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Wild looking 32" BMC spotted making laps on the Andorra XC track for testing. Note the crazy add-on dropouts to make a 29er fork work and the custom mega-drop stem that mounts above and below the head tube, similar to drawings we've seen in this tech forum. The bike is being test ridden by BMC rider Titouan Carod, who won't be racing it this weekend, but is helping BMC test it on an actual World Cup XC track at World Cup pace (photos and factoids courtesy of the other sight). I'm posting this photo to say "I told you so"...

Based on my lack of riding this year and everything this brings with it, a lot of what you say, so bike fit, I think comes down to having enough time to try things out and test them back to back and also knowing what to look for improvement wise.

I spent a few hundred hours riding the VST prototypes. Still, to this day, I have yet to ride a bike that goes so damn fast in a straight line. There was so much drama in that era of Sinister, it’s too bad development stopped on that project, two or three more prototypes and I think we would have ended up with a production-ready bike.

I'd bet the delta between what we can go buy and what the top guys are running is a lot tighter than most think. Jackson's V10 is closer to stock than not, and we all know how his season is going. Maybe there are a few special parts hung from his bike, but the difference is likely pretty small between what he is running and what we can buy (IE, Grip-X vs Grip-2). Put differently, if you were to hang totally off the shelf parts from his bike and have him race a weekend, I still wouldn't bet against him...

Quick rant, does anyone else think Treks new e-bike naming convention sucks. EX-e was fine, easy to search, minimal, clearly differentiated it from the non-ebike versions. Their new naming convention seems to just be putting + after everything. Fuel+, Rail+, Slash+ etc. It doesn't work at all from an SEO perspective, the + ends up getting lost in google and you end up with a bunch of results for outgoing bikes or non-ebike versions when you search it. And Slash-e is way more fun to say than Slash+.

I'm pretty sure both Trek and Specialized have said they're aiming to reduce the number of SKUs they sell. It already looks like the Kenevo and Kenevo SL, for example, won't be getting updated. And the Stumpjumper 15 has taken the place of both the regular Stumpy and the Evo, I think we will see more of this consolidation as we go on. I think this could lead to a market where small, boutique brands continue to make limited runs of high-end bikes, while the mid-range options become more scarce as the economics get difficult for the bigger companies. It...

I think every bike brand will do this at least for their non-e-bikes pretty soon. I am honestly still amazed that there as many non-e-bike options as there are right now. In germany 2024 non-motorised MTBs are merely about 3% of total non-e-bikes sold (if you compare it to the actual bike sales (E-Bikes + Non-E-Bikes) which is about 3,9 million bikes its even more evident - 1,3 %). In total numbers thats about 54.000 MTBs (over all makes and MTB types). Thats cargobike terretory - lol Source ZIV Am I the only one thinking this can't be profitable over...

Might be a proof of concept, but combined with the plastic mount and zip ties I do wonder how effective that would be as a TMD....

Blast from the past; Things Alex Morgan was working on in 2001 (ish) -Carbon Fiber DH Bikes -High pivot DH Bikes (w idler) -Dual shock high pivot DH bikes (variable axle path) -Lugged design so he can make changes quickly -29" wheels on DH bikes (2004 ish)

All this talk of "variable axle path" reminds me of my old Magic Link coilair. A 190mm travel bike that pedals like a 140mm bike, geo would vary too. It slackened out when on the brakes, rear wheel moved truly rearward on bumps, it was a great bike for 2010. The 455mm chainstays made it faster than my DH bike too (455 was huge for that time and 26 inch wheels). Too bad it was a Kona so I cracked two of them.

The idea of the variable path was what he was going for, but not the high and low speed shaft movements doing different of axle paths. It was called VST. I’ve talked to Frank about this and even asked him about making one for me. He said the axle path almost looked like a football shape, it would move backwards up and then forward and you can pump it railroad track and just generate speed. This is an old image and screen grab I found off of a forum from the early 2010s

EXT with a new or refreshed fork.

detailed pics of prototype mondraker that greg williamson will race in place of ronan

A sales manager at Shimano just built up a Digit Ring and sent me some photos. It has an unusual Pro Tharsis handlebar which I've not seen any reporting on*. I gets fatter each side of the stem, and it's not round each side of the stem either. A fatter diameter normally indicates a stiffer structure which I'd normally be wary of, but I'm told the shaping makes this is as compliant as the OneUp handlebar. It does look pretty sick. Both the bar and stem have cable-tourism routing - but they don't seem to be noticeable on my cable-into-the-downtube...

Conspiracy Theory Hot Take - Now that SRAM owns O-chain will Non-SRAM sponsored athletes be asked by their drivetrain sponsors not to run them? Or will mechanics just get out the Sharpie?

Alloy frame, coil sprung, DH tyres and he's upset that it's 16kg? Help! Waiter! My steak is too juicy and my lobster is too buttery!

https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/modern-geo-talk-chainstays-stack-re…

medium with long chainstays:

In the US sales tax varies from locale to locale. If I buy something where I'm at the tax (local plus state plus federal) might be say 10 percent but if I go over to somewhere else it might be 9 percent. When I buy online tax is calculated for the zip code of my billing address so the tax will still vary by a couple of a percent depending on where I'm at. Because of that it hard to get used to other places like the EU where VAT is just there but doesn't vary. Like the metric system...

Not including sales tax always seems like a dumb thing to do. At least to everyone else in the world. What you see is what you pay, that makes more sense.