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RE: Magnets - something I broadly agree with you on. (china owns the market) As to the future, I know the American Dynamism team at a16z, along with other VCs, has been circling this general problem: rebuilding domestic capacity around critical minerals, magnets, motors, defense supply chains, and industrial manufacturing. A16z wrote directly about the critical minerals side last year in It’s Time to Mine (linked below), and you’re also seeing magnet-specific startups going after the downstream bottleneck. Vulcan Elements, for example, announced a $1B rare earth magnet facility in North Carolina, partly backed by the Pentagon. I know y'all...

"Is the state of manufacturing in the US really that bad that a company, backed by the most important VC firm achieving 30 million motors per year is an achievement?" I'm not in a great position to comment on the annual global production of drone motors, but I can tell you that yes, the state of manufacturing in the US is pretty bleak. By one measure, China's manufacturing sector accounts for roughly 26% of their GDP, Japan is at 25%, Germany is 18%, but in the US that share is only 9% of GDP and continuing to trend downward annually...

I've always maintained that if you had to pay for your Gopro, I don't want to see your shit.

Here's a crazy stat: now that Luca's won a race, there are at least 20 active senior men's racers (editor's note: 21) who've won at least one World Cup DH round. Could me more, so please let me know if I missed anyone. That's a pretty competitive field. In no particular order: Andreas Kolb Benoit Coulanges Troy Brosnan (3) Aaron Gwin (20) Luca Shaw Amaury Pierron (13) Asa Vermette Loic Bruni (12) Danny Hart (4) Loris Vergier (7?) Lucas Meier-Smith Finn Iles Jordan Williams Martin Maes Thibaut Daprela (2) Jordan Goldstone (7) Remi Thirion Reece Wilson Oisin O’Callaghan Matt Walker...

The Pope reads Vitalmtb forums confirmed

I meet lots of younger folk thru work. I think most older folk would be astounded by the number of kids who see far less media (social and otherwise) than your average millennial/ gen xer

To be fair, I used “going concern” imprecisely here. The normal accounting assumption is that a company is a going concern, meaning it is expected to keep operating. What I meant was the bad version: language in a 10-Q, 10-K, or auditor report saying there is “substantial doubt” about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern, often referred to as a going concern warning. That does not mean bankruptcy is guaranteed. But it does mean there is meaningful risk the business may not be able to keep operating over the next year without raising money, selling assets, refinancing...

"Speaking to the eBike riders I see on the trails here, they're all shifting to lower-priced bikes as they've realized that they can without sacrificing performance." This lines up with a hypothesis I've been thinking about for a while, which is that I think so much of the weirdness of the bike industry and bike customers (obsession with grams and weight, obsession over granular differences in tire feel and suspension tuning, and willingness to spend enormous amounts to customize and upgrade a stock bike) comes down to the weakness of the human motor and the human mind. We only generate...

I envy your optimism.

I bet there's a link between the GoPro's decline and the soul crushing boredom of all the videos that our buddies made us watch.

Jeff, Thanks for using the term Memetic. The sociological concept of Mimetic Desire, as posited by Rene Girard, is pretty crucial to understanding consumer sentiment in these markets that have (de)evolved into near-perfect competition. In Girard’s conception of the Mimetic the inaccessibility of the desired object leads to Scapegoating, and has dark sociopolitical consequences. Mimetic Desire and Memetics(as conceived by Richard Dawkins)are related, but not the same, but the fundamental theme that connects them is desire. I posit that there just isn’t as much demand in the marketplace as the marketers of goods need to survive, so the churn, failure...

It's good to be prepared for situations like these.

Have not noticed any significant drag on my OneUp hubs but keeping that in the back pocket as an excuse the next time I'm last up the climb on a group ride.

Neko / Frameworks video about the 32"

Thinking of myself, I don't know that I'm that consistent of a rider yet. I'm similar to your friend in that I'm a musician and someone who isn't afraid to dive into the details of anything. I've been riding 3 years and I find myself a little too inconsistent in my riding to imagine bracketing to be a super useful practice. I feel like I'll get more out of trusting my bike and just learning to ride it better. If I were to guess, one of the things your friend and I might also have in common is that we...

This 100%. I have a mate who got into riding 18mths ago. He's the kind of guy that is all about the intricacies of Tomas Haake's polyrythmic drumming and any other complex undertakings, but as soon as I try and explain to him that he needs to spend a couple of hours one day bracketing his setup and his riding will improve immensely his eyes glaze over.

Dan Booker the latest rider to announce he is stepping away from Enduro. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse. Should be a walkover for the Yeti team.

Softest prediction of the year by me is that this is the final puff of factory EDR racing and we see next to nothing interesting tech wise

To bring it back to tech stuff, the new Scott Spark we saw at Korea will have a shock cover to seal the frame, but currently the flight attendant shocks don't fit in one.

Short travel coil king is probably Banshee Prime, 135 out back up to 160 up front, somewhere between 25-30% progression and goated geo. On one side it is like the dumbest bike ever because it doesn't work with air shock at all (even tho it comes specced with one), which means you have to slap coil on it, and once you have coil you wanna go fast but you have 130mm of travel so you have to put on some DH tires.... and you end up with 16 kg+ trail bike which is not ideal because you basically end up...