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That's the new Instinct, which keeps the same layout as the current one but dropping the shared frame of the Altitude should drop it a few pounds. I've got a new Altitude on the way and its rad AF

What? I think it looks great. More importantly they mentioned the move to having all links containing bearings. I know someone mentioned that before they used bushings in one of the links and it would cause a lot of stiction.

https://knollybikes.com/collections/bikes/products/endorphin-6-0

Ibis bike owner group mentioned new ripmo coming 1st march 24 (if not in december)

Convergence of ideas. The look of the Aeris is an evolution of the Aeris 145 which was unveiled in 2017. Aeris 9 was the first bike with a completely new tubeset, before that the 145/AM (same bike, but AM comes with the 160 link), 120, AM9 and both Aether 7 and 9 used the same tubeset. And the general layout is also the same. Yeah, they look insanely similar. But I'd say it's a looks like a session situation.

Not full SC, but not dissimilar

Same. When MTB sizing used to be 13/15/17/19 & 17" was considered medium, shops would try to fit me on 19" bikes. I'd test ride and it sucked. I was like a damn number 7. Reached the grips but legs straight & couldn't get the seat out of my balls. Most recently was on a 2018 Kona Process 153SE Medium. 450mm reach felt "good" but still awkward somehow. I still hate full 29er geometry & mullet trail bikes feel argumentative the way they handle. So I broke the Kona & that lousy, cheap, woke company charged me $1450 for a...

I love that the bike fit thumbnail photo is a slalom racer (Is that Brian Lopes?) railing on a bike that might be <400 mm reach. I think someone setting themself up as a mtb fitter today has to be prepared to lead a rider through a series of choices, each of which is going to be a tradeoff. The hardest thing will be escaping the preconceived notion that there is some real but not-yet-known optimum and that every component choice moves the fit toward or away from that optimum. Mtb media for years has gone hard on the use...

The law: disorder prevails. Setting price and availability aside, fitting only arrives after rider proportions, preference, flexibility, and dimensions. Then use case/s and sizing. Then fitting. One fun, expensive thing about mtb is tuning fit with spring rates and curves. DH is easiest because saddle height is minimum only

Finally some one who knows the struggle. I’m 6’ and my inseam is 31”. Ive rode a medium for damn near my whole life so that I could drop my seat low enough. only with the most modern bikes has that changed some.

Off course it makes sense! On your second paragraph there is something I am pushing towards on my bikes: Longer chainstays. If the bike has a super short chainstay and a super long reach, It demands a kamikaze way of riding. If the bike is balanced, long reach with long chainstays, you are centered and don't need to kamikaze your way downhill. That alone for me is a vital morale boost. Hip angle won't be a problem as soon as shorter cranks get available. This will get on more and more bikes very soon.

Ah, same here, but in the other direction. 5'10", 33.5" inseam, 6'2" wingspan. I size bikes by the very uncool metric, "effective top tube". Steep STA is my friend, and there are still bikes that I end up having to slam the saddle forward on. My usual mountain bike size is large. Some mediums kinda fit, but the stack is almost always too low, and I end up smacking my knees on the bars when I pedal around corners. Wife is 5'3" and has around the same torso length as I do. A lot of my fit issues with mountain...

I'm similar. I am 5 foot 9 and have a ~28inch inseam. I've never used any online fitment tools, but I can't say I have had major issues fitting bikes, so I'm curious what have you been experiencing? I tend to ride medium-sized bikes with 450-460 reaches and 50mm stems and I don't really have any major problems with my bike fit (other than things like long seat tubes and short droppers), especially compared to my tall, long-legged friends who seem to always struggle with having a seat that ends up over the rear axle.

I have some really f’ed knees and making sure I have saddle height and fore/aft dialed in or I will end up with a bike I can’t pedal for any period of time. So that is something I will insure the same as if it was a road bike. The rest are less important as far a pedaling for me.

It's funny. The bike shops that were successful in the past are the ones successful now. It's the "brands" that get greedy & try to blame the shops for their own shortcomings. Specialized, Trek & Giant buying up dealerships isn't out of stupidity. The dealer model, when handled as an actual business, worked and still works. Bike shops can be cheap start ups. They can be burdensome nightmares. They can grow into chain operations that outgrow the organization of those running them. But they work when ran correctly. The market has just been far too saturated with far too many...

One cannot build a business out of brick and mortar high margin accessory sales. Margins are part of the equation. The other part is profit as a percent of monthly operating income. You need to move a bazillion tire levers, sealant, chain lube & Minions to really start to inch toward something that looks like breakeven when you add up rent, wages, utilities, interest expense etc etc etc. Your entire hypothesis has been blown up by Tesla and Amazon. Hell, even Vital is a great example of other places a person can 'engage' about product in a high value way...

I also wonder if this is a thing that has been in the works for a while for Yeti, or if, like many outdoor brands, they need to turn inventory into cash real fast, so they are opening up new avenues. Looks like they are keeping MSRP accross the board so probably the former. Also, yikes, 10k bikes that come with race face alloy wheels? yeesh. buying online from Yeti = still a raw deal.

I went from Crampons to Spry pedals & immediately liked them more. Then I tried NukeProof Horizons & the Spry's feel like sticks stabbing you. Horizon's are literally a mix of all the right things. If I'd never tried the Horizon's I'd have been convinced Spry's were great.

Lost in that is the high margin accessories shops can sell if they stock intelligently and do proper companion sales. I don't know where all the former Radio Shack employees disappeared to, but bike shop owners would do well to learn the sales techniques they employed to capture more sales and loyal customers. Any time the sales engagement in store is removed, it's proven that the product being sold moves further toward commodity & further away from value added product. Value added meaning the consumer has a "meaningful" engagement with the brand they purchase that provides a chance for loyalty...

What is lost in a lot of this "armchair-internet-bike-shop consultant work" is just how razor thin a lot of these margins are for all parties involved. Bike shops by and large face a number of headwinds but you know who else is facing headwinds? Bike companies, component manufacturers, softgoods companies etc etc. The entire specialty bike vertical is under immense pricing pressure against a backdrop of faltering demand. What do you expect to happen? In all industries you tend to get an erosion of margin back toward your cost of capital in lieu of some kind of crazy moat or...