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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.

Personally I'd say most of us subscribed to this thread do. If you find his posts too long winded then fair enough, don't read them, but for me Jeff brings great insight and knowledge to the thread, he's certainly given me a better understanding of the financial side of the bike world.

Developed by MAHLE (in Slovenia), including the assembly line and testing of it (run at rate or something along those lines), then the whole thing was shipped overseas. Not sure where to and how the agreement is like, it could be in one of MAHLEs factories overseas, but the information I have is that Specialized took over the assembly line when it was done. And I'm quite sure they are the owners of the developed design. Brose is the supplier for full power motors, but Specialized is not the only customer for Brose. They are the sole users of the...

I'm gonna get downvoted but I actually kinda enjoy internal cable routing with that tool. You get some creative problem solving that isn't frustratingly impossible. It also works great for running speaker wire behind your wall, not that you'll need speakers in your shop since you won't be failing at internal routing for hours anymore.

Since we’re talking about Chinese knockoffs the Risk knock off cable routing kit from Ali Express (even found one on Amazon) for $15 was the best tool purchase ever. Since they're that cheap to produce I think they should just be included in the goodie bag that comes with framesets.

My GT story; In the years 2000-2001, I was working as a team technician and road manager for Schwinn Toyota RAV4 Racing, GT also was owned by Questor at the time. Our challenging experience began in August 2001 during a World Cup race in Arai, Japan. My company credit card was suddenly declined, and we started hearing rumors from the United States that Schwinn/GT was going bankrupt. Despite having our hotel pre-paid, we—myself and team members Elke, Leigh D, and Deldycke—found ourselves in a precarious situation. The office was giving us vague reassurances about potential loans and future payments, but...

According to the OTB podcast, Atherton is going to be riding a belt drive bike next season to chase the Gates purse. Also an unnamed Kiwi junior is joining the team. Does Luke Wayman have another year of juniors? There's been a rumor of him joining for a while.

I know a couple Junior riders who spent years on the circuit around B-Kiddy and he seems to be the most hated rider out there and it’s not really close. Obviously I don’t know him personally but judging by the general sentiment towards him and the fact that he’s dating his employee w an age gap that wide, it’s probably safe to say he’s a mega questionable dude.

I could care less. But dating a girl who was 17 when she joined your team shortly after she becomes legal, while she still is a part of the team, is pretty questionable and wouldn’t fly in a lot of businesses. Hell plenty of companies would not let you date an employee as a manager if they were 10 years older than you. The age gap just increases the power imbalance. Ultimately if they are happy and stay happy good for them. But there are a lot of young women who get used by irresponsible men making false promises who...

Just got the new forks and a few other parts on, stoked to try this out on the weekend. 40’s have a 190mm air shaft in them Bar height has risen by 2cm, and that’s with replacing my 20mm rise bar with a 10mm rise, and running the forks as low as I can fit before the stanchions foul the bottom of my handlebars. Bb is probably a little higher but cascade link is arriving on Thursday so it’ll sag more, so who cares. With the cascade link it’ll be 190/190 I had a 180mm 38 on there beforehand. Got...

Speaking of Cominions. I finally got myself a pair of Dominions, so I can compare them to my Cominions (Code RSC levers, Dominion A4 calipers). The two setups have nothing in common except the calipers. Pads, rotors, and wheel sizes are all different. I can't make any useful observations about power. This post is all about feel. Both levers are the same length from pivot to corner of the hook (70mm), but the Hayes pivot is inline with the bar clamp and SRAM positions the pivot point a bit outboard. So I run my dropper lever and shifter inboard with...

I swapped out my 170mm 38 for a 190mm 40 on my Spire this summer. When sagged it works out to basically the same axle to crown. It was a big improvement over the 38, but I was never able to get the 38 setup quite right for me. It's my dedicated lift bike so I don't plan on changing back to a single crown. Only issue I had was getting the bars low enough for me. Had to go back to a 31.8 bar and longer stem to get it to where it was comforable. I've been on this...

I talked to a factory rider of a well known d2c brand. He also had ridden an Amflow bike with the dji motor and said he’s never ridden a bike with this good of a motor. He rode stuff up that he considered unridable on any other e-bike including his own sponsors e-bike. And the current e-bike of his sponsor is really good, but no dji motor. But there are lots of bike companies that have the dji motor already in house and build prototypes. HOWEVER… There are management concerns (I assume that counts for all bike brands the same)...

Finally rode this thing… feels close enough to a DH bike, still pedalable although pretty miserable. I lowered the bars about 10mm after riding so well see how that goes next time. 41.6 lbs with tools, no water bottle… Exo+ front and DD rear, so it’ll gain another pound with proper DH tires in summer. Full 200mm boxxer- didn’t feel terribly mid-matched to the rear(165mm), also interesting the 200 boxxer is only 5-10mm taller than a 180 zeb. Overall pretty happy- will be perfect at the bike park and can still pedal occasionally.

A $1500+ small batch steel hardtail frame, a $1200 Norco Optic frame, a $1100 Turner Scrub TI frame, and a $700 Banshee Paradox V3 frame. All of these frames have objectively different ride qualities, and many more subjective differences. You can decide to value them however you like. The market has decided to rank their value in this order. Also see: wine, collector's cars, fashion, cigars, concert tickets, art. What's the correct value for any of these things? If a frog had pockets, what would it carry in them?