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Total Air was a brand in our portfolio – those were made here in our facility. Eko Sport / Mountain Racing Products is our legal name, and we own and produce MRP, Kreitler Rollers, and Power Grips pedals. We also had/used the White Brothers, Tamer (seatposts) and Total Air brands previously, but no longer produce products with those names. We brought all of our suspension line under the MRP brand name in 2013 (discontinued White Brothers). I'm not sure when Total Air ended, but it was before I came on board (2010). 👍

It works on a dyno and I thought it added a benefit to riding. Obviously I'm super biased though. I will say- it was a fairly large pain in the ass to get a patent pushed through the right channels at SRAM, so that effort should show we thought it was a good idea.

Hey look what I found in the parts bin: This was one of the last things I worked on at RS before I left... goal was to control big hits by weakening or slowing down the return of the air spring. I run my setup with a lot of spring and no damping, so getting bucked on big hits is part of the deal. This thing 'gulps' all the air in the positive chamber on compression and lets it out with a tiny delay (since it all has to go through the tiny hole to get out). No delay on...

Keep in mind that’s revenue for all Maxxis products and we make waaaaaay more than just bike tires. In the grand scheme of things, bike makes up a small part of that revenue. Believe me, I’m always trying to get my hands on some of that auto marketing budget!

Thanks

I took my kids down the river to watch their hero win the overall in MSA. When I told them this awful news, my ten year old asked me if I could send the Goldstone’s some love on the Vital forums. Please do so on our behalf; we’re thinking of your fam here in Montréal. ❤️

Rough day but thankfully they are all safe.

Two layers of Stans tape is a little generous for DT Swiss rims since they are typically bang-on with ETRTO spec. But otherwise nothing seems too off... For context, the kevlar bead cores used among all folding MTB tires gets plucked off a rack, and then gets folded into a casing execution (Gravity in this case). Then the blank gets impressed and vulcanized into the tread pattern mold of choice. Little chance for deviation among tread types with the same casing. Regardless I hope both have preformed well for ya. Schwalbe North America has a warranty policy if things are...

Felt this was a fitting place to post my thoughts on running a Boxxer on a Spire. Spoiler Alert: Its the best setup I've run thus far. I genuinely don't understand why we don't see this more often, from ~160-170mm on up. Especially on e-bikes. I suppose price is part of it, but my real guess is what I'm going to call "mimesis"; we all broadly follow more than we lead. And breaking convention is hard.

Vali wasting no time in ditching the YT gear!

It’s clear some of you have never truly nuked yourself in crash. It can take hours for the severity and complete picture of what you hurt and how bad to set it. Couple that with adrenaline and elite level racing and you might not know for hours. As stuff progresses, it can become clear very quick that you need to get checked for something that might’ve seemed okay initially. Loic has never shown anything put respect and professionalism, I’m sure there was a reason for everything that transpired.

this is the (V)Anzac spirit in full force. You the man Mic! For those wondering, ANZAC is Australian New Zealand Army Corps which was derived in WW1 as we fought together, it is a spirit of brotherhood despite not knowing the other person but having a common goal. It warms the cockles of my heart knowing the spirit remains strong.

Vital RAW (still processing 4k as i post this) - how steezy are vali and gracey on that wood ramp into the berms! and the rock garden...sheesh!

Couple snaps from trackside at practice

Peak foliage to stick season happened over a single day this week, so it'll for sure be interesting to see how the riders handle the changes in lighting, especially in the wooded sections (I'm thinking the lower rock sections specifically...).

Troy's track walk. I'll just add this: Roots and Rain says Troy has raced at MSA 12 times. He won the World Cup race there last year. Besides that, he won a World Championship as a Junior there and took 2nd as an Elite in 2019. He has finished lower than 10th only 1 time in 12 races, with 6 podiums. Remember when he was available for $100 for Fantasy a few weeks ago? That would be a steal this weekend. I expect good things from him.

lou sending the gap is so sick! sheesh, that track is all-out warfare on bike and body.

Mille following Lou for our first look at the track here at MSA: