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based on interview w/ amaury in wyntv, didn't realize elite men have the first practice at 830am local time tomorrow. that's SO early LOL. curious if the "cutting in the track" strategy works. also vali at around 32:30 discussing rider field #'s and team expenses etc is interesting. she implies that she and andi kolb as rider reps are pushing for bigger finalists fields but that request is falling on deaf ears.

Fresh B Practice chit-chat for ya! We recorded this morning and chatted a bunch about Dak's ongoing search for comfort this season, his outlook heading into this weekend's race, plus a bunch of bench racing about tracks, poles vs. tape, head-to-head DH racing, and a few other topics that I can't remember 🤓 YouTube is still uploading, but I'll drop it here as it should populate once it's done -

Ghoul it is!

Looks like Yeti ended up with the YT race truck. The railing and curved awning give it away.

Haha, yeah that was me! I saw it again two weeks ago, it was full of telemetry devices this time. I asked when it was coming out and the guy tried to tell me it was a Pivot this time 'round. Can't imagine how it doesn't get released later this summer/fall as a '27 model considering how tidy it currently looks and the fact they are riding it at high noon on the most popular trail network in the Golden. Might need to just post up in the bushes with a camera next time...

The three World Cup DH races at Loudenvielle have had 3 different winners in both the Women’s and Men’s Elite division. 2023: Höll and Bruni 2024: Nicole and Coulanges 2025: Hemstreet and Goldstone Notes: Höll has also finished 2nd twice. Bruni has finished 4th and 15th in his other 2 races at Loudenvielle. Nicole finished 12th in 2025. She missed the 2023 race due to concussion. Coulanges finished 16th and 23rd in the other 2 races. Hemstreet’s other finish was 8th in 2023. She didn’t qualify for finals in 2024. Goldstone came in 4th in 2023. He missed the 2024...

This is the day I've been waiting for, too bad I love my mezzer and have literally no reason to upgrade. Some owners of current gen forks have experienced fit and finish issues with the o rings on the air spring side, sometimes needing to swap for a different size on a couple seals to reduce stiction. Manitou probably wants to guarantee that the air spring will work more effectively for a broader range of climates and users. The IRT system does add an additional seal and opportunity for stiction compared to a mainstream air spring. Air backed bladder is...

It's not, thankfully, Blister has a photo of it on their review below. It looks like it's a short spring (5mm) that preloads the piston to get it moving https://blisterreview.com/gear-reviews/manitou-mezzer-mezzer-lt-gen-2

As somebody else just said, thankfully, it’s not that because when DVO had their OTT, which if you were the correct rate was pretty awesome actually, it made a ton of noise and you would break it quite often if you needed to change any settings on it(I always had to run it at the max sensitivity). Otherwise it would break if you had positive air pressure on it. This fork looks super cool and I really hope we see it on more bikes going forward.

I had heard rumors they were going USD on the v2, guess those weren't true. Still, sounds like some changes to the air spring (spring backed? is this like DVO / SR Suntour's spring negative they used to use?) and damper (wtf is air backed bladder?). Love the polished crown, though. The prototypes were fully polished and looked awesome, cool to see them at least partly return to that

The anticipated updates to the Manitou Mezzer are finally being uncovered. https://road.cc/offroad/tech-news/manitous-updated-mezzer-gen-2-suspens… Edit- PB also has their photo album up. https://www.pinkbike.com/u/HayesPerformanceSystems/album/Manitou-Mezzer…

Have not noticed any significant drag on my OneUp hubs but keeping that in the back pocket as an excuse the next time I'm last up the climb on a group ride.

I appreciate your perspective as a motorcycle and car nut from age 13 on. I just want to point out that one of the key difference between vehicles being overpowered and bikes being overpowered... is that when you get a speeding ticket, disorderly conduct ticket (display of power) or wreck your car, they don't close off access to the roads to everyone. They just take away your license, impound your vehicle and/or throw you in jail. There is no mechanic for that in the trail space and thus what happens is that the easy answer is to just remove the...

Any thoughts from the group on the Avinox statement re: power? See the Bikeradar coverage here Struck me as a bit tone deaf and flippant to many valid concerns about regulations, trail access, and how they view the market now and in the future.

Mullet trail bikes will often climb so well before the effective gear is smaller. Depending on where you are it can be a wee benefit. So far as push saying no to building shocks they don’t think would work well for the application? I don’t get how that’s unhelpful, it’s probably the opposite. Building something you don’t think will meet your own standards or performance goals seems like a recipe for poor experience and service.

The current Range VLT is great. 50 lbs, 170/160, good kinematics for solid pop and jive yet still with a high pivot (mid pivot) that lets you plow. I like that for the 50lb mark. The prior gen range VLT at 60 lbs was a good mauler at 180/170 but not much fun to throw around. I’d love to keep full power 170/160 but shave it down to 45 lbs.

75nm is a light ebike now. Wow i need to process this

Might be one in the minority here, but I always like having a bit narrower field of view for videos like this. Having the nearly 180 degree vertical fov and extreme fish eye affect because of it is off putting to me, and part of the reason I hate 360 degree cameras being used for pov shots. Great riding and love the follow cam for the stage though!

One thing missing here is the fact that with the proliferation of composite know how, there are more people around able to safely repair a wider range of issues. Rather than pretending we are recycling carbon bikes I’d love to see more frames designed in ways that facilitate repair. Repair is verifiable in a way that recycling is not, it is cost effective for everyone concerned, and it is as close as you’ll get to good for the environment. It probably flows on to other design decisions to ensure repair is viable (like bearing placement, etc etc), but designing bikes...