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Hot take. Patents on suspension linkage designs "We'd be a lot cooler if we didn't"

Loic Bruni and Loris Vergier discover the brand new track in La Thuile, a first time venue for the DH World Cup. Is it summer yet??

Yep! Gearboxes are THAT BAD that we'd rather put up with all the faffing with chains. j/k. The truth is I've never ridden a gearbox and have nothing against them. I just like making jokes. I'm down to try one as soon as they end up on a bike that I'd be interested in buying, in a price range I want to hit, at a time I'm looking to buy one, and designed with my specific use case in mind.

Fuck it, let's just go singlespeed with a tensioner and an expanding chainring. https://youtu.be/xKzX-lIHsyU?si=AOQaPFuOg1OphWOV

Technically any slug that is not centred is also a flip chip 🙂

I can hear it squelching already.

Here's a Slayer prototype frame built in 2018 IIRC. I have another example of an earlier prototype built with a chip that allowed a low or mid-height main pivot. I'll have to fire up my external drive (cough I'm old..) to get a photo.

woosh

What about seat- or chainstays?

I wondered the same, but there may be less of an effect, because the driving frequency is not constant and unlikely to match the resonant frequency, and the links only approximate a flexible object, meaning they can only oscillate at finite points (every 1/2 inch), rather than being able to form continuous waveforms. The finite length of the links effectively forms a high pass filter, where any oscillation with a wavelength shorter than 4 links becomes impossible. All this goes to say is that yes, offsetting the STFU from the center point of the chain will probably have a favorable...

That's basically what Benoit runs. It's an old guide meant for 2x and 3x drivetrain system chain retention in place of the lower roller. Can't remember the bike brand that introduced them. Liteville or Bionicon? EDIT: Bionicon C.Guide

It's pretty hard for aerated dampers to start cavitating - once the oil is foamed up it gets more elastic and cushions the oil so you get less pressure drop behind the piston cause cavitation. It might happen in certain shocks if the air collects at the top, between main piston and base valve (and would develop a distinct pop or knock sound) but its pretty rare and would usually foam up enough to be spread around. The Float X2 almost has the opposite problem- the original valving meant they had very little pressure difference across the main piston and...

Matt also said his goal was to beat his time from last year, and he did it. In 2024 he got 3:54.107, and in 2025 he got 3:52.636. He cut 1.471 seconds off his time, and rode 300m further in that time. Serious progression over the past couple weeks in Queenstown.

I didn't have a lot of time for Matt Jones before he started pumping out pre-hardline vids. Not that I had anything against him, he was just another in a sea of YouTube riders and I started to burn out from them a few years ago. But this event he really separated himself from the pack and it seemed like he massively improved the last month riding with everyone. Big fan of the vibe. Erice... Damn. Glad she's relatively ok but that's some scary shit. I hope she heals up well.

100% And it's not just about what's appropriate for one's body and riding style, but what's optimal for the terrain one rides. It's more like choosing skis than choosing a road bike...

But one of them doesn’t strip paint, ruin rubber durometer, or make certain plastics brittle.

I'm guessing it's probably more down to the fact that DOT is a fair bit nastier on terms of corrosiveness and toxicity, no?

For racing, it's never really the bike, it's the rider and feeling comfortable on the bike. People win without drivetrains, on dry tires in the mud etc. Roczen is kicking ass on a 10 year old Suzuki with a Kickstarter... None of that has anything to do with what's an improvement mechanically though.

Haha that hits right home 😄 If they managed to make it resist the extreme pressures that Asa must have put though that shock, my respects to Fox. I highly doubt that they didn't have to rebuild the thing every two runs, though. But one can dream...