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I also think that radial tires are the biggest innovation in MTB technology since modern geo.

Idk whats going on in this forum lately. Amaury: I'm using radials. Schwalbe: our riders are all using radials. Us: no one's using radials. My personal experience, riding them in every condition imaginable, including snow: the biggest improvement in mountain bike technology since we figured out 64 degree HTA could apply to non DH bikes.

This whole power war situation sucks. I spent years fighting for MTB trail access and I'm quite worried with the Class 1 eMTB players blatantly flaunting the spirit of the rules. For the first time, the anti-MTB crowd actually have a valid point. DJI and Specialized DGAF. None. Burn it all down.

The "multiplier effect" is an economic fallacy. "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

Fair point

"emtb can't give me suffering" Spoken like a man that has never run out of battery halfway into a group ride 😁

It’s a vertical shock alignment similar to the old Diamondback Knucklebox design (mentioned above) or a Propain. Nothing to patent. It’s just a Utah County based company thinking it needs overdo marketing as they’re prone to do. Utah is the land of perceived aesthetics.

It's like comparison of digital cameras. Lens quality? Sensor size and DR? Shutter implementation? Who cares, it has 600Mpix!

Albert is for people who are scared of gaps between center and side knobs.

Zerode are launching a new frameset, looks like two travel variants, 160 and 140mm. Shadow and Shadow Trail. 450mm chainstays on the large too. Internal frame storage too. Curious what the kinematics are. Looks pretty cool imo! https://zerodebikes.com/products/shadow-origin Rob continues his streak of only launching bikes like a month or two after I buy something else...

"Fashion has taken over mtb, if a bike doesn't look right it's not going to sell." Cycling has been in the fashion business for a long time. Image over substance. Marketing over engineering. Features over benefits. Trendy picks and subjective opinions of a few tastemakers (product managers) setting the course 24-36 months out. Where it has gone in the last 8-10+ years is more "fast fashion," unfortunately. Guess on the trend due to poor data (color, style, etc), over-produce, flood the channels, dump the remaining inventory, rinse and repeat in time for the next season. Artisanal lugged steel, Colnago C-whatever-number-they're-up-to...

I suppose its ez enough to run long travel and put a few extra psi's in it when you want to dig out the lycra grape smugglers

People also just get bored of one thing. We've been riding enduro bikes for years now. I ride exactly the same trails as I used to on the fleet of enduro bikes I've had over the years, but now I do it on an optic built like an enduro bike (but with 140/125 travel). Same trails, different dynamics. lots of market lost to e-bikes obviously but for the rest, it'll come back around I think.

political posts and responses deleted. take them to " off the bike"

I'm thinking we shouldn't let you get away with calling bias ply tires diagonal in the nerd thread haha

„Radial“ as used in the bike tire industry is already a spectrum of tread angles. If it was used as it should be, radial would only mean one angle, which is exactly radial to the wheel center. But it‘s the bike industry that likes to not give any fuck. Just use the so called diagonal tires, which are exactly what you want in the rear, with a steeper angle between the carcass treads.

It feels faster on smooth climbs/roads, definitely not as smooth/efficient on tech climbs, but where I noticed the difference I didn’t like at all was downhill, I feel like I’ve got 10mm less travel and a stiffer rear end, plus, they just don’t grip nearly as much on roots/of camber sections

It's not so much that 2 layers were added, its that now both of the 2x67epi carcass layers are now extend ontop of each other under the tread cap (before it was just one layer that extend to the end of the lap.

Yeah I’m kind of pissed they just added 2 layer of chasing to the gravity, when I need a gravity rear I don’t want a DH tyre, and now there’s no option anymore to stay with the radial, and imo radial front and non rear feels like 💩