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It doesn't matter as much on the way up, but it certainly does on the way down. Heavy bikes are less agile and take more effort to move around. When speeds are below a certain threshold, a heavy bike just won't handle that well. Changing direction on a 50lb bike vs. a 30lb bike is a noticeable difference in effort. When speeds go up, you're generally riding or looking the straighter open lines that don't require as much input.

True Core isn't discussed, claimed, or performative. It just is. Anyone that claims to be core, isn't. Anyone talking about what is or is not core, isn't. Anyone that puts any effort into being core, isn't. Core just doing it for the love of it with zero concern for whatever is going on around you. Unfortunately for us in here neither age, experience, knowledge, or riding ability, makes us core. I would surmise that there are very few true core people out there in the rest of the world, and they likely don't care about receiving the title if they...

I do enjoy seeing those kind of topics come up, and I think that there can't be a definitive answer. Being "core" depends on everyone's point of view since there is no fixed point of view on that. But I do think that there are some basic "core" values related to mountain biking, as there are core values in the hardcore music scene for example. Core MTB values that help the community stay fun : respect the trail work, respect other riders and their skillset, be courteous in the trails and help build trails if you can.

I don't think confirmation bias is exclusive to bosch owners.....

Completely agree. Someone at some point made the same observation when comparing mountain bikes from 1990 to 2010. Today I would prefer to ride the 2010 bike myself, but 6 year old me wouldn't have compiled enough experience to care as long as the tires weren't flat. Youth E-MTBs are for the parents, not the kids.

Beware the guy at the group ride who claims to be coming off the couch.

How did we ever have fun riding bikes as kids before batteries and motors? What a terrible childhood I must have had.

The riders are NOT earning more due to the WB deal. Overall they are getting the much the same, while as the teams have to fork out more to even be present there will be less riders getting paid moving forward. The UCI is getting paid vastly more, but that increase is NOT translating into more money from the UCI into mountain biking. It's a con job by a bloated corpulent and corrupt organization frankly.

John Tomac is widely considered one of the greatest (American) mountain bike racers of all time. During the early years of international racing he won numerous DH and XC events. He went on to be the namesake and involved with Tomac bikes. The 204 DH frame in the photo was their flagship model. The bike company then ceased to exist (in the late 2000s?). I also believe he helped coach several (a lot?) of racers over the years including Aaron Gwin for a time. Finally, if you’re into motocross, he is the father of Eli Tomac. Basically, John Tomac was...

Wow. Seeing a Tomac 205 with a belt drive gearbox wasn’t on my bingo card this year.

When I saw your post about Accell Group going into insolvency, I thought Diamondback would be one of the brands listed in the insolvency agreement alongside Raleigh. I remembered Accell owning Diamondback (another brand that we've observed to be struggling mightily in this thread), but I didn't see it on the list in the Reuters or BikeBiz.com articles about the recent insolvency agreement for Accell. Turns out Accell sold Diamondback and Redline (their US businesses) way back in 2019. Even if Accell still have a Diamondback landing page on their website: This is all a surprise to me. I either...

Even before e-bikes took over, the Blackcomb zone was getting overrun with riders. Indiscriminate riding there in the mud or dust bowl conditions unfortunately. That zone has a bunch of "black" loam that doesn't do well in the wet. I've lost interest in riding there but fortunately there are seemingly infinite options in the Whistler valley for high quality, long descents.

Stop using AI for frivolous shit.

Guy who owns bike company trashes competitors bike. Shocking.

Three gears in the front and seven in the back could be the perfect ratio for mountain biking! It's almost like it would give you three different gear "ranges" using the front shifter- one for climbing, one for descending, and one for everything in between. And the chain alignment could be so much straighter without having to pack all your gears onto one super wide cassette. I wonder why no one's thought of that yet? I can't think of any downsides.

Reece absolutely has the worst bike setup of anyone in the senior men's ranks, and the only thing I learned from his second place at Andorra is that he's even more talented than I realized. Random question: does anyone know what tires Jordan was running? Seems like the Specialized team are on Cannibals 90% of the time unless it's a mudder, but I'm wondering if they maybe switched to a front or rear Hillbilly for the super loose conditions at Andorra.

As someone who's won and lost bike races, I think there's something to be said for that old saying. When I was racing, I always kept that phrase in mind when I was processing my nerves about a high risk section, especially the gnarly gaps that only the gnarliest riders were doing in practice. Hitting all the gnarly lines is a great way to win practice, but at Andorra, for instance, Jackson Goldstone was the only rider that I saw doing that super gnarly gap in the bottom third of the track (same rock section where Amaury ate shit and...