All

From my experience with calipers, bolted vs mono block isn’t all that important as long as the bolted interface is done properly. That entails getting the fasteners as close to the rotor as possible and maximizing contact area between the two halves. Most the deflection should be between the joint/bridge and the bottom edge of the caliper regardless of how it’s constructed. In my mind for bikes, most the benefit of a mono block lies in packaging. Not having to worry about big bolts frees up space. The bridge across the center of magura calipers would be hard to fit...

they clearly wanted us looking. why else would you make the caliper red?

I don't believe that is what's really going on for a couple of reasons. 1, rubber generally expands much more than aluminum when heated so adding heat makes the seal fit tighter. 2, when designing our calipers we found that without compression played less of a roll with pad retract than you'd think. Too little compression creates sealing issues and too much increases risk of compression set. What I think is mostly likely causing what they are experiencing is super hard braking. That happens to usually correspond with lots of heat. Since seal deflection controls pad retract, if you apply...

Fluid volume itself doesn't necessarily mean more power. That's more dependent on the ratio of caliper piston area to master cylinder piston area. Adding fluid volume in the caliper does help with heat, but unless you make the caliper dissipate heat faster they'll still get hot eventually. This is why you see phenolic and ceramic caliper pistons. They insulate the caliper body from brake heat better than a stainless piston.

Not only that, but in the event of the shock hardware coming loose and being ridden, a standard eyelet shock is much less likely to suffer damage over a trunnion shock.

Yea definitely not the worst as it allows for a longer stroke shock in a smaller package but even with perfect alignment, the triangle pattern of the eyelets transmits significantly more frame/linkage flex into shock verses a standard eyelet. Shocks really shouldn’t be a structural element in a perfect design imo.

While I do agree with you, I do agree with IceIceBaby more. Only from the standpoint of comparing this bike to the rest of the market. If people want to buy this new gen frame, then good for them. But it kind of blows my mind that Pivot decided to stay so conservative with its changes, especially in comparison to the rest of the market. It just looks meh.

Wayyyy back in 2013 my Specialized Enduro 29er had: 430mm chainstays Ample tire clearance 29 inch rear wheel front-derailleur support 142 (technically 142+) rear hub There is no performance justification for 148 or 157 to exist. Now that 148 is the defacto standard for everything from XC to DH, I will never own a bike that is 157 since it makes it that much harder to find the appropriate hub. I don't see 157 growing in marketshare.

You're correct. 157 Superboost is dying. Mondraker and Pivot, arguably the only big mainstream brands in favor of SuperBoost, have both switched back to using Boost 148 on their latest models. All the while Boost 148 is even showing up on some DH bikes. For the forseeable future, we're stuck with Boost 148. Not because it's particularly good or makes sense, but because it's the de-facto standard. Brands won't change to anything new for the fear of customers being put off by the idea of yet another rear hub standard change. Even if a potential new standard was a genuine...

Really? Superboost definitely plateaued over the past few years but I would venture to guess it is possibly declining at this point. Only recent addition I can think of is WAO. I don't see Trek, Yeti, SC, RM, Commencal or Specialized switching to stupid boost and they are the majority. Those brands know most enthusiasts regard stupid boost as a con so I doubt they would switch unless something changes.

Of course I know that. I used to run tripples on all my trail bikes. Since the 180 Boxxers were around. The white 180 Turner with a black rear end and black Boxxer was my favorite.

Maybe they will get away from the stupid trunnion mount shock. I'd love to try a Banshee but i won't own a trunnion mount frame. Has to be the worst standards ever introduced into mountain biking. Unless you're a suspension shop, then they are good for business i guess.

https://www.vitalmtb.com/features/Aaron-Gwins-Signature-Onza-Tire-Is-Mo…

Finally I can go to bed and sleep peacefully, knowing we'll see the Gwinner race again

On the https://www.redbull.com/us-en/athlete/aaron-gwin link, it mentions Intense under the "other partners" section. Might be dated information, or he might be racing the new frames he had a hand in developing. I hope the latter is the case

Privateer Gwin would be epic. Forget all the sponsor bs and just go buy the bike he's fastest on. I'm over seeing Gwin being held back by subpar prototypes.

SRAM says "All new SRAM Transmission chainlines are 55mm..." but I'm running mine at 52mm and it's been flawless for 2k miles...

From what I've heard their bikes were a bit prone to cracking ( some enduro racers running a downstroked gambler instead of the ransom), so they probably decided to beef it up some... Also having a huge hole in the downtube and a six-bar layout (with all the associated hardware) can't help either

It's nice to be able to move things around if you break something.... I only have as many wheelsets as I have bikes and when I break a wheel it's nice to still have a choice of what bike to ride, even if the wheels mismatch. Per your Betamax point: with the privilege of hindsight, it's pretty easy to see that we were just fine without Betamax, even if it was a marginally better product. Technology still progressed and we didn't all throw away our new VHS tapes and players right after buying them. I'd be happy if 157 went...

Not the new bike we’re waiting for but still pretty good news in times where the little guys are closing up shop.