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but Dow is at 50k!

Either my internet connection or Propain's site is struggling so I can't verify, but for their other framesets they're priced as Frame + acros headset, if you want to add a shock that's additional $.

It's not all about climbing speed and fitness though, the 120/130 bikes FEEL very different on the trail. You get a lot more direct feedback and much more "snappy" behavior, which can be very rewarding if you ride them on trails that suit them. Even a light build on a capable 150 bike doesn't get anywhere near that same feeling. Of course it all depends on the terrain you ride. If you take your shorter travel bike on essentially the same kind of steep and rough trails that your 150 bike excels on, you'll just beat yourself and the bike...

Mfw I drink the SantaCruz kool aid.

So what you're saying is Downcountry isn't in your bike It's in your heart ❤️

Did those people who have given up on 148 bikes consider asymetric rims? Rims with more bracing like Flow EX3s? Carbon rims? Cushcore? Checking their spoke tension from time to time? I find it really hard to believe there's a weight limit for 148 spacing lol.

I think the accepted otherwise definition of "downcountry" is cross country bike that can go down a little better than a standard cross country bike. The "country" part of the portmanteau. ...further backed up by the geometry of most downcountry bikes being more similar to cross country bikes than to enduro or downhill bikes. ...and the parts specs on those downcountry bikes is often aimed at being lighter/faster rather than aimed at being heavy and capable of big features. Back to that pepperoni pizza analogy (adjective->noun construction of a compound noun): it's a pizza with pepperoni rather than a big...

I don't think the 5010 was ever a "downcountry" bike. I think it was always an enduro bike in short-travel-trail-bike's clothing. Tallboy was clearly that downcountry bike and Santa Cruz made that distinction pretty clear. The only reason I didn't get a 5010 as my short travel trail bike is because all the marketing material Santa Cruz put out and all their podcasts they did (Santa Cruz has a podcast called "Roller Door" that's actually pretty cool and goes deep on a lot of different SC bike-related topics) and all the reviews and all the dealers said it's not an...

Jack of two-three trades, master of none...

I agree 100%. Okay, this probably isn't true for a brand like Kavenz, which is a small niche brand targeting a small niche market. But when big brands like Trek drop multiple product lines in favor of one "Swiss Army bike," it's hard for me to read that as anything other than a cost-cutting measure and/or market hedge for the manufacturer. Ditto for a medium-sized brand like Orbea, who's able to amortize their DH bike development costs by selling heaps of enduro and ebikes on that same Rallon platform, instead of just selling a handful of dedicated DH bikes.

Santa Cruz has been pretty vocal about a dislike for flip chips for swapping wheel sizes, so I would be surprised if that happens. Their justification is mixed wheel bikes benefit from longer chainstays than their dual 29" counterparts and flip chips reduce the chainstay length when switching to a mixed wheel setup and preserving all other geometry. So you can either design a bike that rides well in in dual 29" but has a too short chainstay when in mixed wheel setup or a bike that rides well in mixed wheel but has too long of a chainstay in...

VPP is 4 bar Lets be frank here one of the biggest reasons they (and Intense) bought VPP was because Specialized had the Horst patent.

Maybe I’m drinking the marketing coolaid but I feel like you’re also paying for the R&D for how they tune their suspension and kinematics. There’s a lot of ways to configure a 4-bar so at a certain point it comes down to taste. Santa Cruz has a different suspension philosophy than Transition and some people care about that feel, others just want a bike that works. What I personally find more annoying is the move to 4-bar had also moved to Trunnion so it means I can’t move any suspension between bikes if I have shock I really like such...