All

What you're saying makes way too much sense, will never happen.

People either don't remember or never read the early interviews with CB. He said early on that the plan was always to fold it back under the UCI banner. He did it separately because the UCI wouldn't fund the experiment so he stepped out to do it on his own. As for EWS itself, they lost the thread. Yes, there has been a slowdown in the industry, but they got a little too big which forced sponsors to dedicate more and more resources. We went from factory riders having limited support to full pit setups with 2-4 mechanics on site...

RE: braided lines, I'm working with Maven Ultimates, so I'll need a version that deals with banjos unfortunately. I mean I guess I could buy a Bronze caliper but that adds quite a bit to the whole experiment. I'd consider trying some variation of a Kevlar line too, if someone else could point to a kit that was compatible with Maven banjos and was actually stiffer. On the other hand, when I ran Dominions, I know they had a braided line that was actually slightly larger (to the point of being an issue on certain frames like gen 3 Levo)...

Yep, that's been my experience too, the Hope braided lines do nothing for lever feel, the external steel braiding is just there for additional protection. Additionally, installing them is a huge faff, the steel braiding splits open real easy and then getting it all into the olive is a royal pain. They are also thicker and thus may not play nice will every frame out there in regards to cable ports and internal guide hoses. TL/DR "these are not the hoses you are looking for." I'd be very intrigued by running HEL lines on other brakes to see what difference...

I had T4V4’s on my Enduro with standard lines, my friend had T4V4 with braided on his Patrol. Same pads and rotors. They basically felt the same, the only real upside is durability. Hope even says the same thing themselves. The steel braid isn’t tensioned, it isn’t going to do anything significant to resist expansion.

I think we can stop the circle jerk and everyone pulling each others Dak’s. What a move for Jess Blewitt, such an opportunity to grow into an even more amazing racer

Personally I find Dakotah a heck of a lot easier to relate to than someone like Jackson. Just a hard working dude from a similar part of the same country as me, also with questionable hair styles, that has overcome some adversity and doesn't mind getting his hands dirty at home. Nothing against Jackson, but his story is so far out of my realm that its just... not very interesting.

Yeah, I guess I should have mentioned I'm looking to use it on Mavens. I agree that having the caliper nicely centered over the rotor and pistons moving freely helps with a sharper bite point, but on every freshly bled brake I've run, I always run the contact adjuster more out (sharper) on the rear. Could be my brain, could be right hand vs. left hand strength, or it could be greater system flex. Fiddling with the contact adjuster works to address the difference in feel, but I'd still like to try a braided hose sometime to figure out whether...

This is very shock specifc, but if you run a Fox DHX2, you can get a mullet specific eyelet for the shock. I ran this set-up for sometime on my previous bike without issues.

If I had the time, I'd photoshop Dak's face onto one of these folks' bodies and put it in the team rumor thread.

Now it all makes sense!

I literally swapped v4 to gr4 installing the older used pads on the same everything And I found a tad less modulation, lots less noise, lever is definitely a bit harder to pull, but the pull is much shorter ( I was also running the 9mm bearings on the cam ) In terms of lever pull I liked the tech 4 better, just lighter feel I like the shorter stroke on the evo Power wise I feel these are more aggressive than the v4

pre kids - lower service every month, meticulously maintained post kids - oh cool the fork has air in it still, good enough

It will be interesting to see if the Syndicate is still running O-chain next year.

The power on Mavens is incredible, i’ve never ridden a brake with so much power available. That said, they’re coming off my DH bike because mine refuse to be consistent for more than half a day. They’ve been worked on by myself and two different shops. They seem plagued by wandering bite points and pump up regardless of piston massages or hocus pocus bleeding rituals. Nothing kills your flow on trail like a lack of confidence in your brakes. Hopefully (pun intended) my new GR4’s will be better. They seem to have improved my main complaint from the V4.