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Great question. To your point, I think the cannibalism is worse than that, because instead of wanting multiple pedal bikes for different sorts of pedal days with granular differences between each model, one ebike is pretty much fine for everything. In the past, as a MTB pedaler, I would have loved to have at least three mountain bikes: a long travel enduro bike, a shorter travel trail bike, and maybe a hardtail or XC bike. Maybe more. If I wanted to give up on pedaling and get an ebike instead, I don't need two ebikes. For ebikers who want to...

In the last two years my local New England observations of bikes on the trail went from, oh wow that’s the first time I’ve seen a big group ride off all e-bikes, to, oh wow that’s the first group ride of all mountain bikes I’ve seen in months. Even the number of old school solo xc ripper guys is down… Riding bikes in the woods has pretty much changed again, the last big change here was almost everyone “serious about riding” being on a full suspension bike.

The German market isn't reflective of North America; and possibly other core MTB markets like Australia and New Zealand, however small they might be. The amount and quality of riding in North America, for example, fosters a completely different riding culture. Of course eMTB has a place here in North America, but we still have a large percentage or riders that want the analog experience. Squamish is a good example of a super core area for riders and, while eMTBs are seemingly everywhere there, my anecdotal perspective is that the split is still in favour of analog. My prediction is...

woof. the bike nobody wanted. Use : Electric Overland

I have no issue with software teams using "agile" in whatever the original context was. I have issues with what it became in the corporate world. Over my year long in-house counsel contract, I think I attended 4-5 mandatory "agile" training seminars, and it featured heavily at our multi-day retreat. To this day I'm not really sure what it means, except that the "agile coaches" sound like new-age grifters when given a microphone in front of a crowd of people that are mandated to be there. Worse yet was inevitably after one of these seminar things, I'd be on a...

It still blows my mind that Strava is a company at all, obviously it has the social network aspect with monetisation and tons of users, but to me and everyone I know it's just the convenient place to store your ride logs and have segment leaderboards. I nearly ended up working for their kinda competitor Komoot at one point, but had similar doubts about the long term viability of the business model (and didn't prepare for enough for a technical interview). Unfortunately for them I was kinda right about that one: https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2025/05/komoot-team-goodbye.html. One of the issues for Strava is that...

As many of you know, I had been working on a Strava alternative that I planned to launch this spring. Unfortunately, I had to put it on pause. It’s still something I want to build, but after digging in further, I became less convinced it could pay my bills anytime soon. And realistically, raising outside capital for a non-AI consumer product with Strava as the entrenched incumbent felt close to impossible. The good news is that the amount of capital required is probably far lower now than it would have been even a year ago. Frontier models have made product...

If you have a garmin though. If you use one of the competitors your SOL. What bugs me the most about Strava is that a self hosted app that I use to see my past completions of a segment (because strava paywalls it) doesn't show maps because I don't have everything set to public or something. Strava really needs a good competitor.

I just started listening to a whole podcast season that is about how outdoor gear, including camping, hiking, hunting, and even biking gear can trace a lot of its roots to the military. The Berry Amendment is a big reason why there is any domestic outdoor gear manufacturing industry at all. I've only started episode 2, but it's very interesting and I think a lot of people who are interested in this forum thread would think so too. https://articlesofinterest.substack.com/p/gear-chapter-1 It also goes into some of the sociology of how fashion developed for different outdoorsmen over the past few centuries and...

The point about defence spending having a positive affect on the rest of the economy- in my lectures this was talked about using the concept of the multiplier effect. This is the idea that if someone, ie the state, spends £1 on something then it increases national GDP by some amount because that’s been spent at a local supplier, who then pays wages, their employees go to the local butcher, who buys from the local farmer, etc etc. The issue with defence spending is it has a comparatively poor multiplier effect vs other forms of government spending. If I spend...

Domestic manufacturing/sourcing has been been a requirement (for some products, at least) in DoD procurement since the Berry Amendment of 1941.

Torrent is clean. Bottle rocket is adjustable freeride. Quake is a capable race geo. (Iirc) Different bikes for different folks . I freeride and park my race bikes - and xc ride my enduro bike. But the world does seem to want FUN 27.5 park bikes and the racers do seem to want FAST DH WEAPONS. Why can’t we have both? The marketing isn’t even for us. There are literally armies of 15 year old boys AND GIRLS! Getting really into modern freeride, just riding down shit and off shit and being park rats in jnco jeans where I live...

I will probably get flamed for this, and will offer the caveat that I have only been skimming this page, but I feel like these bikes are great propositions and are in my eyes cool bikes because they’re made to be cheap and practical workhorses for younger demographics that don’t have as much disposable income and want a playful park bike that they can maintain themselves. Maybe I’m just haven’t been following the thread well enough, but I don’t see why the ebike bit is necessary to explain the appeal. Not everyone can afford bougie boutique racing machines, or ebikes...

As someone who, for 20+ years, got at least 1 new bike every year, I haven’t purchased a new bike in almost 3 years. I feel like 90% of bikes in the last 5 or so years have been great. So much so, that I’m actually considering buying the last gen Norco Optic as my next trail bike. Coming into 2026 I was convinced I would get a “New” full suspension frame this year. While I’m sure I’d be happy with the new Tallboy, Reya, or Ranger, it’s hard to justify the $$$$ for a new frame when I can...

counterpoint - $600 is easily the cost of an ER visit for many people 🤷‍♂️

Maybe 2027 race talk?

This a common straw man argument I see on this topic. It’s important to remember that anyone capable of going that fast uphill is only do so with a lifetime of skills as a foundation . Anyone in a pro xco race is likely never putting out 1500w in that race, and if the are it’s for about 5 seconds during a sprint finish. Theres just a lot more nuance man. No human is putting out world tour sprint finish power for the same duration as a 800wh battery Humans are creatures of the path of least resistance. If you...

Translation: drone warfare is popping off and we want in on that bag 💰💰💰

Apparently its this thing https://www.alpinestars.com/products/tech-air-mx-system

I would assume it’s alpine stars tech air system. Which one exactly I have no idea