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I have it in a few bikes. I WORK AT DT SWISS. I have not ridden o-chain. I live in Western Colorado and basically ride in the 10 degree setting all the time. When I go to the bike park, then I swap to the 20. On my e-bike, it is always in the 10 setting. On my PNW trip last year I swapped depending on where I would ride. Around here, trying the 20 degree at our techy trails, you do get a bit of a thud when riding technical terrain on the analog bike. I haven't noticed that...

https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/32-inch-wheels-and-mountain-bikes#c… 😏

Don't make @sspomer come yell at us again... Do we have a list of everything expected at Sea Otter this year?

Guy with "middle eastern" background here, lets go back to mtb rumors...

Fixed

So this is kind of hilarious to me because forbidden just ships a pile of parts along with a frame that isn't even put together. Having built/QC checked a lot of bikes from Transition, Ibis, Cannondale, Orbea, and Forbidden I can honestly say that the QC on the Forbidden frames are absolutely stellar, on par with Ibis carbon (Ibis alloy leaves a lot to be desired). Unfortunately, with bike brands that ship just frame and parts end up leaving a lot of their bikes "QC" impression on the skills of the builder building the bike. If your headset creeks, or...

RAAW addressed this issue by using modular dropouts. They first did it with their Yalla DH bike which has now trickled down to their Madonna v3.2. This is what the DH industry might head towards to accommodate UDH. Also can we take a moment to drool over how the black and silver SRAM design works with the RAAW frames 🤤

So something to note on pricing that is coming through. and this is not meant to be a political post. but the new steel tariffs HIGHLY affect bike prices. ESPECIALLY e-bikes. basically all the bike companies have to figure out the percentage of steel in a bike (HS, bearings, cassette, motors) and then that times the pricing of the bike etc. And these are not cheap... like some bikes increasing close to $1k just on tariff prices.... (cross posted in tech rumors)

A sub 1k full suspension bike isn't worth riding... especially so in 160/160 format where you can't hid poor suspension behind a firm feel with limited travel. The last FS i test rode in this bracket was a giant stance at ~1,600 dollars a hard tail would have been my choice in that price range. As @ervin321 mentioned... There aren't great examples left of niche markets being able to sustain affordability. Hell, same could be said of groceries. The path forward for bikes is relatively clear, just like it is if you're into cars, motorcycles or other gear based hobbies...

I miss the days of Swiss neutrality...

Sadly, I'm no longer surprised by the deafening level of whining from people about pro level equipment being expensive.

was digging around on srams website just now and came across this

I'm as excited for new saint as anyone, but lately this is how I feel waiting for them at this point: