All

On this, July 24th, I present to you the optimal wheel size. Not 32", but 54"!

Agree. If you have spent any real time on the SID you'll know it's no Pike when it comes to damping quality. The chassis is fine but the damper gets a bit overwhelmed when in proper chunk. I have a SID equipped bike and it's awesome in the right terrain but it'll let you know when it's not happy. There is still a place for the Pike, especially with the weight gain of the latest Lyric.

All this drivetrain efficiency/Gearbox discussion is making me think about the joy I get from riding my singlespeed.

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.

@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...

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.

I mean it just came off as your typical fortune mag ceo jerk off interview. I will agree with and give props to trek’s investment in female athletes. Vali, Rachel, neff, Mosley. They have no issue funding around a female first and men second in mtb racing. for me reading the article explains a lot of how trek ended up in the shape it is today. But I agree burke doesn’t seem like a bad guy. But he is pretty full of himself and his views on things that ain’t got nothing to do with bikes. A couple of which...

What you are seeing is not necessarily indicative of a poor ebike market but rather, given what we know about Trek and Specialized right now, perhaps indicative of misforecasting and grossly overordering on product on the assumption there would not be an outdoor goods market correction as bad as what we've seen. In other words, they just ordered too much shit based on 2020-2022 numbers, which took way too long to arrive, and its biting them in the ass. I'm sure had Trek sold through the number of Rail+s they anticipated there's no chance they'd still be shipping bikes with...

They aren't stupid, but many top execs in the industries I worked in just don't care about long term. The "let's crush this quarter's numbers and land a massive bonus today because tomorrow, we may not be here" is the name of their game.