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I never implied it's the final event because of the name. I know it's the name, I'm going on my third Finale riding trip this coming Monday. I mean, look at my profile pic here, it's from the top of DH Men from last October. The thing is it's been the spiritual end of the season since the superenduro days, from before EWS. It's a cute seaside town or better yet, a collection of seaside towns along the coast and inland as well, where you take a midday pause from your riding, have a coffee, a panini to quench the...

It's likely that most of the crazy high pricing we are currently seeing is the knock on effect of those high material, labor and shipping costs as companies tried to carry on doing business and take advantage of the high demand and low availability while planning to shift the additional production costs on to the consumer who had no choice but to accept it. But I suspect now as costs readjust back to normal or thereabouts, the companies that invested heavily during the pandemic are going to be stuck with a lot of expensive stock they can't sell, while smaller...

Have you guys seen the price of a sandwich or apartment lately? Seems to the ROBOTS like your human overlords are getting pretty greedy in most categories these days, not just championship winning downhill bikes.

You know it mate.

Pretty sure I bought my subscription via the webpage (on my computer. I know, shocking, right? ), so no appstores were involved. There is a payment process in the middle of it, so there is a point to what you're saying. As for 'there are no plans', your writing seems awfully concrete about a future unknown. Got first hand info on that?

Jesse waking up and seeing his coffee posts still getting attention weeks later on the vital forums

Was Bernard Kerr's recent whirlwind trip to Greece to sign a certain expat Brit rider whose main bike sponsor just paused their racing program for 2023? Or is he just really into Souvlaki?

While other brands are trying to say people who buy their 7k+ bikes want headset routing because they have no idea how to innovate, Marin slaps out an absolute banger, some parts specs aside, that anyone can afford and have a whole season of riding trips for less than the cost of the others. Well done Marin.

It's in Australian Dollary'doo's correct. Yes, the pricing is insane and that's what things are selling for in Aus. Without going on a Primoz tangent here (sorry bro) The rich are getting richer and the middle class are sliding the other way here (as I'm sure it's the same in the States/UK/Etc. For every Pivot/Yeti/Santa Cruz sold, there will be 10 Norco's/Canyons/Commencals on the trails. A GOOD bike here used to be $4-5k and that would be Fox/XT that would serve you well, that same build is $10k+ now. But people will still pay $12-17k for a bike here without...

Let's take the way back machine to the mid 2000's. Shimano has just released Low normal and STI MTB shifters. They were touted as the next big thing and the way the industry was going. The way it turned out was Shimano fucked up hard. It was terrible and no one wanted it or bought it. It literally allowed SRAM to become what it is today. Shimano was pretty salty about it that they stopped providing front derailleurs to bike company's who weren't ordering full groups, SRAMs shitty front derailleurs weren't cutting it, but people likely their shifters better. Let...

The dissector seems to just be an anomaly of when Scott is using their renderings for the bike. if you look on this page, all of the images that appear to be rendered, show the dissector with close spacing https://www.scott-sports.com/us/en/genius Bikerumor actually has some interesting shots of the marketing presentation materials from what I can only assume was the press event for this bike. It shows some rather neat cut away's for the frame and shock that shed a bit more light on the twinlock shock designs and the frame routing for cabling. It is a pretty big miss IMO...

Well an example of regular ebike damage that i see is rutting up pedal sections whether it’s climb or flats when riding in mixed or bad conditions. Sections of trail that would be a total slog suddenly become rideable. Our locals got beat up this winter like I’ve never seen before. I’m used to and have time for freshening downhills but having to fix up the climbing and flatter trails added a ton of work this past spring that limited riding time and actually making improvements over simple maintenance. High level riders also often give back to the community with...

"Who is to blame though, the shock manufacturers, or the bike manufacturers?" Yes. Trunnion was a team effort by the "we want a lower standover height on our trail bike with a vertically-oriented shock" crowd and the "if we don't make it, [insert "Fox" if you're Rockshox or "Rockshox" if you're Fox] will" crowd. Before trunnion, there were other bad solutions to this problem. Pre-trunnion, there was a spate of trail and enduro bikes with vertically-oriented shocks that were too short in stroke and over-leveraged in the suspension design as a way to reduce overall shock length and thus lower...