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Welding is the biggest liability and point of failure on an Al frame. Avoiding welding removes a factor that relies on human skill and is hard to control, although before the switch to C, Al welding and forming was getting much better, the top end Al frames ~10 years ago or so were pretty nice and it looked like many welds were automated. These days though, Al is made heavy and cheap. I agree with Primoz about 7075, UTS is much higher, this can definitely be used to increase reliability or cut weight. I don't understand the thought that 7075...

Overall ultimate tensile strength is the benefit of 7075 which in turn makes the fatigue limit higher, meaning it will deal with either higher load severity with the same number of cycles or more cycles at the same load severity.

It is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatigue_limit Even more so: "The concept of endurance limit was introduced in 1870 by August Wöhler. [15] However, recent research suggests that endurance limits do not exist for metallic materials, that if enough stress cycles are performed, even the smallest stress will eventually produce fatigue failure. [7] [16]" It's the cyclic nature of the loads that mean an aluminium frame will crack sooner or later. It's not a years thing, it's a number of cycles, severity of the loads and the design that dictate when a crack will start forming.

Don't get it what the big deal with mentioning Pinkbike is... I feel the community and the vibe there is far from good, but is there a need to skirt around the name too? It's not like we're talking about Voldermort...

i swiched to mavens coming from code RCSs, still riding 200mm front and rear, only thing i changed was now running organic pads in both ends. tried sintered in the rear same as with codes but wheel locked up too quick for my taste. now with organics on both ends brake is real dream, same feel/modulation as codes but with way more power. lever pull isn‘t any firmer than on the codes. can only recommend tryin mavens. hope that helped edit: also i‘m on the lighter side with around 165lbs.

I'm only 190 pounds but like the OP I've always been hard on rear tires and wheels, and the only setup that's worked for me is Maxxis DH casings with Cushcore Pro in the rear. The new Schwalbe or Michelin DH casings are the stiffest casings money can buy, even heavier and tougher than a Maxxis DH casing, but as others have said those tires only come in the softest slowest rolling rubber compound. Michelin does have the "bike park" DH tires which have a faster rolling rubber, but as someone else said they don't have the same robust DH...

What is a really pinch resistant tire good for hard terrain with a high rolling speed. What is the stiffest casing between brands? ​​​​​​​​​Unfortunately stiff casings are slower rolling, so there is a trade-off here you can't avoid (the tyre consumes more energy deforming to trail as it's stiffer and therefore rolls slower). However running them at such high PSI as you do, a lot of it will be mitigated. I would say the Schwalbe DH casing or Michelin DH is the stiffest I've personally dealt with, but it is only marginal back to Maxxis. If you want to maximise...

I doubt it’s galvanic corrosion, I would bet money on it that the aluminum oxidized and wasn’t treated before they applied the adhesive to the substrate. There could be saponification happening, but usually that only happens with some amine compounds when interacting with a substrate containing zinc, so I highly doubt that’s the case. A common misconception is that aluminum doesn’t oxidized, but it actually oxidizes (depending on the alloy) within minutes when exposed to oxygen. Anyone familiar with bonding aluminum should be well aware of this. We glue exotic road cars and race cars together all day with no...

More progressive bikes provide more mid stroke support IF they are sagged the same. What’s often overlooked is the fact that sag at the wheel is increasingly greater than the sag at the shock as a bike gets more progressive. This gives the perception of less mid stroke and riding deep in travel, but is usually just the result of having more sag at the wheel than expected. The other nuance is how damping is affected. You have to run a stiffer tune. In the end if you aren’t hammering on the bike none of this is ideal, but it’s...

As someone who has iterated full suspension bikes with Dave Weagle before- the design matrix he shares with his customers to iterate kinematics is more sophisticated than a few graphs, there are a few more integrative rider-focused parameters that I don’t usually see people talk about on message boards he likes to use to relate feel and function. Dave will tell you those unspoken variables are actually the things to look at to compare bikes. Dave’s customer service Special Sauce, if you will…

I wonder about this. Any bike brand has had the opportunity to notice that the way the plots of leverage ratio, antisquat, and antirise are misunderstood in a lot of settings (reviews, forums) might not be a net benefit to them or their customers. Is it transparency if it’s going to be used to build some internet doofus’ imaginary narrative about the bike? Yes and no? The most fundamental ideas at play when looking at the output of a program like linkage should include 1) it’s a model, and it’s a model of just some of the behavior of the...

Consumers hate Maxxis…?

counterpoint - i think it's less about hiding any potential IP, but more about building hype. because every time a bike shows up under wraps we immediately start discussing it and speculating.

Astroturfing The deceptive practice of presenting an orchestrated marketing or public relations campaign in the guise of unsolicited comments from members of the public.

Places you guys can go fight each other about e-bikes. https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/The-Hub,2/Lets-be-honest-Ebike-related,… https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/what-do-you-prioritize-e-bike?page=2 https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/The-Hub,2/Downsides-of-ebikes-and-what-…

Bike diapers are the worst thing to have happened to MTB

Yup! If there was any benefit to using a different axle size they would have done it. People should listen to the inside line episode, its goes over all of those tech details, and they really tested every idea during the development process. Including the keyed stanchions, which they had basically assumed would be needed and turns out......you do not. Its super interesting!

Why would you want anything different? If more front-end stiffness is what you want; a 20mm axle wouldn't really help with that. If they wanted to increase stiffness, they would have needed to go to a keyed axle to really tie the stanchions together. There's no point in just making the axle bigger in diameter. It would achieve nothing. The "axle" isn't really an axle anyways. It bears no radial load. It's a basically just a big draw bolt. Its only job is to clamp the hub into the drop-outs with substantial pressure. A 15mm axle can do that job...

Source? Someone with photoshop skills will be able to do an overlay from the side profiles on the website to confirm or deny, if the answer to that question isn't coming straight from Norco.