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I think the biggest innovations in this sport will not be the bikes but culture, trail resources, and community building. biggest innovations in terms of bikes is I expect the big brands to start making some really affordable and high quality bikes for kids. I Expect budget parts to get more affordable. The same way a zee drive train was very affordable 10 years later I expect shimano deore to only get more affordable in time as wages increase and other tech is competing against it. Expect cues to start getting used by product managers especially in the more value...

sam hill 2006 world champ and charlie hatton 2023 world champ, basically same bike? #weaglewouldgo : )

Yes and no. I think we've reached a pretty significant plateau in terms of what I would call "real" performance-based innovation, which is where I predict it's going to start getting weird. Plateaus create stagnant markets, and companies do weird things to survive in stagnant markets. I think we're going to see a lot of "innovations" in the MTB market as opposed to what I'd call real innovations, where companies create problems and then sell you the solution to those problems. One-piece stems and handlebars, headset cable routing, PF bottom brackets, even the new Trek SuperCaliber are great examples of...

We'd probably all be surprised at how much room there is left for improvement in suspension. The majority of bike companies didn't start using data acquisition or accurate models of suspension performance until relatively recently. When your test riders are telling you the bike is "stable" or "not hooking up" or "pinballing through a section" or "sitting too deep in the travel" having some numbers to benchmark their input is extremely valuable. Plus, there's a relationship between suspension and geometry that often goes overlooked. Bikes are a system. When people say that high pivot bikes feel twitchy mid-corner or unpredictable...

In 1997 I bought a Barracuda XXXC, I was adamant mtb tech would not get any more advanced than this bike, they designed it in CAD for gods sake! 25 odd years later, how wrong was I.... things will always develop (in a good or bad way) to some extent, materials, manufacturing processes, reliability, geometry etc. Where I think things will head in the short term, chainstays will get longer again (thank god) and E-mtb tech will advance at a rapid rate. I still think geo will get wilder, but won't be a massive leap like we have seen in...

Fokk Specialized. They get much bigger and murderously corporate, they'll buy up your mortgage and try to foreclose on you.

RED BULL MEDIA HOUSE...please make your own series! Call it the RedBull Hardline Cups!. Just create a "database" of racers by paying Seb of Roots & Rain to crunch the numbers & you'll have every single UCI racer in your database. Run 3 categories & start moving them up through the ranks. Let Seb hire his own staff to do it. Screw paying a mega-corporation to swallow our sport. They're going to dump our sport within 3 years because it won't hit their target profit margin. Act NOW!!!!

Hahaha we recorded a fresh B Practice Pod this morning chatting about U.S. Natty Champs, and we talked about the front tire test a bit. I had to give Dak credit for hyping up Vee tires since we all liked the Attack HPL. But turns out he's never ridden that tire and always runs the Attack FSX. Go figure! He said he likes the FSX because it reminds him of a DHR II. Also, the podcast will go live sometime in the next few hours.

What's your all-time 1st favorite tire? And we tested a 2.6", I just updated the article to reflect that. The weight shown is for 2.6" as well. Thanks for the catch!

Great test. I have found the Mazza to be my all-time 2nd favorite tire, ahead of all these other competitors. As a control I decided to test the Assagai again and just pulled it off after 3 rides, as it just didn't have the traction and feel I wanted. I'd also add that the Mazza rolls better than an Assagai. Question: You pictured a 2.6 Mazza, but the specs above say it's the 2.4. Which is it? Thx!

They should have let him compete alone.

Bernard Kerr is TEAM ROBOT's consensus 2023 Hardline World Champion for being the first (and only?) one to do a full practice run in those windy and wet conditions, including both 90 foot gaps. Give him the gold medal.

When I see bikes like that (and the new Pivot, Demo, intense etc.) it makes me appreciate what Neko is doing with Frameworks even more.

Can you imagine being the miserly peasant who pulls up with a fugly GX $1000 electronic drivetrain on your Class 1 moped when all the other dentists & influencers are running full on carbon Class 3's with nothing but the best Transmission.