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Hello! I admit I have seen the ”Shimano Reports Bike Maintenance a Hidden Barrier to Participation” title on the home page and I got curious. I didn't read the entire thing, nor did I read all the comments here, as I don't have time right now (but I will make some time to read), so excuse me, but I feel the urge to say something. From my understanding, Shimano is whining that in Europe people are cycling less, because bike maintenance is hindering them. Did I understand right? If yes, than I find Shimano to be at least a bit...

That's ~900 miles of coast (if you drive Highway 1), how much time do you have?

The derailleur clearance factor is real, but I don’t think the other points really are. The people I know who get a ton of heel rub have been getting heel rub since 135mm bikes. I think it’s a riding posture thing more than a frame geo thing. And regarding it being “good enough for pros”, pros get free wheels. I know a few bigger/faster guys who’ve given up on full 29” bikes with 148 spacing. They went through wheels too fast. The driveside bracing angle on a 29” wheel with most 148 hubs is pretty bad. Small changes like 1-2mm...

It’s honestly kind of a shame it failed. It builds a better wheel for long travel 29 applications and it’s a standard that already existed before boost. It’s just a DH hub. Let’s all collectively blame Trek. Boost 148 was their idea.

Charge port placement, not good for anyone outside of Arizona because water. Cheesy name for an adjustable seat tube? Come on. 9k for a base model but that wasn't surprising was it? Same CS length across the sizes, bandaided with an adjustable drop out. Fox trying to get rid of the podiums that aren't selling? Cant wait for these to be in the way on the trails. Ridden by people who have no business riding anything but the canal path.

Hear me out, double flex pivots. Why have one flex pivot emulating a four-bar, when we can have TWO flex pivots emulating a six-bar.

Yeah, this is definitely something that I have thought about quite a bit lately. The fact that it often costs more to service a mountain bike than a car... Since realistically the major costs involved are labour costs, which are likely to be similar to that of a car workshop. For the average joe, who has either just gotten into riding, and doesn't want to know the first thing about fixing bikes, this is a major problem. It is very difficult to see the value in spending $1000 getting your $4000 bike serviced, when your $70,000 Ute costs you $350...

The trail org I'm involved with is doing just that this spring, hosting an enduro race to encourage more involvement from our community in trail work and advocacy. We're going to try and copy a lot of the stuff Trans-Cascadia has done with trail days beforehand that allow folks to trade sweat equity for entries. To our group, an enduro race seemed like the best format to get folks talking and foster those relationships. Hope yall can get something similar going without too much hassle!

SC could get more seatpost insertion with VPP if they went back to driving the shock from the upper link, eliminating the shock tunnel. Considering they used to do that, then moved all their bikes to lower-link driven, it seems super unlikely. They could do a carbon upper link to shave weight from the tallboy, but the current alu link is machined out within an inch of its life. So maybe not much weight savings there after all. Looks like another inherent weight issue with VPP is making a complete rear triangle- you have to connect the chainstay and seatstay...

As far as I know, the Nomad and the longer travel bikes are going to remain VPP for the foreseeable future. The new Tallboy is not really any lighter than the last Gen either, and the whole thing doesn't make sense. I've thought that Pon has been sticking their fingers into their brands a lot recently, not just SC, but GT, cervelo, and Cannondale, and it isn't going to work out for them. They're trying to set up SC as their answer to Specialized, turning them into similar scale brands, but it just won't work.

If they're going to do that with their long travel bikes, and if they really are going to bump the Tallboy up in travel (maybe to make room for a more aggressive Blur?) then surely they would merge 140/130 Tallboy and the 5010 with a flip chip right? Maybe even the same with the Bronson and Hightower? Trimming fat from product offerings/ getting two birds stoned at once with one frame for two bikes seems to be the solution a lot of manufacturers are leaning towards for navigating this slump. It makes sense to me, but maybe someone with a...

Every topic is just one nudge away from a chainstay debate. Not to beat the dead horse here... but I see it both ways. I'm currently riding bikes with 450+ chainstays paired with ~500mm reaches. That being said, I had a megatower 1 with a 495 reach and 435/445 chainstays with a flipchip adjustment. I actually preferred the 435mm chainstays in certain situations and riding areas. Pheonix, Tucson, Santacruz and steeps in laguna, the 435mm setting was pretty rad. Go to the bike park, or race enduros, the 445m stays were the answer. I think we all need to embrace...

This forum apparently does not have enough topics about chainstays/geo, yet. 🙄

thank you. I hope in the future (especially for any future e-bike update) you remain open minded to modular dropouts as a means to adjust hub spec, chainstay length etc. Quick thought on this comment "feel a tangible difference between a Boost & a Superboost rear wheel." This is a clarification for Vital MTB readers and not meant as a disagreement: Strength by definition is not something you can "feel" when riding. In theory you can feel compliance/ stiffness (which are the inverse of each other) on a wheel. However, in practice many believe that perceptible compliance on a modern...

Gnarcophagus

Thanks for the note & we are happy to be here! To be completely honest, I think this question is better posed toward companies that refused to tread into Superboost territory in the first place. We don't need any convincing - we still believe in the benefits of Superboost, although at the end of the day, we are a business who's goal is to actually sell bikes. The market spoke loud & clear on this one, and Boost came out on top. At the end of the day, Superboost has inarguable benefits in both strength and clearance. The elephant in...

This is a great answer. We can harp on about proportional chainstays all we want but the truth is that none of this shit is proportional. It’s not really clear what is and isn’t preserved when changing frame sizes. In reality most people that want to see proportional chain stays just want to see longer chainstays on their bike. They (we) don’t actually care about the CS of a size small and medium

Haha - unfortunately no, although we hear where you're coming from. We're sorry we rubber-banded on hub spacing. We still believe in the benefits of Superboost, although the market has spoken and Boost is the clear victor (raises white flag in surrender) Demos - any day now! Shoot us an email and I'll put you in touch with Joe who manages the demo fleet. info@evil-bikes.com

Evil, Thanks for taking questions and to Vital MTB for this forum! I have questions/ comments on three different aspects of the decision to follow the mainstream to 148x12. I will note that Trek released the 148x12 hub standard in 2015. Ten years later- Trek has released no testing data either in house or 3rd party. Trek told the industry that 148x12 is the hub standard now and nobody asked any follow up questions, we all just went along with it. STRENGTH 157x12 wheels are 20% stronger than 148x12 for two primary reasons: 1. wider spoke bracing angle 2. more...