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The reason flight attendant has a huge uptake in XC is because SRAM sponsored teams are required to run it. I know four different world cup athletes and they have all said they would just prefer a manual lockout. When it works properly it's alright but it's heavy and frequently has connectivity problems between all the components. It seems more casual users like it with one less thing to think about while riding and the weight doesn't matter to a more casual rider. As for trail/enduro bikes, ever wonder why every single SRAM EWS athlete stopped riding LYRIK and started...

"anti-squat and electronic suspension rumors and innovation"

Yes, but I think other people in this thread have clearly explained why those efficiencies don't offer any unique benefits to high pivot, gearbox, or idler-based designs. Yes, electronics would make high pivot, gearbox, and idler-based bikes more efficient, but at the same time they'd be making all the other bikes more efficient, too. If Dave has four apples and Lisa has six apples, and you give them both four apples, Lisa still has more apples than Dave. Now, I guess if you're saying that electronic lockouts give them both the equivalent of 100 additional apples, then I would concede...

In my observation no, nobody stands up while climbing. I came from the old school Kirt Voreis school of climbing, which says to stand up all the time to train your descending muscles. Plus I spent a ton of time on singlespeeds, because it reinforced the Voreis approach, and because it's a fun challenge in a bizarre way, but that puts you and I in a very small camp. Most people on road bikes or mountain bikes will sit 99% of the time and will pretty much only stand to descend or sprint.

Quick bit of rumor-mill news. I've had multiple off record sources tell me Cannondale may be (is) done. This jives with what we are seeing on the race team side of things. https://bikerumor.com/cannondale-factory-racing-is-done-after-2026/ My sources are not within the company, so treat it as pure speculation.

Yeah western companies don’t do that because stockholders like profits not revenue.

Iterating so quickly that your previous generation is barely out the door isn't sustainable and I think there are a lot of good reasons that established Western industries don't do it that way any more. However it seems like an effective strategy if you're trying to eat the incumbents' lunch. Be one of the upstarts flooding the market and hope you come out on top... Edit: double negative...

@jeff.brines's latest is a (somewhat grim) banger: https://open.substack.com/pub/jeffbrines/p/q2-outdoor-industry-roundup and I encourage y'all to read it. These jumped out at me: "The one thing DJI and the broader Asian push have done better than anyone is move fast and iterate faster, shipping new platforms before the last ones reach dealer floors. You cannot answer that with a committee and a two-year product cycle. The West is not losing because it cannot build. It is losing because it cannot turn fast enough, and the other side keeps accelerating." And "Trek has access to capital and is very large, but if I were...

Okay if that's what you mean then anyone with a full lockout option (e.g. a Scott) can tell you that riding on anything but a smooth surface with the suspension (especially the shock) locked is less efficient because the suspension can no longer absorb bumps so you get hung up on them by varying degrees instead. At least that's been my experience. In electronic suspension, the designer of the control system will (or should) have already taken that into account.

In short to your question, no. What electronic shifting will do is increase the efficiency of a given bike by adapting to the behaviour and lock out while pedalling (if we're talking flight attendant). For an already efficient kinematics design (around 100 % antisquat), the change will be miniscule, in my experience more or less related to added ride harshness over an open shock with a minimal change in the amount the bike bobs. For an inherently inefficient suspension design, one exhibiting a lot of pedal bob, either due to not enough antisquat (suspension compressing under power) or too much...

Sounds like someone is getting SLAPPED with a lawsuit.

Clearly this SHUSH product doesn't work great, it failed to keep Ridewrap silent.

From the article: He said he's tried to build a culture at Trek that "confronts the brutal facts," moves fast, and always seeks to learn. When people tell him he's wrong, he said, he gets curious. "I'm more interested in how we improve. I'm not interested in proving that we're right." From being on the inside the last few years, one of the biggest problems is that he has surrounded himself with yes men and ignored what the people he employs have suggested across various choices and has done little to show he was responsible for the bad decisions. With...

I also read 52 books last year! Well, I didn't exactly read each book all the way through. But I read the title on the spine, and if it sounded promising, I looked at the pictures on the cover and read the rest of the book jacket.

Their reaction to the covid boom may have been reactionary.. Orders started hitting the factories in Taiwan and if you didn't step up your orders, you were operating with a fear of not having bikes..

I love how you kind of disproved the validity of his book scanning method. You got a different impression scanning vs reading the article in full. These CEO thought leader types always need to come up with a new method to do everything. It can't just be "I read a book" It needs to be some systematic time saving "get to the inspiring business strategy defining point/lesson quote" now so I can make and excel entry admission. Just read the paragraphs man.

You called it a few months ago about DJI and others getting rid of the rest of the bike components (drivetrain). The new Avonix MGU with a belt... damn the future came quick.

Maybe, or maybe they didn’t have the in house expertise and scale to pull it off. SRAM sure missed the mark with their PT e-bike motors. The EP801 is almost quite good but missed on stupid external wires, displays and battery tech, not to mention durability woes with the prior gen. DJI is reportedly about twice the size of Shimano, 4x the size of SRAM, and is likely to increase this gap substantially. DJI started with far more in house expertise in all this stuff. A bike MGU is child’s play compared to the Agras T50 agricultural drone. So many...

"if you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will"

As a person in the bike indusrty for 30+ years, Owned a bike store for 6 years, And has owned 5 Yeti's one of which is still my favorite bike my 2021 SB 160E still going strong. Today was eye opening! The MGU and CVT is real. DJI is not a copycat, And will eat the big 3 bikes brands lunch now. And the sixfinaty Yeti pedal bike is around the corner. Weird day..