All

It sounds like you're a great candidate for a mullet. I've ridden full 29 and mullet and I really don't believe there's a significant difference in speed, traction, or bump absorption between the two. They both work great. As a tall person with a ton of racing and product testing experience, I really couldn't care less if my bike is mullet or 29er, as long as I have a spare rear wheel and tires available. BUT if you're short enough that a 29" rear wheel could get in the way of your body's range of motion on the bike, I'd...

It’s well known that the Druid and dreadnought share the same link. A good number of people actually installed it on the dreadnought before we ever listed it as compatible with the dreadnought. They were happy with it and we continued to get questions about it so when we got the shock compatibility to a place we thought was reasonable for the dreadnought we listed its specs too. It’s a Druid link a the end of the day though. There are some people that can get along with 40%. It’s not as unreasonable as it sounds especially on this bike...

Respectfully disagree. Here's a pic of 6'4" Steve Peat railing the piss out of a Sea Otter turn on a cartoonishly short 2007 V10 size "large," reach length probably around 435mm. The crazy part is that he even looks comfy on it. Now, whether or not you can go marginally faster on a marginally longer bike is a worthy debate, but you can most certainly tame a short bike. The first 35 years of MTB racing is evidence of that.

So looking at it from a conservation of energy standpoint, yes you have to slow down a rotating wheel. Where it gets interesting is when, assuming no slipping, you write out the wheels energy in terms of your velocity. Bigger wheel rotates slower. In the end the radius of the wheel is not included in the energy equation. This is because angular velocity (ω) in rad/s is v/r. Kinetic energy of a rotating mass is (1/2)*I*(ω^2). Since I is proportional to m*r^2, assuming hub is negligible for simplicity, the r^2 term is canceled out by ω^2, which is (v^2)/(r^2). In...

I conceed. You are spot on here. I enjoy making things more complicated! But I like my bike simpler. I believe having the best rotors and pads with the least unsprung, rotating weight is a worthy balance to strive for. Mostly everyone likes sensitive suspension and any unsprung weight reduction will help that. Some of these thicker rotors are brutally heavy on top of the additional spacers and bolts required to mount them. Older calipers also might not be compatible. I am also mullet, so my 180 rotor has more leverage on my little wheel than a 29er so I...

No, I'm not squashing your point of view because it runs counter to popular opinion. I'm squashing it because its generally not the best way to think about brakes. You are making this way (way) too hard. For most riders on a run of the mill SRAM/Shimano OEM stoppers on a trail/enduro/DH bike you are likely going to have a better time out there with larger 200 or 220 rotors that are on the thiccc(er) side of things. TL;DR - Go bigger if you want more power and more heat dissipation. Go thicker if you want to stop bending rotors...

Not to sound like a dick but I hope most people ignore this. 1) Martin is one of one. You don't ride a bike like him and neither do I. 2) According to the telemetry data I've seen, most (good) riders do in fact use their brakes for ~85% of a descent. Even Neko just noted at the WC level guys are on their brakes 80% of a run. 3) The whole point of a brake is to take kinetic energy and turn it into thermal energy. The more "room" a system has with respect to heat management, the better...

If you’re good enough that it’s the bike, you’re already the rider. whoa I think it’s only ever the bike at the far reaches of the rider curve. [x] rider [ ] bike

The admittedly unclear implication was that “we” derailed the thread and I neither endorsed unsanctioned trails nor demonized them. I just gave us a new place to argue about it. I am keenly aware of and sensitive to the potential for unsanctioned trails to impact legal access. I more took issue with the term eco-crimes and the idea that these trails cause any more meaningful damage than legal trails which seemed a bit extreme in the grand scheme of the late capitalist human shitshow. I will say that the original sin of American MTB occurred in a place where to...

This deserves its own thread, but unless you are looking at the contract first hand, take everything with a grain of salt. I've negotiated on behalf of a handful of professional athletes in adjacent sports as an "agent" (LOL) and I've also watched people flat lie about what they were making to feel better about themselves. I get it. Its a topic riddled with insecurity. While I'd wager there are more athletes making $100-200K+ than most think (I'm including influencer types and freeriders in this), its a terrible career choice in every sense of the word "choice". If I was...

I love these type of topics. Okay, this is just my opinion, so please don't attack me and burn down my home like they do on Pinkbike forums. My opinion is that its 50% rider skill and 50% bike. And my reasoning for this is as follows. Remember when Sam Hill was on the Iron Horse Sunday. He was almost unstoppable on that bike. And when you gel with a certain bike, you ride better and faster. Simple as that. Remember when Sam showed up to DIRT magazine's famous 1:04 DH test track? (I'm aging myself here...) Sam showed up...

Longtime NE Patriots coach Bill Belichick is a polarizing figure in American sports, but there's this quote he said that I love and can't get out of my head, "Coaches don't win games. Only the players on the field can win games. Coaches can lose games, though." That's what I think about bikes in competition. Bikes can't win races, but they can lose races. As such, my goal in setting up a bike is that it doesn't lose me the race, i.e. mechanical drag or inefficiency, mechanical failure, flat tires, inconsistent or unpredictable performance, major unpleasant tradeoffs, etc. Basically if...

Let's say there is a perfect bike for a given rider's size/proportions and riding style, then they could get 100% of their potential from that bike. There is no bike that will make a rider better than their skills (mental and physical), but having a bike that doesn't fit will keep the rider from reaching their potential. So that is to say a bike can't make you better, but it can certainly hold you back. You also have to keep in mind that the rider may not be able to get on the perfect bike, and likely they don't even...

More like I finally have the option of a downhill bike so I want to see what all the hype is about. I am plenty happy with Enduro and from what I've heard internally, contrary to rumours, Enduro isn't going anywhere. But just wait till you see my latest bike, new year new me.

Oh, but I beg to differ! I was on the hill that day in Champery and it was a very very special moment. I yelled my lungs out and could not believe my eyes and neither could the vast majority of the people on location. Of course, the Freecaster commentary of Rob and Nigel shaped it for posterity, but it's superficial to suggest that Danny owes his career just to that broadcast and that's that. Come on! Danny was a prodigy riding the UK scene for Balfa/Appalache and then delivered everything his talent promised as a kid. Not only spectacular...

That's all good and well but lets face some facts here - Cube bikes are junk (I worked closely with the brand at a distribution level), the kinematics were average at best and the frame failure rate we saw was out of control, more than 50% of carbon bikes sold came back with cracked frames and they were horrendously slow with turnaround time on replacement frames, always looking for excuses. Saracen is a walmart/whatever brand so no matter the caliber of the rider you'll never get results riding a piece of crap down the hill. Personality or not, Danny Hart...