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It's obvious Trump & co are doing oodles of gross stuff. But unless this is just a money grab that will go nowhere, they are still trying to solve a problem. And it is a problem. Recently (tariff wars) we were unable to buy magnets for our products because the Chinese government had to confirm the release of them for every customer. You can imagine the burecrautic gridlock that caused. But buying complete rotors or complete motors? Not a problem. Just to ensure more margin stayed in China. The situation has since gotten better and you can again buy raw...

Note that Orson Scott Card (who wrote Ender's Game, about using child soldiers to fight aliens) turned out to be one of these neo fascists like the Dilbert guy. You can bet that the guys for that VC are all about deregulation...

"Is the state of manufacturing in the US really that bad that a company, backed by the most important VC firm achieving 30 million motors per year is an achievement?" I'm not in a great position to comment on the annual global production of drone motors, but I can tell you that yes, the state of manufacturing in the US is pretty bleak. By one measure, China's manufacturing sector accounts for roughly 26% of their GDP, Japan is at 25%, Germany is 18%, but in the US that share is only 9% of GDP and continuing to trend downward annually...

It’s not. I don’t wanna ever have to have a relationship anyone in the warranty department. I just like my things to work well for years.

Man I’m shocked at the discussion this thing is generating. This bike looks GREAT

I miss external cable routing so much. Remember swapping rear brakes at a race in five minutes or less? Thank you, Norco. Hopefully others will follow.

External cable routing! heck yeah

I'll tell you one thing it is, way cheaper to buy in Canada! $2800 CAD vs. $2999 USD, that's close to $1000 difference!

New cable XT and Deore drivetrains for Shimano on the new Orbea Oiz. Looks like they use the new clutch style like on the new DI2 derailleurs...

If you don’t like the torrent DH, the bottle rocket and the Marin quake you might not have kids who are regularly sending their carcasses— emulating Everything they see on YouTube— I do have kids. They don’t quite send yet…. but my fellow parents that have high school aged kids that send ( like what the fuck!! These “kids” are sending seriously raw lines, maybe not heavy af but the youth are currently charging hard everywhere and always ) are always pleased to see much cheaper, and aluminum frames that aren’t going to break the demographic for these “ not...

The Torrent isn't for bike nerds. It's for people that set it and forget it and spend their day lapping A-Line and Dirt Merchant. And for that purpose, the Torrent sounds like a perfect bike. Simple, reliable (hopefully) and affordable.

I will probably get flamed for this, and will offer the caveat that I have only been skimming this page, but I feel like these bikes are great propositions and are in my eyes cool bikes because they’re made to be cheap and practical workhorses for younger demographics that don’t have as much disposable income and want a playful park bike that they can maintain themselves. Maybe I’m just haven’t been following the thread well enough, but I don’t see why the ebike bit is necessary to explain the appeal. Not everyone can afford bougie boutique racing machines, or ebikes...

That's a hot take on things. A lot of us don't care if a bike is inside the box or outside it, we just want it to be a good time. Oh, and pretty much all mountain bikers are uncool. That's fine with me, I don't really like the cool people anyway.

I think there's a business case to be made for lower-cost park bikes now that many peoples' primary bikes are eMTBs. Back in the day, my cohort of friends had a trail bike and a DH bike. Later, I feel like it became an enduro bike and a lighter trail bike (aka downcountry). Now, I imagine a lot of mountain bikers' pairings will either be a park bike and an eMTB, or a XC bike and an eMTB.

Not trying to be argumentative but I do completely disagree with that first point. Quake... MAYBE, but anybody wanting to race I think will look elsewhere. The bottlerocket is blatantly marketed as not a race bike. I guess the status DH isn't talked about but I think its a sleeper sick bike. Maybe because there's one at my LBS that's for sale for 3k out the door. The industry needs as many cheap aluminum double crown bikes as it can handle. Bike park laps on these types of bikes is in my opinion the purest form of the sport. Just...

enhance that serial code!

I've always maintained that if you had to pay for your Gopro, I don't want to see your shit.