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I half wrote an essay before realising it was more of a rant; essentially I think the power wars risk breaking the social contract of responsible land use, where I live we have very small woods and they’re intensively used for recreation. The tacit agreement is that you’re allowed to do you there under your own power, no dirt bikes, no quads etc. If this is perceived to be broken because you can razz around on fire road climbs at 20mph then I reckon land managers will just ban bikes altogether because it would be too difficult to only ban...

I agree with both points (mandatory licensing with training classes and banning "in-between" mobility devices), and I think your arguments are well-reasoned and practical. However, I have zero confidence that your wonderful and simple solutions will be will implemented, and instead I predict an insane hodgepodge of jurisdictions, conflicting standards, and varying degrees of enforcement.

This Just In! Stark Motorcycles is going to be joining the MTB world with its EBike Called the Stark “NotaMoto”. This ebike has 80 horse power and a gear box. Apparently they made the decision to join the bike industry after one of the executives said- “ I mean its all bullshit. You can buy an ebike from Specialized at the same price as our motorcycles. But with like 1/1000th the power. We should just put mountain bike wheels on a Varg and just sell it to them. Theyre just in denial that they want a motorcycle and want to...

I've heard about that. It's Enduro that's willing to give up its right to vote in order to disappear and be protected from the horrors happening to other racing genres. Right?

I think there was a Vital forum topic a while back about what people wanted to see out of E-Bike development. What you've described was a really popular concern for many, myself included. But to beat a dead horse... Right now e-bikes are like computers, which are essentially expensive garbage after a few years of use. Maybe even worse than computers as you can at least repurpose or repair computers. The cynical part of my mind thinks the planned obsolescence inherent to e-goods is what "the industry" has come up with to keep money flowing now that pedal bikes are...

I don't want to come off as angry or pretentious, but I find what's going on with Avinox and the Spesh "class 2" emtb disgusting. I'm curious how the people at traditional bike companies feel about what they're helping proliferate into our world for all of the people who created and maintain the trails (mostly volunteers like myself) to contend with. How conflicted are they? Between the general financial malaise in the industry, 32" wheels nobody truly seems excited about, and the unprincipled embrace of avivox/DJI/amflow, what is general morale like? Conversely, and assuming everyone there isn't also yelling at...

Just give it a thumb throttle and call it a day. 800% "Assist" is just a joke. When the motor is doing more than 50% of the work you are being pushed. You are cosplaying a cyclist. These bikes shouldn't be called pedal assist, they should be called CosPeds.

I think it's just a "the bike came like this and I have no reason to change it" thing in most cases. However I'd guess if you're in the market for new suspension, any reasons you might choose Brand XYZ for the fork probably apply to the shock too, or vice-versa. One of my bikes has a RS SDU Coil in place of a blown-up Fox X2, but there was no reason to replace the Fox fork. They both contain Vorsprung parts, though, so maybe I still have matched suspension.

One challenge with low volume apparel is amortizing the development cost. Soft goods sometimes cost more to develop than hard goods as it's a ton of labor making patterns, sewing up samples, testing, reworking the protos, repeat this several times, then have the factory make a few pre-production samples to make sure they interpreted your tech pack correctly. You also need to validate for durability (all brands do this, right? RIGHT?). It's as much voodoo as it is hard science, which means lots of back and forth. Yes, we give them CAD files for patterns, but it's still all hand...

Just a Concussion Hayden Wright and Jaimi Parr Far too often, the phrase “ just a concussion ” is used to downplay the severity of head injuries sustained in crashes. A knock to the head is frequently considered minor—especially when compared to broken bones or torn ligaments. But the reality is far more complex. In early 2025 long-time contributor Hayden Wright experienced a crash, resulting in a concussion that brought with it symptoms which persisted for months. Though invisible to others, the effects were deeply debilitating, with impacts noticed through every part of day-to-day life. In search of answers and...

I just spun this up; gives you some idea where we might be.

Just added a new post to my substack for those interested. Here is the synopsis... The Bad (mostly covered here) • The factories in Taiwan are getting way fewer orders. • Canyon full year 2025: revenue down 7%, EBITDA down 34% • Knolly news (see above) - one thing I didn't mention is the mechanics here. Getting your LOC called sucks, and it extra sucks when your business has been contracting. I do wonder what the business actually looks like, how big the delta was (how much cash did they need) and if they were forecasting a profitable year. I...