All

Instinct tells me next week will be a busy one for new releases.

Just as an aside, congrats to Hugh McLeay (the i-Track guy) now that a brand as big as Norco is licensing his tech on two of their most popular models (Devinci and Trek can skirt around it, as the idler is still mounted to the swingarm).

First time I've seen reference to the I-track patent on a Norco. Also, I wonder when these wheels are coming out?

I'm really hoping one of the guys at Faction is known as Frank The Bonder.

neko testing some alternative manufacturing, gonna be interesting to see the advantages without the marketing talk

New Norco Sight and Optic drop tomorrow. Local Norco dealers probably have one hidden in the back of the shop today.

One tuning tip: 😂

You 100% could. Hard to say what it would do the kinematics without doing some real numbers. With VPP could likely correct it with at least one or two links if it did something funny. Could look something like this… blue is hp black is lp.

And is that a new Stumpy on the left (notched downtube is interesting)

This one? edit: they kidnapped my wife and made me burn the pic

Those sound an awful lot like facts. Please stick to rumors around here. Though I suppose the innovation loophole might allow it...

The new Norco's drop Feb 26th or 27th, rode with a buddy yesterday that works for them.

We’re getting into weight weenie rumors here, but idk man, I don’t really feel like a 34lb 130mm trail bike is really acceptable. I have a c3 optic with double down rear tire and it’s like 31 lbs and it seems more than capable/sturdy enough. My old process 153 with double down tires was 30lbs. bikes have gotten a lot better since 2016 but definitely gotten way more chonky.

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...

Does the "purist reason" include not wanting to spend the extra $3k+ on the eMTB? Don't answer that, let's just move on.

Bikes are really freaking good these days. It is not going to be a revelation each time a brand launches or updates a bike. The tagline Vital put to it was: "Subtle but significant changes keep the all-mountain ripper alive and well." Meaning it is an update, not a whole new bike or platform. Were you hoping for 200mm travel, 90 degree STA, 45 degree HA, and 23 pounds? For the last decade it seems that every bike is lower, longer, and slacker. That only works to a point. Bikes have settled into pretty great categories. At this point the...

I hope you're right. But again, 55mm chainlines aren't ideal on 148, and very few consumers even know what a chainline is or how to optimize it. Brand managers are now incentivized to go to 157 in order to have better OEM SRAM Transmission shifting on regular bikes. E-bikes are mostly fine on 55 and boost 148 since they'll spend less time in the pie plate... except when they do use the 52t, ugh. I'm sure SRAM went 55 as a standard to reduce SKU count for chainrings and a focus on e-bikes. I prefer boost and 52mm chainlines even...

I've always appreciated Banshee, and this makes me appreciate them more. I wish my shop sold them.

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