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impact will be pretty big not just in the bike industry. competitive swimsuits use it, yoga pants too.

Will be interesting to see the breadth of impacts on this one. Which major bike/outdoor companies products are using lycra materials? Disruption to the root of textile supply chain is whopper.

Alba Distribution is closing up shop. They were fairly small Western Canada distributor based in Squamish, and had niche brands like Formula, EXT, OChain, Revgrips, Dyedbro. Sucks because they did all the actual EXT fork and shock damper service work, which all the LBS's just farm out to them.

Sad to hear about Knolly, I put 5000+ miles on a Fugitive, won a race once, and sold it while it was still going strong. Capable, bombproof trail bike... though it would have been better with Superboost.

$100-$500 billion? Seems like a stretch. 🥁

Since people were talking about elastic demand last week.... Lycra Company declares Chapter 11

Noel is a high quality, honest human being. Had the pleasure of knowing and working with him for many years. He lives the brand and will always do right by his customers. I hope they come out of this. Wishing the best for Noel, the staff, and their families. Tough times....

I'd love for Jeff and co. to do a case study/postmortem in like 2 years of all the various bike brand receiverships from the last couple years and how they were dealt with. I will say though, at least Knolly missed the original deadline to this thread. Hoping the best for them and theirs, seems like their CEO has his head in the right place.

Damn I have been riding Knolly bikes for my last 4 bikes. I did get 2 frames replaced under warranty but those were the older models. I think they missed the mark with the sizing on their latest bikes though. I will keep my current bike for awhile but I assume small parts like pivot bolts etc will become an issue at some point.

Just got this from Knolly: A Message from Noel Buckley I'm going to keep this simple because you deserve that. The last few years have been the hardest this industry has ever seen, and Knolly has not been immune. But we have been fighting through it: restructuring costs, tightening operations, and doing the difficult work of right-sizing the business to match a new reality. We were making progress. That progress was cut short. Our bank, RBC, has made the decision to call in our account. This comes at a time when RBC is posting record annual profits, $20.4 billion last...

notice in the race replay from TN national that dylan maples' pivot dropouts look custom/different (sorry, wish i had a better angle). edit - found this

Prototypes are for testing. Sometimes the conclusion of a test is that it's not a better bike, or not commercially viable. So you don't put it into production.

lol it's a pivot

And Nicolai/Geometron.

Pivot says they change kinematics on each size, but I don't think they manufacture a different set of links to do it, I think they just shift mounting points on the front triangle: https://www.pivotcycles.com/en-us/technology/size-specific-design-and-r… Pivot says: "For bikes where chainstay length varies with size, suspension kinematics naturally change. However, we modify pivot points to ensure optimal curves for each size. We optimize the kinematics for each frame size based on a rider’s center of gravity and average saddle height per size to ensure consistent suspension kinematics for every size rider." Other than that, the only other company I can think...

Nah. Top tube straight continuous to seat stays is very 2020. Now it’s all about the grasshopper. Steep down tube to low flat chainstay. And I’m all for it. Maybe your right, straight line is industrial design where grasshopper, is sex. as long as no one does steeper chainstays than top tube. 🤮

Is it just me, or is Gwin missing a chain again?

Very good look for higher pivot frameworks from vital g-out pics. can see at neko's bike the main pivot way above the chainring, while on gwin's bike its lower and behind chainring/guard. also noticed gwin had no chain but running ochain, maybe wanting to repeat leogang? that must feel amazing!!

Yeah, the discounted Mezzers were a strange sight, to be honest - if I was in the market for an enduro-fork, I’d be all over them (but having a dh-bike, I don’t see the point of an enduro fork taking place up front instead of my Dorado! 😁). In the previous rumors thread, we were discussing the possibility of Manitou making a double-crown version of the Mezzer, to go along with the single crown and the Dorado. The market for such a model is there - Intend, Formula and MRP are lurking in it. Manitou has the experience of having...