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I wrote this on Pinkbike but will crosspost here to as I firmly believe ABS should not be involved in WCDH. I'm all for innovation in DH and I am absolutely fine with electronics in suspension but I strongly believe that ABS has no place in competitive DH. Braking ability and threshold braking are massively important skill that do separate riders. Having a system that would theoretically allow a rider to just full pull brake but not lock the wheels would be a huge advantage on most tracks and certainly would for low grip tracks or conditions. Formula One as...

full South Korea Pit Bits photo post here - https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/pit-bits-world-cup-1-south-korea

pit bits shots of richie's derailleur (assume saint)

Nothing i9 has made in a LONG time has been bombproof. Love them but they are not even close to bombproof

I remember when this near word for word argument was used in favour of 26ers.

So now we're back to "pick a wheel size and be a dick about it"? Anyone got any rumors?

Epic 9 looks about like I expected. I’ll bet it’s a better XC race bike than the E8. Having said that, I’m glad I bought a E8 Evo as its probably a better all around bike for what I do and I like the in frame storage.

Epic 9 Pro version: https://www.redrockbicycle.com/products/2027-specialized-epic-9-pro-bik… Epi 9 S-Works 2027 https://www.redrockbicycle.com/products/2027-specialized-epic-9-s-works…

Good to see Them dropping Swat box. Now to get more brands to do the same.

From Pinkbike. Also, the reach and stack a bit longer than the Epic 8. No mention of an Evo version. I’m thinking the new bike is a mix of the best attributes of the current Epic 8 and the discontinued Epic WC.

600a, 650b, 700c, 750d I guess 32” wheels would be 800e if anyone needs a free reason to get mad.

Is it 750D because there's already been a 750A, B and C, or just because 650B and 700C? The latter would make me sad.

Rocky Mountain Underground - primarily a ski brand now dipping into mountain bikes, different from Rocky Mountain.

Most of you probably won't like hearing this. I certainly didn't. Earlier this week I had a chat with a guy who works in a product management role for Ralf Bohle GmbH, which is the owner of the Schwalbe tire brand. Mainly I asked a bunch of XC racing related questions, about compounds, casings, radial ply, rolling resistance testing, wheter we'll ever see the speediest XC casing with a black sidewall and why they felt they needed to change their naming scheme for casings and compounds. The gist of it is that they are hard at work behind the scenes...

MrTi on pinkbike has a lot more on this. The integrated seat post topper is also a nice touch.

https://www.sram.com/en/life/stories/specialized-highgear-co-development From the outset, the core challenge was clear: transmitting full downhill sprint and impact loads through an extremely compact system. Traditional solutions such as belts or meshing gears were quickly ruled out due to inefficiency, packaging limitations, suspension constraints, and durability concerns. Chains remained the most efficient and proven option, but early analysis showed that a single chain could not withstand elite downhill loads within the desired compact gearing and envelope. That insight led to the project’s defining architectural decision: a two chain system. Two parallel chains could theoretically share the load, but ensuring equal load distribution introduced a...

“Hey do you guys have a spare HighGear perimeter seal and lower case bolt o-ring in stock? I’ve got a race this weekend.”

Page 100 folks. Already a tenth of the way to the third version of Tech Rumors!

Engineers at Scott must be going insane after finding out Specialized has beaten them at making the most complicated MTB to service, the next Gambler will have 32 pivots in retaliation