All

There’s also Laurie and Alex Fayoulle who kind of said that winning Lourdes ruined his career 🤷🏼‍♂️

Winning a world championship counts for me.....Charlie Hatton.

just rewatched some of the La Thuile track walk from last year and the comments from the racers are the same. It’s raw and will change a lot once it gets ridden

MORE RAW! Natural. This is freaking sweet. Need more tracks like this style.

I've maintained or gained confidence through overly stiff, even if I can get a bit beat up or bounced off line, while flex shows up unexpectedly and steals confidence. Also, stiffness can sometimes be tuned down through other parts, while flex usually cannot be made more stiff.

Both of the stems you listed are cold forged, meaning they are forged at room temperature. As far as forging goes, this way is slightly more optimum for resulting grain structure/strength then flow formed or cast. Since the manufacturing method is the same for both of these stems, you're paying for the surface finishing of bead blasting and painted vs anodized. What you're paying for is the surface finishing to prep for anodizing and the anodized finishing. If you would add their top of the line Riza stem to the question/equation, then what you're paying for there is CNC machining...

I agree with others that 35-50mm is a safe bet, and that the guy in the video you posted is a bit of a kook. I'm running a 60mm stem on my long travel bike, which is clearly "the wrong size," and it's fine. The reach length of the bike is a little shorter than I'd prefer, so I made it feel longer with the long stem. I've got a 40mm stem on my shorter travel bike (because it has a slightly longer reach length than I'd prefer), and it takes roughly zero feet for me to get used to...

Run whatever the fast guys run. Don't listen to some guy who sells stems.

I hear that a lot at our bike shops in the SLC, UT area. However, I know a lot of gravity oriented riders that use their eBikes for more out of season training laps and still ride their Amish bikes for racing and park days. I have access to a few nice eBikes, but still put way more miles in on my Amish bikes.

This is where I thought e-bikes would go when they first started to gain popularity, a bike with a splash of assistance, not a motor with a frame attached to it

As someone who was there from the very beginning (okay EWS #2), I think the story arc of EWS/EDR is a bit more complex that people think, and that Chis Ball is not the boogie man some make him out to be. EWS was not just Chis Ball, it was a run by a board, with Chis as the most public facing member of the organization. Keep in mind that in 2013 enduro racing was seen as an exciting new sport (yes I know, it wasn't new in France and Italy) and the timing was perfect with new wheel sizes...

Regurgitated post from another thread but this EDR grieving thread seems appropriate... EWS/EDR is mostly directly supported by the COMMUNITY of riders that are actively participating in Enduro racing, not random bored YouTube and HBO algorithm drifters. At least to me the most successful period of EWS was when there was a well promoted international web of qualifier events and 100/80 events along side the Elite races. People could actually aspire to racing an elite event and the pathway was clearly defined. Or there was the option to race an 80 to justify the trip out to watch elites Sunday...