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I hear you, understanding consumer precarity matters, and I agree that headline metrics like GDP don’t capture the lived reality for many households. Consumers absolutely can’t participate in discretionary categories like cycling if they feel unstable. Where I diverge a bit is in the framing of “overwhelming suffering and lack of opportunities.” I don’t want to minimize anyone’s challenges, consumer stress is real, and unevenly distributed, but relative to almost any point in history, opportunity, access, and quality of life are still comparatively high. That context matters. If we overcorrect the narrative, we risk drawing conclusions or building models that...

Not a racer but Sam Pilgrim is very high profile but off monster.

Yes, I think annual threads is the format I would also prefer. As others have pointed out, this thread specifically thrives on a healthy mix of actual tech rumors and lighthearted banter / memes. But for that, the conversation needs some sort of continuity. To get that continuity, but also not eat up too many resources on the Vital servers, I think yearly servers would be the best solution.

Quick question @sspomer not that I want to delve into vitalmtb's business here... but is thread qty important to vitals business/website and a contributing factor to this? I think all of us would agree that this website/community is important to us... so if there are things that need to change or things we're doing that are impacting the site's success, we would want to play by a rule set that facilitates that. Otherwise, if there is a way to have annual, or monthly tech rumors threads and that cuts down on resource consumption, and still achieves the business goals/metrics for...

Norco Old Men Army then? I don't think so. Dak to scott.

The new Hardline venue is a bit farther south in BC than Squamish......back to team rumors!!!! Dak to Norco - would be a good fit and the program would suit him I think

I personally think it's a transition period for Gwin. He's not as competitive as he once was, let's face it. Prime Gwin wouldn't touch Hardline imo, he would just go and try to win WCDHs. Now he probably feels the need to get a bit more exposure/provide more value for his sponsors? He did mention in a podcast/video that he is going all out for 2026, so we'll see.

From what I’ve seen of Winrock, looks like a cool bike park but don’t think it’s Hardline worthy. Jackson Goldstone mentioned earlier this season he had the perfect track for a Hardline event around the Squamish BC area.

The counterpoint to this, is that having giant threads declutters the forum. I like the balance of the "The Hub" showing the ten(ish) large but active threads and then the rest being smaller ephemeral topics that are based on news or more specific topics. For example the tire nerd thread is split between real tire discussion and then posts from people asking "which tire should I use for X bike in Y location?" - if those turn into individual threads I certainly won't be reading & engaging in them. I like that I can open Vital, get to the threads...

This is the way. Rename the v2 Tech Rumors thread to 2026 Tech Rumors, pin it, close it on Dec 31, 2026. Rinse and repeat. Kinda similar on the MTBR NorCal forum that I also inhabit, there is a monthly thread dedicated to ride reports (and all their tangents and side conversations). Works really well and is easy to navigate/manage.

Honestly the best format was the yearly. I think the single thread is ideal for rumors to start the discussion, then have it break out to individual. The BIG thread got bad, but the yearly thread was dialed. Just like race talk and team rumors. I get the web resource thing, so swapping it every year works. Also great for a recap every year/5/10 to see how bikes have developed. So my vote is yearly generic thread for discussion to break out to other subjects.

Don't worry everyone: I already had a meeting planned with @sspomer this afternoon, so I'll be sure to tell him on all of your behalf what a terrible person he is and how we're not mad, just disappointed.

The downvotes on the previous page agree... V2 thread for the next 5-6 years.

please look at him like this when you tell him:

@sspomer I totally get your decision from a web resourcing point of view. Things get really expensive really quick when you need to tack on more power. A lot of cloud hosting providers price exponentially instead of linearly. That being said, I think not pinning a v2 and keeping this way of chatting about rumors is a mistake. This thread works because it allows for banter along side rumors I wouldn't ever care about. Prime example is the Santa Cruz Vala, a bike I have negative interest in. However that did prompt the carcinization of bike suspension discussion (that prompted...

Crabification, forum edition. I'm honestly just thankful that there is still a place to discuss things that are meaningful, that are not facebook groups. Thanks to all for staying committed to the gen x/millennial form of endangered internet discourse that is the forum.

As someone who just doesn’t have the time to scroll through the front page of the Hub for new and interesting posts/threads all the time, I can’t say I’m overly excited about this decision. I really liked having the most interesting topic all neatly packed up into one single thread, which I could follow and catch up with the discussion every once in a while. Won’t be as easy and convenient for me to follow under the new format.

So after six years of Sspomer and other users redirecting non-tech rumour talk to individual threads (brake discussion, chain stay circlejerk, etc), Sspomer has now redirect ALL talk to individual threads. Damn.

Or multiquote