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As a former recipient of the award, I hereby nominate TEAMROBOT for 2025 VitalMTB Commenter of the Year.

To be fair, it's also possible that competitively priced and highly specialized manufacturing will pop up in the U.S. at enormous scale with armies of knowledgable, specialized non-immigrant workers in the next month to save us from these high costs. That's all we need. Well, that and in-country raw material extraction for materials that often don't exist in our borders in the quantities we need, like bauxite, rubber, lithium, cobalt, rare earth elements, etc. But if we can figure out those two aspects in the next month we'll be fine.

Small piece of advice, take it or leave it, but there are more generous ways to say "hey, I found something too!" As I’ve mentioned a few times, this thread feels more like a collaborative 6th grade social studies project than high-level buy-side analysis. People generally give each other the benefit of the doubt, and the usual passive-aggressive Reddit snark tends to stay out of the room. Of course, do as you wish. I just like to believe there are better ways to engage. @CascadeComponents this was exactly what I was curious about. Thanks for the thoughtful context. In the...

This might not be the correct thread for this- but how does a company like Intend make any money on that fork they just released? From the press release- the initial run is 85 units priced at 1450 (euros?)... that's only 123,000 in revenue. Not enough to pay for the engineer much less testing/prototyping etc etc. Maybe this one is a hit and they can sell a few thousand per year? Probably makes sense at that volume. Hurts my brain coming from RS where we'd break way more than 85 units in the test lab.

Seems like the only reason for this to exist is to save on labour costs in installing the post in the factory. Another innovation I can live without.

This is crazy, but hear me out. What if the housing came out the bottom of the seat tube and ran along the outside of the downtube and then to the lever? I get what you're saying, and we're never going back to mass adoption of external routing. But it's insanity that electronic droppers are being offered as a solution to a problem the industry created and could so easily solve. It's like a horror movie when the person being held in a room realizes the door's been unlocked for quite some time and they could have just walked out.

Ironically, for the cost of 1 electronic dropper, you could buy 3 normal droppers and wouldn't need to swap anything. Bikers will buy the most stupid sh*t and electronic droppers is at the top of that list.

Mineral oil swells EPDM rubber to about twice its size - and also reacts with certain plastics. EPDM is mostly used on bikes for DOT brakes but its commonly used in seals and foam that aren't in contact with oil but are exposed to the elements (nitrile rubber reacts with oxygen, and I think UV). Stuff like your fork sag o-ring is sometimes EPDM, but I'm sure a lot of other parts are too. DOT fluid does strip paint but its also water soluble so pretty easy to clean up and only an issue if its left for a long...

looks like they're the creation of that Lee likes bikes guy. I've always thought that guy was kinda an idiot.

The requirements for the hole to mount the UBM to are about the same as the requirements for a dropout in general. Then you need a post to act as a torque brace. That's it. Facing post mounts is a damn PITA as it requires VERY special tools as opposed to BB/HT reaming/facing. The complexity for a frame designer is, for better or for worse, lower with a (properly executed) UBM.

Excess grease is indeed probably the most common cause of failure. No different in older cars (and trailers) with cup and cone bearings, over pack the bearings and they will fail. I work on large centrifugal pumps that mostly run white metal bearings however, some still use deep groove roller bearings and the OEM manual states the amount of grease (in grams) to pack each bearing with. Suspension bearings...? Pack them with the thickest bearing grease you can get your hands on (IMO). Never, ever have had a problem with this.

The greasing topic to me is a matter of application. Headset and linkage pivots, sure I'll pack them heavy with thick grease to keep moisture and dirt out. Wheel bearings or anything spinning fast, lighter grease, maybe even a few drops of trans oil to keep the slurry light and fast.

Looks like I'm late to the party since I've been on vacation. Brakes are definitely not easy. Between custom seals, custom tools, and some necessary knowledge that isn't widespread, good brakes take a lot. I would say they are either third or fourth most difficult thing on a bike behind the frame itself, the fork/shock, and, depending on specific design, the dropper. Some droppers are pretty simple, though. Frames are only on that list because doing a full blown production run requires tons of testing and the tooling is more complex. Brakes definitely are not something that anyone with a...

The common thread in all of this is the name you keep dropping, and the one that has disappeared from our lexicon: WBD and UCI. WBD is a for profit organization, they're going to try to make profit from things they spend money on. The problem is that the UCI sold DHMTB broadcast rights during a bubble as a money maker to WBD, but in reality, it was already a stone with not a lot of blood (profit) left to be squeezed from it, and certainly not the legs to become some F1 scale thing (and if you've watched much...

Fearon back on the tools in Aus as a tradey (electrician I think) at a guess I'm thinking still with Forbidden but just doing hardline/crankworks/whatever he wants. It's a sweet gig I reckon. Been a sparky in Aus can make you Loic dollars for a 40hour week.

I can assure you there's less Capex with their method of manufacturing than the traditional carbon molding methods. Same goes for their alloy frames vs. traditional construction methods. Their unit costs might be a touch higher and might not scale as easily or cost effectively but my assumption is they don't sell enough frames to be successful the traditional way with amortizing tooling costs so it seems they are taking the right approach. Capex can higher on alu projects than carbon ones, but the volumes with alloy make it worthwhile to turn a profit. For all small and medium brands...

To be fair there's been talk of them folding for years.

With Mr. Metallier you have to think it's related to the brands not having money for it anymore rather than not wanting to continue the relationship. No idea what he's like to deal with B2B behind the scenes but as far as clicks/exposure/talking up your brand directly to an audience, he's gotta be one of the best, guy's a pro. No surprise to hear he was able to replace them in short order.

It must be hard for athletes who have to be outwardly “stoked” on their new sponsor when they are forced to give up a bike that offered a competitive advantage. Tahnee going from that new Canyon to a bike that doesn’t even exist yet must be painful. It would be cool to hear a podcast on the ones that got away - thinking Gwin and his intense, Athertons with Trek, Greg with Honda and Sam Hill and his Iron Horse 😢

Nah, It’s dead. It was obvious from the beginning Enduro was going to be a fad, and now it’s dead like 4x or DS, just like everyone who loved 4x and DS predicted. A few tiny scenes where a couple people care, zero new investment from governing bodies or the industry, zero media coverage, etc. There just aren’t enough places in the world with the right combination of trails, land management and bike culture to make enduro a global movement.