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Yeah Jeff we will always disagree, I owned a successful engineering business for 18 years we shipped products worldwide, our products were for the offshore oil industry so I'm not without experience and insight myself. If you think these companies just employ bike fans you clearly have a naive view of the world.

It's not hard to imagine a business consultant walking into one of the bike manufacturers offices and his jaw dropping when he's told proudly "our bikes are lasting 10-15 years" "Dont you realise you could quadruple your profits if you make them last 3 years?" "We can't engineer them to break!" "Mmmmm how about continually changing the standards?" "Yeah we could do that , get fox and maxxis on the phone!" I think there's definitely signs of technological creep that suits the manufacturers rather than big jumps that suit the consumer, rather than making big changes like jumping from 26...

Wow 6 billion hardly small is it, There's also a massive mark up on frames. The oligopoly is provided by the consumer believing the new development is a must have and an increase in performance. 26 may not be obsolete but it's definitely no longer fashionable hence the lack of availability of new 26 inch bikes. Industrial tricks within the psychology of consumerism usually rely on a naive consumer

Producers that pursue this strategy believe that the additional sales revenue it creates more than offsets the additional costs of research and development That's a key point knowing Santa Cruz will sell enough to offset r and d the point is the smaller brands don't sell enough to offset r and d therefore it's a possible strategy to " starve the competition" by continually changing standards. This IS capitalism

Heard of Dyson vacuum cleaners? Check your local recycling centre and you'll see a pile of em yet people still buy them and at greater cost than their competition. Saying bikings a small industry isn't true, how much was Santa Cruz sold for. Recent purchase of chain reaction by wiggle should be enough to show there is enough room for the conspiracy. Sorry about the long post. Taken from wiki key points are making things unfashionable or less efficient i.e. 29 ers in downhill. The industry knows people will follow time after time after time Planned obsolescence or built-in obsolescence...

When 27.5 came out the smartest thing the companies did was make sure they were not compatible with 26 with the exception of Scott Rocky Mountain. People don't realise that the big companies have business analysts and strategy men who advise to ensure constant renewed business these analysts and advisors aren't even into bikes. Electrical companies test to ensure failures after a certain period for this exact reason. Bikes due to safety and brand reputation ensure the renewed 2yr cycle of repeat business by changing standards and eliminating backwards compatibility. All this waste and nonsense will be at the customers...

Yeah sports favour certain body types no point going for NBA if your 5 ft no point going for sumo if your thin but these sports don't make changes they stick to their standards.

Tracks have been getting smoother and easier for years, Lourdes seemed less gnarly this year as it's been ridden in. The canyon to hip or gulley took out loads first year looked easy this year. Same with the wall section it's no longer about the ability to handle the terrain it's just about holding speed. I don't know why they use leogang when schladming is round the corner, val di sole vallnord are the only exception and they get flatt sections with a few jumps just to look good on red Bull to.

I wonder how much money will be wasted collectively by canyon, propain, radon, Saracen plus others who have just finished developing a design plus norco who have only just finished a prototype that was due to enter production. It will be interesting to see if Santa Cruz offer a rear triangle linkage upgrade to existing owners, my guess is they will make changes to ensure all the sc fanboys have to buy total frames. It looks like the best and most likely action for teams is to cobble 29 frames out of existing 27.5 and use angle sets etc to...