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Well looking at the rocker of Maes' Wild at Fort Bill, I'd say the rocker might still be the same (or at least very similar)

Crab link 🦀

Looks like there’s an Orbea DH bike ready after all.

Shiny gold forks

What I want to know, amongst this discussion of a UBH, is who the hell is managing to strip their brake mount threads? Good lord. You pull that off, you probably shouldn’t use a stove or knife, either.

re: ohlins - I took the comments about them less to be that they will no longer be developing / advancing / improving their forks, but more that they have what they consider to be a full product portfolio for the MTB market, and will not be introducing any "new" suspension products beyond what they already have. portfolio: air shock, coil shock, 34mm fork, 36mm fork, 38mm fork - single crown, 38mm fork - dual crown

https://www.instagram.com/trailblazers.racing/p/DEfnrvtOumV/?img_index=1

Word on the street the full production Specialized DH vessel is ready. Apparently it's a looker.

Blenki might not have had a WC result for a while but he’s winning at something. For better or worse the Warner Bros deal really feels like it’s ushering in the end of a classic era for DH.

A bazzillion to one odds, but I'd love to see/laugh my ass off, if the Seagraves ended up on Zerode's chasing the $100k prize.

Believe it or not, I think the last minutes of this video reveal the FMD thing and what I think is that Kate Courtney will be racing for Orbea. The man is Ibon Zugasti, founding member of the Orbea Factory XC when it was a marketing strategy with several amateurs or semi pro riders in Spain. He has himself won XC and gravel masters worlds in his category. They also had Tomi Misser, a former DH WC racer from Spain, that won XC and DH world's masters on the same year. They sold a TON of bikes with this strategy...

Dave Weagle revealed that there will be more dual idler bikes coming this year. Maybe the Atherton G200 will use it? Pivot Enduro Bike? Any other ideas?

Looks like I'm late to the party since I've been on vacation. Brakes are definitely not easy. Between custom seals, custom tools, and some necessary knowledge that isn't widespread, good brakes take a lot. I would say they are either third or fourth most difficult thing on a bike behind the frame itself, the fork/shock, and, depending on specific design, the dropper. Some droppers are pretty simple, though. Frames are only on that list because doing a full blown production run requires tons of testing and the tooling is more complex. Brakes definitely are not something that anyone with a...

Brakes are challenging. There's quite a bit of engineering involved in sealing them, and making sure they stay sealed properly, as you can have a rim crack, but break failure is totally unacceptable. So given that you need to have a 0% failure rate, it makes it quite a serious undertaking. Rims are relatively simple, it's just that nobody has an autoclave at home large enough to bake one. But the actual design and layup isn't very complicated.

You’re missing the point. It’s only knockoff if it comes from China. Anyone else can pull this shit and no-one would bat an eyelid. No. One. No I’m not going to buy one of their ders, but it is hilarious how publicly quick to offence some people get. Genuinely looking forward to see how it fares in the review though. Curious to why Madrone and Hopp are allowed to get away with what they’re doing!

This. I've seen teams underestimate the effort required for an electronic product a few times. My conclusion of this is: it's just a complicated way to solve the problem, which doesn't make it too favorable in my book. And IF you put so much work into a solution I'd rather see it go towards simplicity / durability / serviceability / smoothnes / etc. of a mechanical solution. Guess I'm just an old nostalgic.

BY burned by Sram? What does this relate to? FWIW, when we were discussing how simple it is to make a wirless conversion, it's not THAT easy. Easy in principle as you need some kind of motor/actuator pushing the interface of the post, some electronics to do the communication, a remote and some way for the two to communicate. What that means is you need to handle the mechanics of the actuator. A motor, some geartrain, something to press the thing in the post. You need a battery and some way to charge it. Some control electronics to talk to...

lol