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Propain Updates the Spindrift with New Colors and Build Kit Naming Convention Propain makes the Spindrift for riders who need a freeride bike that can deal with anything from a pedal-powered enduro adventure to a week in the bike park. It can be built up with a single or a dual crown fork, while still taking a regular wide-range drivetrain and a dropper post if you want it to. For 2026, Propain is giving the Spindrift some fresh new colors, and an updated naming convention that is more in line with what the bike is. The Spindrift AL comes in...

I'll never forget the "brand new" track. Barney Rubble was massive jagged rocks. By day two, we'd cracked it into rubble. Spin Cycle infuriated me day one. Just WHACK the opposite bank of a 45 degree gully. 180 & whack the other side of the ditch. Day 2, it was pure berm to berm slapping silt. I did wind up suspended upside down hanging down the ditch clipped in when a long root was loosened from the soil & captured me like something alive. Course marshall sitting there just stared and said "Haven't seen that before." Had to beg him...

At the risk.of a massive tangent it's not just the USA and it's not just cycling. Youth sport is in a mess almost everywhere.

Gotta be a different surface coating on standard aluminum, my wild speculation is WS2/tungsten disulphide based coating.

There are no words for how disappointed younger me would have been with older me. Empathy and that whole "prefrontal cortex" thing have both been pretty wild.

Imagine looking through your gear bag and choosing white pants for a day like that. More importantly, it would be super interesting if the Specialized team riders were using steel stanchions, but I feel like there's no way that can be correct. Even if they didn't care about weight, they would either be a) enormously stiffer than alloy stanchions, in a bad way, or b) require paper thin stanchion walls, new top caps and hardware, and couldn't use any of the same internal seal sizes (although I don't know if the Ohlins DH38 uses any seals that interface with the...

Using a picture of Jolanda Neff on a Trek on their promo shots, I guess that's one way to do it or did I miss a secret sponsor deal from Trek Factory.

This reminds me, and this has probably already been covered on Tech rumours to some extent (at least the product), but something that I've not really seen before is happening in BC: a Chinese brand Seekrun is paying for a translator/marketing person, as well as designing engineer (who does not speak a lick of English) to travel around BC and hand out samples of their $319 CAD wireless dropper post. It is apparently a cartridge system, and has already been picked up by S4 for Canadian distribution, as well as another distributor operating seekrun.ca. I don't think the dropper itself...

No joke, X-Lab just won two stages in the Giro d'Italia, so they're not messing around. If they're going to enter the MTB market, that's a big deal.

Maybe my example was too anecdotal. There’s always been asshole riders in my area, regardless of the bike they’re on. New people getting into the sport that mailorder their bikes, and don’t learn the rules of the trail like the good old days. Anyone remember how the shops, magazines and IMBA used to preach “the rules of the trail” to new riders? Who’s doing it now? When I’m on my Ebike, I always try to say hello to the people I pass and make conversation. I’ve always been that way. After getting one, I’ve seen the staring and subjectively bad...

sorry, it's not ebike talk, but here are pit bits photos from leogang https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/pit-bits-2026-leogang-world-cup-dow…

btw, first day back at work and had an old geezer already that was interested in the levo 4 rack, but for his gen3 levo. those things will sell…

The two rims taped together? A "lazy lace" -- swapping over existing hub & spokes to a new rim.

Tech Rumors and innovation

Surely you don't take the lift at Whistler bike park or shuttle with your buddies then? Because you're a purist, right?

I too am blown away that a $300/day elite ski resort wants to host us dirtbags again. I hope it's on the old NCS track. One of the coolest and most varied race tracks I've ever seen.

Pretty far from 97-3 ratio I'd say. The G-A-S region has always been an regional specialty when it came to performance mtb. They resisted 2x, 1x, progressive geo, real tires, to name a few things, well into the adoption phase in other markets. Being a leader in eMTB market penetration doesn't mean that they're early, more that the MTB culture is different there.