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Applause for JVP. Fantastic insights.

One challenge with low volume apparel is amortizing the development cost. Soft goods sometimes cost more to develop than hard goods as it's a ton of labor making patterns, sewing up samples, testing, reworking the protos, repeat this several times, then have the factory make a few pre-production samples to make sure they interpreted your tech pack correctly. You also need to validate for durability (all brands do this, right? RIGHT?). It's as much voodoo as it is hard science, which means lots of back and forth. Yes, we give them CAD files for patterns, but it's still all hand...

Last year, for one of my engineering classes I did a simulation in Ansys titled “The influence of the axle diameter on the torsional stiffness in an USD bicycle fork”. It was an exercise more focused on Ansys, not on being scientific, but still the results were interesting. Here’s a link to the presentation . TLDR: 20mm was only 4% stiffer

Huge cushcore fan and user here. Absolutely must have a Cushcore pro in rear wheels otherwise I will destroy them. The tire support for cornering is a nice benefit. I think I like the damped feel too, but that's definitely not the main reason I run them. I used to go through multiple rear wheels a year before Cushcore, which got really old. As others have mentioned, when I take a used Cushcore Pro insert out of my rear tire, it's completely knackered, covered in knife slits from the rim, which leads me to believe it's really doing it's job...

FWIW, I have been using Cushcore Pro rear, then switched to Tubolight inserts (Commencal MucOff used to run those before the new version came out), and now I'm using Vittoria's Airliner trail inserts. Same weight (100g), pretty much same size and foam thickness. I didn't feel much damping difference from the Cushcore pro inserts VS the Airliners, but I like that they are much lighter (260g vs 100g). Since I build my own wheels, I use expensive DT rims and I don't feel like paying a lot to replace them, I like to spend 36euro to have the peace of...

Given the discussion on ski resorts and the bummer season most have had, and now the chat of high end outdoor clothing brands entering the MTB sphere, is it too much of an assumption to think the decline of winter snowpack due to global warming is one of the causes of these apparel businesses to pivot to other outdoor pursuits?

worked at Arc'teryx for 17 years (and then onto 7mesh for 6) and can say that it doesn't cost $18 to make the shorts. Their margins aren't much different then any other technical apparel brand so not 10x. At least this time they've actually made product. Back in the day they brought on Richie Schley as an ambassador to help with an mtb program without allocating ant design resources etc and killed the program before getting started.

in tech rumors someone noted arcteryx joined the MTB world. on their site pants are $280, shorts $180, jacket $450 USD. to echo the statement in the tech rumors post, "why does MTB need outrageously overpriced clothing option?" for you econ peeps, how does this work for a brand like that? does anyone ACTUALLY pay full retail for gear that expensive? does it cost arc $18 to make shorts they can sell for 10x, so why not try? will this be talked about in 2 years as a mega fail? https://arcteryx.com/us/en/c/mountain-bike/wid-6j83rq6l?intcmp=home_t2_…

@sethimus @Evil96 @CascadeComponents I love, like love-love, that someone with an engineering background (and seemingly a degree) and a wealth of manufacturing experience provided factual mathematical evidence, and it has been refuted by "I believe the manufacturer of this shiny new thing I bought", like conformation bias doesnt exist or something.... There's a quote about facts and opinions that I'm trying to remember here...... it'll come to me....

Zeb's and the SRAM stuff out on Tuesday.

Absolutely, 20mm axles are definitely the best option for stiffness, but they do put a barrier on adoption in the current bike market, and going with a 15mm steel axle, while not as light or as stiff, makes adoption a lot easier and lowers the barrier to entry. It's a problem the industry made themselves since 20mm axles have been around forever, but 15mm became the default for everything but DH bikes.

In regard to front axles and stiffness of inverted forks, the angular deflection of a shaft is defined as θ=(T*L)/(J*G). The key variables for axles are J (polar moment of inertia since we're talking about circles) and G (shear modulus of the material). J for a circular cross section is J(r1,r2)=(π*((r1^4)-(r2^4)))/2 where r1 is the OD and r2 is the ID (zero if solid). As for G, the shear modulus of steel is approximately 3x that of aluminum. Now for a comparison between 15 and 20 mm axles... Lets say we have a solid 15 mm axle and want to...

It's kind of funny to see Unno and Suntour on the same bike: one is known for being a very blingy boutique, low volume manufacturer; and the other has no flash, makes parts for almost every other brand, and is known for being inexpensive. It's like putting EXT on a Polygon.

Good question and as always, thanks to everyone who reads anything I write! The next 18-24 months depend almost entirely on two things Vail cannot control. How much it snows and how the consumer feels. Everything else is downstream of those two variables. But here's how I think the scenarios play out: The dividend gets cut or eliminated entirely. This might be the single most important near-term decision. I don't expect you to notice any difference at the bike park this summer or on the mountain next winter. Where you will see a bad year is in the stuff that...

Really interesting podcast about/with Rose bikes from Escape Collective; I'd heard of the brand but never knew much about them. https://share.transistor.fm/s/8910c296 Some key stats: Been around for 107 years Have never taken a loss (like, what!?) ~€205M annual revenue ~650 employees "Family owned, management run" Managed to pull off 2% growth in 2025 AND migrate to an ERP at the same time (would love a deeper dive on that alone!)

Yeah, I didn't know they'd released an "EVO" model, either. Apparently "We're not releasing an EVO model for this Stumpy, ever" means "We're not releasing an EVO model for this Stumpy anytime in the next 2-4 months."

Finally finished "The Greedheads Work Eight Days a Week," and as always it was a great read. It was interesting to read all of the long-term trends working against the Vail Resorts business model (stock by-backs, lack of reinvestment in capex, customer fatigue from Epic and Iconic overcrowding, etc) in light of the HORRIFIC snow season Vail properties have just endured. For a company that has been historically obsessed with quarterly numbers and habitually unwilling to look at their assets, employees, and customers with the long lens, it makes me wonder: what does the next 18 months look like for...

norco DH prototype pics from rock creek

Wonder what will happen with that product. Joe Breeden himself seem to be doing some product development with Wolftooth. Picture from MBUK

15 years ago we had an athlete turn up with their fit numbers all out of whack, old bike gone back to sponsors etc etc, BUT: they had a sticker prominent on seat tube that was identical to one on my tool box. I managed to print an a3 image of the old bike and translate all the measurements with a pencil and ruler. It took quite a while, but ended up bang on. Saddle height, offset, reach, bar height, stack. All this by hand…