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This is why I get yelled at by customers at work because their month old full sus E-bike that they ride around the city is skipping in the small cog.

apparently some guy mated a new front triangle to a balfa bb7 rear. pretty cool! (image found on fb):

There was a mas exodus of competent staff to greener pastures/alternative industries over COVID because it was probably the worst time our lifetime to be a bike shop employee (in the sense that this is a 'lifestyle' industry and most competent people could be making more using their competencies elsewhere and COVID sucked 95% of the fun and perks away). While the industry is still 'down', I'd have to think an experienced wrench could get picked up without too much issues these days in anticipation of service and general spring recovery. In my locale almost all the seasoned vets are...

Sorry... it always sucks. I don't believe in the silver lining bullshit stuff, but things will get better. The only thing that sucks worse than working for a PE is working for a publicly traded company, we're reduced to numbers in quarterly SEC reports.

@TayRob sorry about the bad news. Been (am) there! Maybe we should start a bike industry job thread where we post up positions and people like TayRob can throw up their resume. Probably too low of a volume, and I know other sites exist for this? I like to think the color one can garner via forums like this adds a little special something, but maybe I'm wrong. As to this question, Fox seems completely healthy. I did a pretty thorough analysis a few quarters back, but nothing stood out as being problematic. They seem to have really good management...

That super duper sucks. Sorry man. Do you get two weeks or a severance package, or just "bye" in email form?

I'm so sorry, what a crappy thing to go through ☹️

Hey ! First: Tayrob that's some nasty news to get on a Tuesday morning Hope you'll get through it ! (makes you realise how lucky one can be to get a decent and stable job but also that nothing's granted. Seems quite brutal on the other side of the pond too...) Second: What's the current health of FOX Racing Shox ? They seemed to have vastly reduce their involvement on the DH scene lately (Gwin racing, IFR, Commencal Muc-Off, now Mondraker also (Or I have not understood well this one ?))... Some heavy hitters have switched to the competition...

first off, condolences. shitty way to be let go. glad to hear you at least got some severance. second - trying to read the tea leaves of what it means the spesh is pulling back / giving up on d2c after only a couple years.

@TayRob bummer to hear. that sucks.

If Trek hadn’t put all their eggs in the Armstrong-worship basket 20 years ago, they’d probably still have functioning steel and aluminum production lines in house, like they did before they fully embraced the concept of 4 different levels of imported carbon for everyone…

What Neko is doing is not comparable to what Zink is “doing”. Neko has been open from conception whereas Zink has just turned up with a frame. I’d wager most would buy a Frameworks if they could. A Zink, I’m not so sure… The dude can FreeSlope with the best, but “design” a bike…

No offense, but my hunch is that a $900 no-name dual crown for Surrons probably rides like a $900 no-name dual crown for Surrons. If you want to jump on that grenade to find out for the rest of us, I salute you, but I don't imagine RFloXa is killing themselves to sort out the finer points of suspension dynamics for the mostly beginner, mostly pavement-pounder Surron market in the same way that Fox, RS, EXT, or others in the high-end MTB space do.

I know there is a 2 year exclusivity for specialized and fox for the genie. I just can’t remember what they said happens after that. It could be that speci will loop rockshox in at that point, so we could theoretically be seeing or will see a rockshox genie either being tested or going to market. Again, I can’t remember how the speci/fox genie exclusivity thing works