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Just going off of 'site sponsors' for Vital and Pinkbike: Ari: Budget I guess? Cannondale: more road for PON Ibis: small, but maybe getting their lunch eaten by other 'small' brands. Intense: probably continues with USA focus. Seems like odd things going on there for the past while but they are still surviving. Kona: I would be concerned, but they were just bought back Mondraker: doesn't seem super big here in Canada Niner: RIP (pun intended) Norco: Oddly medium-sized, but they do own a distribution company in Canada so that may help with the budget Pivot: small enough Polygon: not...

Not to totally rip off Bicycle Retailer but their home page is full of interesting stories I missed right now... -Amazon to stop selling e-bikes that exceed 28mph in CA (no more Surrons via Amazon) -Giant reports April sales (3%) -GoPro sale or merger being considered (how'd I miss this!? Wild! Insta360+DJI ate their lunch) -Leatt continues to crush; sales up 27% y/y in Q1. -Merida and Ideal sales down (14%) and (22%) respectively y/y

Niner shutting shop shouldn't surprise anyone. They haven't done anything relevant in near a decade. Geo and aesthetics for their full sus platforms are very much off the back. That they lasted as long as they did was always a wonder to me.

Side point, but after talking to a number of brands and shops, one thing keeps standing out: e-MTB is no longer a side quest (even if you aren't amflow). I know this is a big "duh" to those in Europe, but for me (a long time analog bike guy) its a stark reminder things have changed. I have three brands telling me off the record e bikes drive over half the company's revenue. If you don’t have a real e-MTB story right now (like Niner), you’re making yourself harder for shops to justify carrying. From the shop’s perspective, they can...

It looks like a bicycle

I rode hammershcmidt I love tech and the idea of a gearbox, But seriously, did anyone even try the last Shimano front derailer that was essentially a bombproof idiotproof chainguide? It was so good, just about two years too late. These things can’t touch that for weight and simplicity Someone told me a while back that while the rear deraillier shouldn’t have lasted, it’s now been refined so far that it’s actually is the best way to shift a human powered gear cluster Personally I’d like to se pinion refine that set up a couple more times, and a high...

I think aerodynamic fairings are banned but this one’s “to facilitate maintenance during race operations.”

Didn’t VPP only exist to get around the FSR patent?

I think the funniest thing is all the chatter about how loose and rocky South Korea was. Can you imagine a Deer Valley track in late summer/early fall when it hasn’t rained in two months and you put a few hundred WC racers down it for four days?

Whichever bike has the best damper tune specced probably wins at that point. I'm pretty sure that's a big deciding factor between bikes with different linkage designs also though. You would need control wheels, and tires at a minimum, and probably drivetrain also to get any useful data about which frame works better.

You mean chainstays?

This might help with placing it in history

yeah I prefer this to arguing about brake mounting standards tbh

I don't buy Ford because of the Michigan Supreme Court's decision in the 1919 case Dodge v. Ford Motor Company.

To me Enduro is the most interesting and all skills encompassing form of mtb racing. It's just that bike racing (other than Tour de France, which I love watching) as a whole is difficult to package and translate to the TV screen for the masses to enjoy.

People also just get bored of one thing. We've been riding enduro bikes for years now. I ride exactly the same trails as I used to on the fleet of enduro bikes I've had over the years, but now I do it on an optic built like an enduro bike (but with 140/125 travel). Same trails, different dynamics. lots of market lost to e-bikes obviously but for the rest, it'll come back around I think.

In Western Canada Roberts composites is good. I've used them twice; both times service was great and you can't tell there was a repair. https://robertscomposites.com/

This is a receivership sale, they are legally obliged to sell everything that isn't bolted down for whatever they can get for it. (Being bolted down probably doesn't even exclude it, let's be honest) They've obviously just walked into the Knolly premises, photographed EVERYTHING and set a nominal price for it.

Having browsed every item they have in the auction (tempted to buy myself the contents of a room for $30) I'm not sure I see millions of dollars worth of stock there and the entirety of their IP was a convoluted suspension design to avoid paying Horst link royalties. Lowball 'em! That said if you need someone on the ground in BC, I'm in.