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Don't forget that he's good at marketing and entertainment. Neko's able to tell a unique and compelling story that viewers will tune in for, beyond the industry standard "look at a video of us racing and talking about the race." We obviously watch Neko's race videos, but typically that's because the individual races are touchstones in a bigger narrative that we're hooked on. The story guy knows how to get consistent clicks and views! (TELL A GOOD STORY)

She rode conti tires last year already, didn't she?

Seems like Mondraker is pushing hard into the US market with the distribution in Colorado and signing of Pinkerton and assuming Dak. Hope he adjusts to the new bike well and the results keep coming, hopefully he got paid, he deserves it.

Two Intense teams and no Dak nor Gwin. Ouch

Richie looks to be on Magic Mary on the bike rolling photo. Bike laid down photo harder to make out with the mud, but it's Sharpied out, so not Maxxis. The prototype Maxxis tire many people have posted is a new tire (or updated Shorty III) that is meant to compete with the Continental Argotal, current gen Hillbilly & WTB Verdict. Those 2:2:2 knob pattern tires all have more 'land' (knob size) vis sea (open space) than the Shorty2. Which makes them more predictable on rocks/roots. This is one of the reason Loic ran the Argotals at Snowshoe this year...

Looks kinda like a Shorty

lol when an Aussie company is a day ahead and jumps the gun

Dude, Neko, fuckin killing it as always. So stoked for the new changes this year. Thank you for all the insight into racing!

Pretty harsh to call those companies 'blemishes'. I for one would support those companies just because they support Neko and the team. 5Dev seems to have supported Neko on many, many frame parts, aside from cranks. That development alone is very valuable. Specialized supports so many racing projects and cool stuff too. To call one of the more technically advanced companies a blemish is just beyond me, especially when Specialized supports a lot of privateers, their own factory team, this team and Rooted/others that are trying to make it. And ENVE? I've run their stuff in the past and as...

God I love you bunch of nerds.

Truth. The Inside Line pod has also been very much on point lately, well done Spomer.

It is, as are almost all the Downtimes, excellent!

Tacky Chan's don't have the intermediate knob which is present on the tire he is on in the riding photo.

I feel like I'm reading a Seb Stott/Henry Quinney article get created before my eyes. Y'all've seen two basic principles gt raised here. Here are a couple visual aids I made to help show the relationships I see people using to help solve the OP's question. The stars show the particular contrast being made: a brake system near it's optimum temperature giving some level of performance greater than a brake noticeably below that optimum temp. The blue dots are just some ways we might fill in the relationship for other temps. Note that this is a relationship (as the posters...

I view it as disc size controlling for brake power/modulation AND thermal capacity, while disc thickness controls for thermal capacity only. It also seems to be pretty well settled that you need more thermal capacity on the rear per articles like this and in my own experience. With that in mind, I've settled on a 180mm 2.3mm rotor front with a 200mm 2.3mm rear on a 29er enduro bike using Hope T4V4. The hopes are pretty dang strong and wanted more modulation on the front.

Certainly not Martin Maes or Troy Brosnan level of rider here, and most likely not near @jeff.brines either, but here's what I have found in 26 years as a bike mechanic, 30+ years of riding offroad. If you're primarily riding in terrain that has short descents or very short braking zones, 180mm rotors are probably big enough. Larger rotors might take you too long to heat up enough to get the full power out of them. On the other hand, if like me you live in a mountainous area with 5-10+ minute descents being the norm, and weigh more than...

Not to sound like a dick but I hope most people ignore this. 1) Martin is one of one. You don't ride a bike like him and neither do I. 2) According to the telemetry data I've seen, most (good) riders do in fact use their brakes for ~85% of a descent. Even Neko just noted at the WC level guys are on their brakes 80% of a run. 3) The whole point of a brake is to take kinetic energy and turn it into thermal energy. The more "room" a system has with respect to heat management, the better...

Rotor bluing not cause for concern with quality rotors and is standard in motorsports. For automotive road racing, bluing the rotor when bedding in new brakes is when you know the bedding procedure is done properly. Rotors were always blue on all of my race bikes back when I roadraced motorcycles. Cheap rotors might have inconsistencies in the material so they might warp under such heat, hence the importance of quality rotors. It seems there is less expertise or interest in learning here. Instead those searching for comfirmation bias of their purchases.