compression smaller than this it does make pedal kickback impossible to encounter. If you are compressing your suspension more than 80mm, it then becomes a question of how fast is the shock moving when you hit the 80mm...

Cotic also said they are not even considering building Ti bikes as the footprint is much worse compared to steel

Looks like BOS Suspension is back on track with its MTB range: https://www.vojomag.com/news/bos-suspension-revient-avec-une-nouvelle-g… -> Idylle DH fork / Idylle SC (now named Kyll) (39mm stachions anyone?) / Deville + a DJ fork (the USD Obsys should be back too -oh word I'm hoping for a SC version) -> Void / Syors / Stoy shocks as well -> aaaannd surprise surprise, a 2 or 4-pot braking system is in the works (using shimano pads)

On the note of disengaging hubs and pedal kick, so long as whatever drive mechanism you have can automatically engage when you pedal forwards, it's impossible to prevent it from causing pedal kick. The drive mechanism, whether it be hub or BB based, can't differentiate between the chain getting pulled on due to you pedaling and the chain getting pulled on from the suspension compressing. Riding backwards is a little different in that you can use the fact that the hub is rotating backwards relative to the axle to disengage the hub.

Its interesting you bring up the Balance. I have one built 180/170, coil, burly. I also have a Pivot Switchblade. For the majority of my trails in Durango, which are mostly singletrack, blue or black rating I prefer the Switchblade. It pedals better, corners snappier. The Balance on a blue is so boring, it hates it. But when I get on that Balance on a proper black or higher trail downhill its so fun, not necessarily faster, but more fun. It's just so heavy uphill that I just don't grab it as often. The % difference in bikes is typically...

It took reading four pages of mountain bike discussion, but I just remembered they have giant TMDs inside of skyscrapers to resist wind and earthquakes.

I can tell its starting to get colder and rainier in much of the Northern Hemisphere We are over complicating this, for sure. The reality is you can ride any number of bikes down a trail and have fun. There is no such thing as "the perfect bike". Vital tends to skew a little more toward the racer, where bike choice matters (a lot) more, but even then I'd wager a good racer could likely put in about the same result on any number of good bikes with various amounts of travel (obviously within reason). Others have mentioned it...

i'm trying get that. we have all our past surveys and trends at the bottom of this page - https://www.vitalmedianet.com/vital-mtb - but we never actually did a trend graphic with bike type/travel. here's 2017 for instance - the breakdown was diff over the years.

hey all, i started a travel-specific discussion so tech rumors can stay focused on weird/new product - https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/how-much-suspension-travel-do-you-w… it has data from our 2024 survey that just wrapped up (thx brines for mentioning it)