All

@sspomer I totally get your decision from a web resourcing point of view. Things get really expensive really quick when you need to tack on more power. A lot of cloud hosting providers price exponentially instead of linearly. That being said, I think not pinning a v2 and keeping this way of chatting about rumors is a mistake. This thread works because it allows for banter along side rumors I wouldn't ever care about. Prime example is the Santa Cruz Vala, a bike I have negative interest in. However that did prompt the carcinization of bike suspension discussion (that prompted...

Crabification, forum edition. I'm honestly just thankful that there is still a place to discuss things that are meaningful, that are not facebook groups. Thanks to all for staying committed to the gen x/millennial form of endangered internet discourse that is the forum.

The EWS100 and EWS80 were replaced a few years ago (I think when the UCI took over) by the EDR Open, which is basically the same thing. This year, we raced one day out of two when the Pros had a two-day race, or we had one fewer stage than the Pros when it was a single-day event. Unfortunately, we didn’t have Open racing at all the rounds. It was only available in Pietra, Bielsko-Biała, Loudenvielle, Morillon, and Val di Fassa. There was some form of Open racing in Aletsch as well, but I only found out about that after...

I used to have a shitty bike rack you could pretty easily just steal off the car if you wanted, and I had to head into the shop. I was so proud of my idea to back up perfectly to a pole so I could lock my bike to the pole without having to take it off the rack. Came out of the shop, jump in my car and promptly ripped my bike off the rack driving away breaking the straps it was attached with and giving it a big ol scratch.

I can comment on this: In apps like Instagram, Facebook, and TT, the last few months have been a cringe filled nightmare with the AI voice-over tech that has infested videos, ESPECIALLY review or comparison videos. These are videos that show real videos just with some generic voice speaking. It is so painfully obvious that a real person is not speaking and instead it is a prompt written by someone who's first language was not obviously English. Examples: "YT" pronounced "yit" "Santa Cruz" pronounced with a rolled r (this one is hilarious to me) "V10" gets pronounced "Vee-one-zero" "Spartan" as...

Does anyone read the marketing copy for bikes at all? If I were looking at a bike company I knew nothing about, I’d filter model by desired travel, scan photos to look at suspension design, and then go straight to the geometry section. I feel like this is the case for most experienced riders. Completely naive (I mean that in the sense of new and uninitiated) riders are going to feel overwhelmed by all the dumb jargon the industry has created and zone out of most marketing copy also. I think this is about the most harmless application of AI...

Fucking LLMs will be instrumental for accelerated enshittification of absolutely everything.

truly we are in the dregs of team rumors by now... January 1st, come hither. I have NEED of you!

I would love to see a deep dive on Orbea. I am fascinated by the basque style cooperative model and would like to hear your take on the advantages and disadvantages in comparison to a more traditional corporate structure.

I 100% agree with Jeff. What he is is trying to say is that discussions/disputes/debates in forums for example get heated very quickly. Sarcasm, irony, mimics, ... are not always being received the way they were sent. Words that weren't meant to be offending, are received to be. More often than not, things totally misinterpreted and cause frustration, anger, even hate. If you, on the other hand, sat with that counterpart in a bar and discussed with him while having a bee, it's usually a totally different storyWhile maybe still not agreeing with each other's views, the dispute would go...

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Since its a US holiday, I felt like going a touch more meta here and give some bigger picture thoughts... To start, and it goes without saying, but I’m continually impressed that this thread is still one of the best corners of the internet. That’s because of the people here who show up, think, and discuss topics that should be boring but somehow aren’t. I appreciate the time, effort, and respect from everyone that’s gone into this esoteric corner of the internet over the years (!!). First, my thoughts on the idea of "friction" I've been mulling...

(For those who don't know, @Sacki is Stefan Sack, the founder of BikeYoke 😁)

I don't think it correct to assume that "Supercar money" can not be made in the Bike Industry. You can make decent money in the bike industry, then reinvest that money in something that multiplies your wealth astronomically. We live in a crazy world, where you can make insane amount of money with speculation in no time, if you are smart and/or lucky. Now, that money may not directly come from the bike industry, but I would say he could have pulled off his wealth from smart investment of money that he originally made in the bike industry. I believe...

I get the desire to move on from this story, but it deserves the attention it is getting. Here is why: First, there is not much else happening in the space. The Felt news is interesting, and I reached out to Cesar and may do something there later. He is a great guy. Outside of that, the only real story right now, in my view, is the health of the consumer, which everytime I bring up in conversation i get glazed eyeballs (lol...its riveting!). When you compare that to the personality of Markus, the very public way he is handling...

We've had a lot of deraileurments in a lot of threads. But I never figured we would ever get to Butch's Junk. Well done Team!

@Downtime Podcast Been busy and have sporadically been able to follow the thread. I haven’t listened to the DT podcast. Haven’t listened to Brines debrief. But I do know this. MF asked/paid Chris to provide a platform. Chris did that. Jumping on Chris for not asking the right questions is crap. MF was on the back foot from the company crisis. Chris didn’t put him there. MF had every opportunity to at least clear the air and admit wrongdoing. At any point during the pod MF could have said “Let me say this about that”. MF had an open mic...

To me, it seemed like MF('r) genuinely didn't understand the insolvency process or side of business at all leading up to YT falling into it. He straight up admitted it in the pod. TBF I don't either but it seems like until mid '25 there was an assumption that they could just keep "powering through, business as usual" until it was way too late and the house of cards fell. Sweet management chops. He addresses the insolvency like it was an unforeseeable natural disaster rather than gradual foreseeable mismanagement by the company itself. "How could this happen to ME?!" type...

You're very entitled to your own opinion, but I didn't hear the same contradictions you did. I've re-listened multiple times this morning and I still can't hear it the way you have. I heard Markus say they knew they were facing tough times but weren't expecting the PE firm to get to a point where they aren't willing to inject cash. The Fire Sale was an effort to get through that specific period without having to ask for more cash. That failed and then they were told 'no more'. As for your previous point, it's not exactly clear to me...