ASK UNCLE DAVE
Nobody actually knows what they're doing
Recently, our good friend Mr. Ferrentino wrote a piece about how we should all bow down to the genius of the bicycle companies, accept that they know what is best for us, and stop bastardizing our own bicycles (or, at the very least, this is the straw man that I'm going to argue against). I’ve seen enough poorly customized bicycles in my day to largely agree with what Mike wrote, but I can’t help but feeling like his premise is flawed. He makes an assumption that bicycle designers, engineers and product managers actually know what the fuck they are doing, but dig into things a little bit and you’ll discover that might not be the case.
Case Study #1 – The imaginary fork
A few years ago, I had a conversation with an engineer at a bicycle company that really struck home just how arbitrary everything was. We were discussing static vs. dynamic bicycle geometry, and he let slip this gem (paraphrasing, of course):
It’s not all that important to get hung up on the exact numbers. For example, all of those geometry numbers are based on an imaginary axle-to-crown measurement that doesn’t actually exist.
When I pushed him on this, he explained that they have builds with both a RockShox and a Fox fork, and neither of those forks has the same axle-to-crown measurement, so they split the difference and call it a day. And I mean, of course they do! What else could possibly happen? Build up geometry charts for every incarnation of the bike? People are already confused enough by all of those numbers, and think that every half degree difference in head angle is enough to create world changing differences. Even more information would be a recipe for disaster. So, the solution is to build all of the geometry around an imaginary fork so that the numbers aren’t right for anybody, but are sort of close for all. And this is before we get into things like differences in sag and weight distribution and variability in manufacturing. Really, most geometry charts are nothing more than a well-informed guess (slight exaggeration to make my point) and what you are actually riding is something close, but never exactly, what you are sold on paper. Adding 1cm travel will change your bike, yes, but you’re certainly not compromising some precise geometry formula.
It’s not all that important to get hung up on the exact numbers. For example, all of those geometry numbers are based on an imaginary axle-to-crown measurement that doesn’t actually exist. - Unnamed Bicycle Co. Engineer
Case Study #2 – The optimized part spec
Years later, I had a conversation with a product manager at another bicycle company. I was wondering why all of their drivetrain builds were sourced from only one of the large drivetrain conglomerates and not from the other. It seemed that the one conglomerate that had no spec had better options in specific price points, but got no business. Again, paraphrasing:
I would love to spec that on our bikes, but I can’t get any consistency on them for how much they can supply or when they can deliver. Their supply chain is so out of whack I have to go with the other company.
This was another understanding of mine shattered. Did you really think that product managers spent their time meticulously researching the best possible component at the best possible price for each and every part on your curated bicycle? Of course they don’t! It’s a world of low bids and supply chain actualities. Assuming that the product manager got things exactly right on your bicycle would be a mistake, because they probably don’t even think that, themselves. They might know what they’re doing, but the real world probably prevented them from getting it exactly right, and you just wound up with whatever shit they could source and get the accountants to approve. So there’s probably room for improvement.
Case Study #3 – SRAMano domination
Have you ever used an off brand fork or pair of brakes and thought “this is just as good as anything from SRAM or Shimano/Fox, but way cheaper! Why don’t more bike companies spec this stuff?” The crazy thing is, there are probably a lot of people at bike companies that are thinking the same thing. To keep some consistency, I’m going to make up a quote that paraphrases another conversation that I had with yet another product manager:
I would love to explore other brands, but if the fork isn’t from Fox or Rock Shox, it's going to be a tough sell for that bike.
If all else was equal, most product managers would prefer to save a bit of money without compromising performance. There should be more TRP and Hayes brakes and Manitou forks spec’d on bicycles! The thing is, we’re all fickle bastards and while we long to be “different”, that’s only to a degree. Unobtainable, limited run European stuff is the right kind of different, while lower cost, house brand Taiwanese stuff (made in the same factory as all the other stuff) isn’t. We tell ourselves we’re better than that, but deep down we know our egos will only go so far.
Now, I’m not saying that Fox and Rock Shox don’t make good products, but it would be a stretch to say they are the best for everybody and everything, in all scenarios. So, if the unadventurous nature of the average consumer has such an impact on the spec of that bicycle that you just bought, what other compromises were made along the way?
In Conclusion
At this point, you’re probably up on your high horse, sneering at the experts, thinking that you got it exactly right when you mounted that Boxxer to your freeride hardtail. The thing is, you don’t know what you’re doing, either! But that’s fine, because nobody does (or at the very least, they might know, but reality steps in on execution). If you think that heftier tires or a longer fork or a smaller rear wheel is just what the doctor ordered, fly at it. You’ll likely cause something else to go wrong and make your bike ride worse, but so what? The people who designed your bike probably got something wrong too. At least you’ll have made yourself happy by inflicting your own personal brand of wrong on the world.
Sorry,
Uncle Dave
Uncle Dave’s Music Club
There are so, so many opportunities for “Wrong” and music. There’s the Nomeansno album. The Liars album. The Fall album. The Built to Spill album. Just countless options. And that’s before we get to the songs! Jesus Christ, the songs. So, we’ll keep it simple. Archers of Loaf. Wrong.
Comments
Lacy Kemp
1 month ago
It's always fascinating to read the opinions of people who've never been a part of this process.
Designing a bike is a weird mix of predicting the future, understanding buyer trends and needs, and a whole crapton of R&D (ideally). Bike companies—especially product managers/designers/engineers are not out to make you need to buy a new bike every few years. No one wants the bike industry to function that way. But the fact is we can't really know what trends people will favor in 3 years and bikes take way longer to create and complete than other consumer goods. The Bill of Materials for a bike is BIG and complicated and that's just one facet of making a bike. Geometry is ever-changing, supply chain issues are constant, QC at factories is rarely straight forward, and yeah, unfortunately, companies DO have to lean on what they think consumers will buy, not necessarily what may be the best option.
I was stunned the first time I rode Hayes' updated Dominion brakes. I can't believe they're not on more bikes. They're amazing. But customers want Shimano or SRAM (I'll bite my tongue on this) when there really are other options that are just as good.
Give PMs a little bit of grace here. It's a hard freaking job and I honestly believe they're doing the best they can.
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Brad Nyenhuis
1 month ago
Despite my opinion that a well informed, experienced, rider can usually do a better job at specing their own bikes, I do believe most bike manufacturers do a very good job of dealing with the minefield of compromises necessary for building a bike for the typical assortment of riders.
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Onawalk
1 month ago
Youre describing a unicorn, and in my experience, they have little to no understanding of what they "need" but are adamant about what they "want" and what others "should" be using
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Onawalk
1 month ago
Appreciate your levity here Lacy,
Its cool to hear from people who are really inside the indusrty, and the chalenges that are faced. It prolly wont change everyones ideas (looking at you Brad Nyenhuis) but its great for the rest of us
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Kenneth Perras
1 month ago
I take great personal offense to this article.
(jokes).
Everyone always thinks they can do someone else's job. Engineering, Plumbing, Car repairs, etc. The reality is you can maybe do about 20% of that job, and somehow convince yourself you got to 100%.
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GrundleJ
1 month ago
Isn't this pretty much what Dave said and what the responses from the Engineers and PMs he quoted said? I don't see the difference of his "opinion" and yours.
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Lacy Kemp
1 month ago
My comment isn't targeted at Dave, but more at the general court of public opinion and armchair QBs who constantly thrash bike companies and product departments for their choices.
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LAT
1 month ago
this may have been raised in the other article’s comments, but another thing that makes me think that they don’t really know what they are doing is that they were all making bikes with the wrong geometry for a very long time.
Even after it had been demonstrated that they were doing it wrong it took quite a while to change.
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Cr4w
1 month ago
We just saw Geometron doing it right in 2018 and then Transition and Santa Cruz started a multi year effort to adjust their geometry over 6 years of timid fractional adjustments and now the Spire and the Megatower are basically G1s.
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Onawalk
1 month ago
My 2018 V1 Sentinel was pretty spot on (outside of the suspension progression, thanks Cascade)
Currently on a Spire, and while its great, and I love it, its not "better" than the Sentinel, or the Fugitive, or the Sight, just different. It excels in some areas (steep jank), and is worse in others (low angle trails, and god help you if you stand and pedal)
There isnt right or wrong geo, its always a compromise, and my 2001 Norco Shore was the best thing in the world at the time, so was my Super T forked, 24" wheeled .243 hardtail......Long live screwing with your bike!
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Andy Eunson
1 month ago
Ha. That Stumpjumper Sport that I bought new in 1983 probably had better geometry than any of the bikes I owned in the late 80s and early 90s. We just didn’t know it.
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Lynx .
1 month ago
Of course it did, that bastard Mike Synard just flat out ripped off Tom Ritchey's design and carried that across the other bikes they made at the time - took an actual Ritchey to Japan and told them to just copy it, for those that don't know how the first SpecialED MTB came about.
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LWK
1 month ago
I'd second this. How many years did it take for 29r geo to get sorted out, even in an XC context - 10 years or more? STA and HTA seemed to go to Geometron levels and now are backing off somewhat; thats another ~6y of so called "development". The next round of this would appear to be rear centre length, I'd hazard a guess it will be another 2-3 generations of bike "design" to sort that out...
and on the manufacturing end, it took how many years for us to get a reasonable selection of reliable dropper posts? We've had MTB bikes for over 40y now and I'd argue we're still being effed over when it comes to rear hubs/freehubs. A very reliable, high engagement (2-3 degree) hub should be standard, entry level stuff at this point but nope... and so on.
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Lynx .
1 month ago
I'd vastly beg to differ, my 2013 Banshee Prime PP was light years ahead of pretty much every other 29er of the time with a 74 STA/67.5-68-68.5 adjustable HTA, but it also goes to prove the point that most engineers at big companies didn't/don't know what they're doing and/or are scared to lead the way with anything "drastic" in terms of changes to geo etc...... Just look at Giant who said 29ers were a fad, waited years before they tried to hop onto the train, missed it and then went all in on 650B when that got started claiming it was the holy grail of bicycle tyre sizes, they are the stupid fvckers who started the BS 27.5 naming thing trying to convince everyone they were smack dab between 29ers and 26ers, when in fact they were only about 1/2" bigger than a 26" and 1 1/4 -1 1/2" smaller than a 29er. TLDR, they were wrong, 650B bikes soon pretty much disappeared from their lineup and were replaced with 29ers.
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Mike Ferrentino
1 month ago
"Yeah, but..."
I am not so convinced that bikes were being designed with "wrong" geometry, as much as they were being designed within the context of the times. Having had a front row seat on both sides of the sausage making curtain, brands will often err on the side of conservatism when it comes to changing geometry because they are:
1, afraid of alienating core buyers who they suspect may not be ready to plunk down hard money on the "new thinking."
2, iterating their geometries within the above framework of caution while also trying to retain some sort of brand characteristic "secret sauce" that is a recipe derived from their own arc of design and development alongside what their internal rider feedback loop is suggesting.
3, not in possession of a crystal ball and therefore cannot see 10 years into the future with anywhere near the clarity that we are capable of looking 10 years into the past.
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Pete Roggeman
1 month ago
Proper geo also really started finding its singing voice in the days of peak 'changing standards'. Even now, most people don't know or don't want to admit that Boost was one of the things that unlocked the ability to get 29er geo to where we are today.
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shenzhe
1 month ago
I will admit to being one of the people that don't (didn't?) know that boost was integral to making modern 29er geo possible.
Having said that, I'd love to understand it better and if you can point me towards something explaining it, I'd love to be better informed.
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Lynx .
1 month ago
As Timer said, Boost was/is not has not got anything to do with the "modern" geo, it's just lack of imagination, forethought or willingness to push boundaries that stagnated it. Case in point as Timer pointed out was Banshee, I have one of the 60 or so pre-production frames they did to evaluate/test the design and back then, things were tight and I only had 135 QR capable hub wheels, so those are the drop outs I got and I have no issues with running the frame.
By the time the Phantom was coming out 2 years later I'd learned my lesson and got it with 150x12 drop outs and wish I'd got the Prime with those as well, but the Prime still functions very well as is.
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Timer
1 month ago
I don't buy that for a second. One of the first 29er FS bikes with geo approaching modern was the Banshee Prime which not only fully supported non-boost, but solved the even harder packaging challenge of modular dropouts for both boost and non-boost. That continues to this day, with their very modern geo bikes which even now support non-boost.
Precisely which modern geometry challenge is solved by a 4.2% wider hub? Wide rear ends make some sense when trying to combine super short chainstays with plus tire clearance, involved suspension designs and a decent chain line. But modern geo has moved very far away from short rear ends and doesn't care about plus-tire clearance anymore. And some major brands have apparently stopped caring about chainline as well.
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Jerry Willows
1 month ago
In 2014, the Enduro 29 didn't have Boost and had 430mm chainstays.... bike geometry is basically just 2 right triangles but only took 30 years to get it sort of sorted.
Ebikes are just as bad with their standards... chargers are all different, motors have different bolt patterns and newer motors aren't compatible. The 2 year warranty is horrible.
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Lowcard
1 month ago
I think a 2 year warranty is appropriate for an ebike, especially for an off road application. Mainly because it seems like your average mountain ebike life expectancy seems to be under 5 years.
Adrian Bostock
1 month ago
a 2013 kona honzo had 415mm chainsays.
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retrokona
1 month ago
Can you elaborate? My understanding was that boost was developed to rectify issues of spoke angle from the hub in the change from 26 to 29. Do you mean that the kind of riding made easier by the long/slack modern 29er is aided by fewer taco’s rims?
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LAT
1 month ago
“Even now, most people don't know or don't want to admit that Boost was one of the things that unlocked the ability to get 29er geo to where we are today.”
How so?
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DadStillRides
1 month ago
Let's exchange "boost" for "dropper posts" here... Except most people probably do know
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Brad Nyenhuis
1 month ago
I've often wondered about the possibility of another agenda.
Let's say, 10 years ago, when frame design started trending toward the current numbers, engineers had already figured out what numbers were optimal and they jumped right in. People bought them and there was really nowhere to go from there. No way to sell them on the next-big-thing. No reason to upgrade.
A better business model might be:
"I bet we can sell way more bikes if we make small incremental advances, giving us room to sell them on the next logical progression every couple years".
I think the reason we're seeing companies suddenly turning their sights back on XC is because we've finally hit that "perfection" with the longer travel market. At some point (and I think we're there) there's just very little to justify buying the next model.
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Pete Roggeman
1 month ago
If your cynicism is that pronounced, I'm either sorry for what life looks like from that perspective, or I at the very least hate to be the one to inform you that engineers at bike brands are not sitting around in design brief meetings discarding the best ideas and saying "let's wait and do that in three years instead". First of all, when a brand decides to re-design a bike, everyone's job depends on doing it as well as they can with the knowledge and tools at hand, because everyone's job depends on the continued financial viability of the company they work for, and there are very few people out there for whom keeping their job isn't the #1 priority.
Also, even the big brands don't have unlimited design resources. They have to prioritize, and those priorities are set differently, obviously, at different companies. For some it may be the sales team clamoring for a new 150mm trail bike because the current one is no longer competitive (maybe one or two key markets for that brand are powerful enough to always win those arguments) or the advent of a certain new tech may make a compelling case to finally push out a DH bike or an XC race bike when that company hasn't made one for several years. So many variables, none of which is "that idea is too good, let's roll it out slowly, thus rendering our brand less competitive in the short run". Nope.
29er DH bike development was held back by availability of 29er wheels, tires, and forks. This also happens when companies are designing bikes and trying something new. "Do the parts exist to even make this a reality?" In the last few years things have settled down in terms of innovation that required new or different parts to become available but there have always been phases where brands went to OE suppliers to say "we have this idea, but to pull it off, we need you to develop an option that fits the concept" whether that's a fork with 44mm offset or something more elaborate like a long travel fork with the right axle-crown for a 29er and enough torsional rigidity, or a tire in the right size and width with an appropriate casing.
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Brad Nyenhuis
1 month ago
Not so much cynicism as "Hmm, I wonder".
If HTAs/STAs are in the 69/68 area and you discover they work far better at 64/77 would you immediately go there or get there incrementally, year by year, selling bikes along the way?
Not accusing, just throwing it out there.
I once had a conversation with the guy who created Chainwax, the original PTFE/wax blend hot wax lube that came in a round tin that you could heat up, dutch oven style. Awesome product that I used for years.
When I asked what put such a great product out of business he asked, "Did you ever have to replace it?" No, I answered. "Yeah, creating a product that lasts a lifetime proved to be a poor business model."
Sometimes, you can make something too good for your own good.
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DancingWithMyself
1 month ago
I'm grateful for how good current bikes are and realize the engineers and people running bike companies are different people. But, all the much more informed things Pete said aside, we're talking about an industry that thought the COVID boom was going to last forever. I highly doubt they pulled off something like you're postulating.
Mark
1 month ago
Pete, I think it's a combo of three things; what you're saying, what Brad said and the fact that the economic model is focused on making what sells, not what's necessarily the best product at a reasonable price. It's consumerism and planned obsolescense working together.
There is a huge amount of freedom gained when one can separate wanting the latest cool thing from what's needed to have fun.
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DancingWithMyself
1 month ago
Exactly this.
While an engineer/designer may start a company to make the best frame possible, ultimately manufacturers aren't some sort of mission-based nonprofit out to maximize the enjoyment of hard core riders. They exist to make money, so they are balancing what they think is best from a performance standpoint with sales volume, profit margin, etc. Either that, or they stay incredibly small and niche.
Onawalk
1 month ago
Do you ever climb off that high horse, or just occasionally slip off while dodging all the people you think so poorly of?
DancingWithMyself
1 month ago
Onawalk - not sure what you mean in regards to this comment. I don't begrudge the bike companies for acting like for-profit businesses. If anything, I think we put unfair expectations on them as far as what they produce vis-a-vis our needs. For example, I personally would never spend money on AXS over really good brakes, wheels, etc. But they aren't building bikes based on what riders like me want. They're making decisions based on what sells, and I don't expect them to do otherwise.
retrokona
1 month ago
I wonder if it’s more of looking at different markets and catering to different needs. If you live on the Shore or somewhere similar, the current full squish, long/slack, 29er iteration of the mountain bike probably feels like the Platonic form of mountain bike. Some of us, however, still dwell in Plato’s cave (you know, Ontario and other less rad provinces). I’m fully willing to admit that my Kona Unit 2-9 from 2008 with geometry like a crit bike is a recipe for disaster. However, on all but jankiest of trails out here it’s still OK. Hell, on the flatter, tamer stuff it’s glorious! The “current” XC trend seems to be to go slacker than 69 degrees- not a ton slacker but enough to make it steer nicely with a 120mm fork and make a nice version of the Frankenstein-bikes more adventurous XC riders were setting up for themselves anyway.
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Onawalk
1 month ago
Amazing,
I took up, and learned the sport in good Ol Onterrible!
The bikes that worked best for me there, are vastly different than what works best for me now (BC baby!)
However my ST Fugitive, in the "neutral" setting, with a stout fork, would still be the bees knees ripping around Kanata, and smashing Blue Mountain DH trails!
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Onawalk
1 month ago
Man, thats some of the wildest nonsense theory I've ever encountered.
I'd love to sit and have a beer with you (I'm assuming I'll also need to be wearing a tin foil hat of some sort...) just to get a clearer picture of what goes on in your brain.
Who the hell, in this time of competitive capitalism has the time to theorize about stretching out incremental changes to bike geo.....Man, thats wild!
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fartymarty
1 month ago
I bet when the Geometron G1* was released all of the big bike companies purchased one and had their test riders on it. They all knew where geo was going but were to scared to jump right it.
* I mention the G1 as I still think this is the bike that has lead to the long travel trail / enduro bikes we have today.
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Brad Nyenhuis
1 month ago
This is where I'm coming from in that thinking.
As an engineer, if I find going a certain direction appears to be getting me gains, I'm going to keep going until things turn upside down.
I'm not going to say, "Hmm, 1 degree slacker seems better" and leave it at that until next year. I'm going to immediately say, "Hmm, I wonder if 2 gets more better, if so, how about 3" and so on, until the gains go away. Same story with STA. This won't take me 10 years.
That's why I'd be surprised to find it took this long to find that sweet spot.
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Perry Schebel
4 weeks, 2 days ago
It's surprising just how timid the bike industry has (historically) been in select facets of design. Though we had a phase of pretty radical suspension platform experimentation (albiet, most quite terrible), geometry was relatively static for a long time. If, a couple decades ago, someone would have wondered "what if" and tried pushing the wheelbase & angles into modern territory, it would have been a game changer.
Of course, seems so obvious - in hindsight.
fartymarty
1 month ago
Brad - In defence of the bike industry (of which I am not a part of) I can see their need for incremental change. People who buy bikes from bigger companies do not place the same sort of blind faith in the creators of such bikes as say a Geometron purchaser would. Someone who purchases a Geometron knows Chris Porter knows his stuff and while it may take some time for you to adapt to a Geometron it will be worth it in the long run. If a bigger bike company were to do this it makes their older bikes instantly outdated and may alienate customers who are looking to buy new bikes.
Anyway who really cares what bigger bike companies do if you want the latest cutting edge bike - because it's not coming from them anyway.
I do understand your sceptisim of bigger bike companies though.
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Shinook
1 month ago
I don't think it's a conspiracy, rather I think it is in part due to perception of how some of these changes will be received. You can see it in the post above, they mention selling anything without Fox or RS will be a non-starter, but there are suspension products that are much better for most riders. People get set in their expectations and anything outside of that they just won't buy and there is no talking them into it. The same likely applies in other areas including travel numbers, kinematics, and geometry.
Talk to an average mountain biker especially in a lower elevation area, you'll find most of them only see head tube angles and travel figures. They see a XC bike with a 66 degree HTA and immediately go nuts because "that's too slack" (exact words). I've had this discussion countless times with folks who don't understand bike design. OTOH you have the same thing on the longer travel side, people saying the 2020 release Enduro is "too much travel" and writing it off as a park only bike without ever pedaling one or looking at the kinematics. You can see this all over comments sections when a new bike is released. Now imagine Transition or Specialized releasing current iterations of those bikes back in 2018, when people told me the Sentinel is "too much bike" for most people (and I live in the mountains), they'd write it off entirely having never touched one (and tbf they wrote that more conservative geo bike off for a long time for the same reason, so even that may have been pushing it). I saw this first hand with that very bike, when it released I was between the Smuggler and Sentinel, everyone told me the Sentinel was too much bike, 2 years later everyone said the Smuggler wasn't enough. People accept these changes very very slowly and anything out in left field people will write off.
So how does this tie into bike design? Designers have to boil the frog into major changes or people won't buy it. I can tell you for a fact this drives certain engineering decisions for some components and I'm fairly certain you'll see the same thing when it comes to bike geometry. If we eliminated this (IMO asinine) perspective on how most of the market views bikes, I think we'd see more drastic changes because brands wouldn't have to sell to a crowd that think two numbers make a bike. The vast majority of mountain bikers do not understand geometry, kinematics, or suspension and they drive much of the market.
Or if you don't believe me, read what people said about the Geometron years ago and compare it to what they are riding now. People en mass are difficult to please and opinionated, unwilling to try new things, and this drives a lot of product development.
Regarding XC, I think the geometry and kinematics in that area have improved dramatically to the point those bikes appeal to a wider audience and perform much better across varied tracks. I wouldn't want anything to do with a XC bike 8 years ago, but the new ones are kindof tempting. I also wouldn't write off what is coming in the DH and enduro space, I think we're about to see a huge leap in suspension performance and major changes to pivot layouts very soon. These may not be as sweeping as bike geometry, which has somewhat stabilized, but they are hugely impactful. There have also been a lot of improvements in tires, brakes, and suspension over the last few years that are somewhat low key but massively impactful to those disciplines.
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Pete Roggeman
1 month ago
It would probably be more interesting to hear this from a product manager so maybe we'll do that as a follow up, but unless you're a very small brand that doesn't have an established dealer/distributor network, it's tough to just change your geo overnight while managing expectations of all the links in the chain between PM and end consumer.
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Andy Eunson
1 month ago
The human factor is the most important parameter in designing and specing bikes. There’s a whole lot of Coke Pepsi , Ford Chevy, SRAM Shimano to consider. People have their favourites and they aren’t wrong. Having ridden mountain bikes since 1983 I can say todays bikes and components are light years better then they were in the 80s.
If you want a cross country race bike or a long travel enduro bike or something in between, you have plenty of choices. What I think Mike was getting at was people getting a trail bike with say a 130 fork and 120 frame trying to make that bike into something they could take into the bike park. Taking a bike too far from its designed purpose. Ride (or review) a bike in its intended environment. This xc race bike really sucks at the Whistler bike park. No guff eh! I may vomit if I read another reviewer stating that such and such an enduro bike with a 180 fork 170 travel rear DH tires with inserts climbs well. Finish the sentence bub: "for what it is". People I think expect a bike to be all things. That’s not realistic. Bikes in a given category sit in a small envelope of what they are good at. Sure you can make changes that will better suit conditions and the rider, but you don’t want to go too far. Going too far generally means you bought the wrong bike.
You’ll see riders sometimes with what look like wacky set ups and you’ll hear "it works for them". I always think maybe something else would work better for them.
There are certainly good bike designers out there as well as designers that simply follow trends without really understanding what they are doing. Long reach is good. Longer reach is more better. I think to some extent designers and consumers look at one or two parameters but not the whole. How does one change affect other things?
People like to be safe in their choices too. If design is too different from other things it’s a hard sell. Imagine when suspension forks were first out at 40 or 50mm travel if that travel was actually 120mm. Some riders would be all over it but most would say no. It’s too much. That was a constant argument back in the day. 80mm? For xc? That’s a DH fork. Even disc brakes were resisted by some.
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Lu Kz
1 month ago
As much as you or I or anybody else likes to cherry pick single flaws among otherwise totally competent parts specs, bike geometry, or general bicycle decision making on behalf of people who do this for a living, it's important to frame our criticism and commentary in the context that everything is generally very competent, and a large part of our cherry picking is related to the fact that this part of the hobby and fun for us. Even better, it's easy for us to participate in this part of the hobby while pretending to work a desk job. It speaks to the skillset and level of competence that exists inside our rapidly maturing industry that we have to comb through spec lists, dive behind geometry charts, or have personal interviews with industry folks to even identify these issues. It has probably been a decade since the last time I rode or saw a new bike from someone who wasn't doing different/weird for the sake of different/weird and thought "man, this thing is a total dog, it's awful, what were they thinking??".
As much as I am a supporter of messing about with bikes, I'd hate for people to do what they do to brand managers and engineers on a mass scale to my own bikes.* If you go through my parts spec or custom geometry choices with the same comb that we go through everybody who does this professionally, and it would quickly turn into an "everybody roasts Lu's bike, method of thinking, and long-standing personal decisions" day (idea for an article series, anyone?).
We were never meant to know how the sausage was made.
*I actually think I'd love it in a good natured way, but you get the point.
Edit: I feel like I should point out that I certainly do not know what I am doing, and in fact I'm rightfully mandated to carry "doesn't know what he's doing" insurance.
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Dave Tolnai
1 month ago
Totally fair. I changed it a bit to make it less about competence. It's more just market forces and the way of the world that lead to all of these compromises. Most of the decisions are made from a good place. Still, we're also victims of sameness, all heading in a similar direction. There's something to be said for bold ideas of weirdness.
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Lu Kz
1 month ago
Astute comment readers will recall I was very much a part of team "I want to criticize the professionals (even knowing a lot of 'issues' are compromise-based) and I really want leave and license to fuck my own bike up" on Mike's article! But I also recognize there's a balance here, which I suspect is why NSMB is apparently publishing a point-counterpoint style series of articles.
Homogenization is an unfortunate product of the capitalistic turned oligarchic market structure present in many industries today. With barrier to entry and other anticompetitive factors, it's hard to afford to take risks unless you're Trek, and even then I suspect you still have to convince a decent number of suits to get something like the Full Stache* to market. There's like, three vague downhill bike design categories in the market these days and everything else is an outlier to those three. We're all worse for it, especially you guys when there's less oddball stuff to write about and engage readers.
*there's a reasonable argument that at the time the Full Stache isn't even a particularly good example of what I'm talking about and I should have picked the 69er or Farley Ex.
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Cr4w
1 month ago
As a side point to this. Specialized doesn't offer the Enduro in S6 and Trek doesn't offer the new Slash in XXL. The only big brand to really do this is Santa Cruz that offers basically every model in XXL and in every colourway (not just covering their bases by offering XXL in black/alloy/basic spec).
Clearly the bean counters at the bigger brands are behind that. I understand that very small brands might not justify an investment in carbon to produce XXL or XS figuring they won't sell enough to justify the cost to tool up within a 3-year window. You might think those sizes should be the domain of the very big brands, where the bigger distribution network, wider reach and huge sales for M and L justify lower volume sizes like XS and XXL? Nope.
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Pete Roggeman
1 month ago
@Lu Kz. Astute. And a big part of the reason why the words 'bike check' in the title of any article or video have made my ears/eyes bleed for over a decade now. In the very rare instance where there's something unique going on, they're great, but otherwise they're just a parade of sameness, one sponsored racer or influencer after another trying to create another excuse to parade their sponsors' logos through their channels.
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Todd Hellinga
4 weeks, 2 days ago
OMGTHIS! haha, but seriously, this.
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Pete Roggeman
1 month ago
Roast my bike (spec) is a great idea for an article series. Dave, you into this?
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fartymarty
1 month ago
Even extend this to users bikes. I would love to post my bikes for users to critique and I can then defensively defend my spec choices.
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Lynx .
1 month ago
In general I'd have to very much agree with Lu, bikes these days are really good compared to when I got into MTB 20 years ago, way better - geometry, parts, all way better.
The one I can't understand these days is in the lower end market where you see a lot of SRAM SX, that shit is garbage and you could put on Deore 12spd for the same cost I'm guessing, going by retail pricing. Finally convinced my friend to switch from his 12spd GX on his 2017 Intense Primer to Shimano 12spd Deore after replacing the cassette twice for an avg cost of $230 USD each, he bought all the Deore parts needed cassette, derailleur, shifter, chain AND freehub body for his DT Swiss wheels for $50 USD more than a GX cassette costs and in the future a cassette will cost him about $80 USD. The "cost" he gained about 70g in weight for the Deore over GX cassette.
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Lu Kz
1 month ago
One thing we don't know is just how restrictive SRAM is with package selling. Is it more like "Hey, if you put Deore (or heaven forbid CUES) on that bike instead of SX, you can't have the sektor for it" or is it more like "hey, if you don't use NX/SX on all those bikes you're going to the bottom of the pile with all MY2025 stuff".
One of the recurring themes of this thread is bike product managers aren't inherently stupid. They know the reliability and feel of one thing at one price and they know when there's simply a better product for the same price. I know for a fact a brand in my Province actually takes out each spec level of bike and sees what they're putting people on. So you know SX is bad, I know SX is bad, they know SX is bad, yet it still shows up. The answer is clear: money. It's just not precisely clear.
I'd also point out there's a difference in just 'how' bad SX is in the sense that if someone buys an SX equipped bike to get it out once every two weeks for four months a year... it's fine. That's the majority of buyers. We just get a bit butthurt over it because product managers see it insidiously works its way up the product chain to where it doesn't belong because it's still '12 speed eagle'.
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Lynx .
1 month ago
I'm figuring that they're VERY restrictive/hard using the higher end products and suspension to force the lower end drivetrain sales and that's how they move the crap.
Again, 100% agree that on that sort of persons bike, who won't ride more in a year than one of us will ride in a month or less, SX/NX is very good and they'll never know, but once you put lots of miles/hours on parts, shitty parts really start to stand out. That's why XT used to be my "base" model part for anything back in 9spd days because while more expensive, for the amount of riding I did, they lasted way longer, worked better etc. These days, I'm happy with Deore, even on 10spd I'd be happy running Deore (I run XT 10spd on all my personal bikes that run 10spd). I decided to give 11spd a try on the Unit as I had accumilated nearly all the parts needed minus shifter and chain and I actually downgraded the shifter to SLX because of how absolute shit the XT is in terms of how damn hard/stiff it is to shift and how easy/smooth SLX is, but lost my beloved dual click for the trigger and a bit slower shift, but still worth loosing that for how shitty the XT is because it's so damn hard.
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cheapondirt
1 month ago
Bikes are so responsive to modifications and it's so easy to reverse what you don't like. I would have a hard time not tinkering. And no, I don't know what I'm doing!
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Maximum Radness
1 month ago
Brooklyn. Machine. Works.
It’s correct. It’s the right answer.
If bmw was wrong, I don’t wanna be right. Bikes are fun.
Business always take some of the best parts of fun, and just kinda waters them down.
Let’s keep bikes fun.
Thinking product mgrs know anything is fun too.
At my hight, and with my high level of income, I think it’s fair to expect I could live to be 300 years old.
Delivery is everything.
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Fat_Tony_NJ
1 month ago
1) I SO lusted after that BMW bike. The videos of those guys throwing down huge stair gaps in NYC while I was toodling around on my decidedly XC Cannondale hardtail, blew my mind at the end of the last century.
2) I have a theory, unsupported by data, that Sram's rise to dominance is driven by the fact that they can sell bike companies not just a drivetrain, but also a dropper, a fork, a stem, bars, etc, as a presumably cheaper package deal, vs a parts manager picking Shimano, then a Fox fork, then another company for bars, and another for stem, and another for dropper, etc.....
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Lu Kz
1 month ago
Regarding your point 2, I think it's pretty telling that pre-transmission a common thread of bike spec lineup within a single model was something like:
1. ultra-gucci electronic everything SRAM bike
2. excellent fox/shimano build
2.5. optional very nice fox performance elite/shimano build
3+. Rockshox/SRAM everything else.
So when you look at the bread and butter and what you see on the trails (anomalies like the sea to sky aside), it's a lot of performance elite and deep into the mid and entry rockshox/SRAM product mix.
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Pete Roggeman
1 month ago
It's one part push, one part pull.
Push: aggressive price discounting and/or availability guarantees for package purchases (you have to lock in your order on time to guarantee delivery and with the new hotness, there isn't always enough to go around for everyone, so you may have to buy all red stuff to be on the new hotness list).
Pull: design good products and market them effectively so that you can be confident that bike buyers will demand that they can get the ice cream flavour they want in their preferred cone. No chocolate waffle cone? I'll buy down the street. Chocolate or espresso in waffle? I'm yours, just gotta decide which one.
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Todd Hellinga
4 weeks, 2 days ago
Plattekill was epicentre of east coast downhill gnar and an ungodly number of BMW's back in early 2000's too...they handled that steep fall line shale looseness so well! I still want one! The Tora's look like a really nice modern version.
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Perry Schebel
4 weeks, 2 days ago
Yeah, those toras are rad. Have you seen the recent build w/ a monster-t?
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Todd Hellinga
4 weeks, 2 days ago
hahaha, yeah...though not my cuppa
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Squint
1 month ago
Totally respect the SRAMano issue, I find myself trending to the big names mostly because I don't have to mess about with compatibility or have trouble finding replacements parts. I just bought a gravel bike that was spec'd with GRX but came with a Praxis crank, now I have to actually think about chainrings when it's time for replacement... maybe that's fun for some people, but I'd rather just get the thing that works and is easy to find.
I also have DVO suspension, it's lovely stuff but every time I need to get it serviced I have to take it off and deliver it to the one service centre which isn't nearby or open on weekends. If I had Fox or Rock Shox I could probably just drop my complete bike off to my LBS at my convenience.
If the big-name stuff was garbage then it would be worth the time, but everything is so good these days and I'm just not fussy enough to stray too far from the well-beaten path.
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Ripbro
1 month ago
DVO is easy to service by yourself, take a look at their service manuals. I look for brands like Manitou and DVO that allow you to avoid the service shop.
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LeLo
4 weeks, 2 days ago
I totally see your point. On the one side I love to see brands like Ibis speccing DVO. But they often do so on entry level bikes.
There's this company here in Germany, Radon, offering pretty reasonable entry-level bikes but also pretty good ones. I would say they are on the same level as Canyon but prestige-wise lower. Anyways, they also spec DVO on their Trail-HT. So the one bike most people will get, if they want to get into the sport seriously. And while I really respect that and believe that they offer great products, it has to be a nightmare for someone trying to find someone to service that fork. And if they don't find someone, their fork will deteriorate and they loose fun in the hobby, you see my point.
Same with Hayes Dominions, great brakes, I just put them on my banshee. But finding replacement parts for them here in Europe is a nightmare beyond any imagination. So much so that every time barbs or hoses become available, everyone rushes to the forums and tells everyone about it. When traveling in Europe with anything but SRAM, Shimano, Magura or Hope or compatible Brands like Trickstuff (and in Italy Formula I guess) one always has to carry enough pads, etc.
I wrench a lot on my bike and got pretty comfortable doing pretty much everything myself, while also breaking some stuff in the learning process. This is just part of the hobby for me. But that's also a reason why I think that it's all the more important for smaller brands to offer high quality service manuals and videos. Everyone and their mother has made a how-to-bleed-Sramano-Brake Video. But when trying to service my Formula Selva I'm dependent on the videos the brand is offering (which are luckily pretty good).
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lookseasyfromhere
1 month ago
"Really, most geometry charts are nothing more than a well-informed guess (slight exaggeration to make my point) and what you are actually riding is something close, but never exactly, what you are sold on paper. Adding 1cm travel will change your bike, yes, but you’re certainly not compromising some precise geometry formula."
I'm always somewhere between amused and annoyed when I read a geo chart that gets down to fractional millimeters.
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Caspar Beronius Christensen
1 month ago
Back in the days a friend of mine , Bjarke , put his SuperMonsterT on a GT Ruckus , the original hardtail , after his Banshee Scream broke….. looked weird but he hucked the crap outta it , 4-5 meters to tiny landings at Vanga backen (Sweden) …. frame and fork ate it all , and I do belive he still has the fork….
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Brad Nyenhuis
1 month ago
For transparency, I have a business doing high-end custom frame-up mountain bike builds so yes, I do have a dog in this fight.
Mountain bikes are extremely good now. Gone (mostly) are the days of poor design and poorer manufacturing. That said, there is still a lot of compromises to a modern mtb build. Choices are often made on the basis of cost, business relationships, and marketing rather than what's the best component for the purpose. If, and it's a big IF, you truly know what you're end goal is, and how to get there, you can do far better than what is being spoon fed to you.
I'm going to repost a comment here that I previously made on MF's article in question to illustrate what I'm talking about.
Here goes:
I have mixed feeling about this article. I agree totally with the idea that changing the intended purpose of a bike through componentry is a bad idea and just results in a bike that is far less than the sum of it's parts.
However, as you said, all bikes are compromises. Built for the masses and compromised by marketing and OEM partnerships.
If you truly know what you want your bike to do, you can do better.
Example:
I wanted a Goldilocks trail bike with a DH bent. I chose an Evil Offering frameset with a 1.5 angleset (recommended by Evil). This allows me to keep the flip chip in the high level, keeping the steeper seat angle, while slackoning the front end a bit. The 1.5 slacker HT angle also brings the front end height down about 10mm. Overforking it by 10mm brought it back to factory height, keeping the geometry I love about this bike.
I've never used a fork that has the perfect blend of plush/support as the Manitou Mezzer Pro.
Unlike most, I feel there is no such thing as too much lateral stiffness in a wheelset. The I9 system carbon wheels have spoiled me in this regard.
Shimano XTR 12sp. Perfection. Nothing else comes close. Sorry Transmission.
Hope Tech 4 brakes. Take the power and light touch of XTR, and add incredible progressive "feel".
I've hate, hate, hated every Maxxis tire I've ever tried. They seem to be speced on every factory build. How much marketing did it take to convince us that 6" of initial tire slide is a good thing?! Sort of like convincing us that bitterness in beer is a quality trait.
I'm really impressed with the Kenda HellKat Pro/Nevegal 2 combo.
OneUp carbon bars have a perfect (for me) amount of compliance.
This bike has come as close to perfect (again, for me) as I could ever have imagined. It pedals and handles phenomenally on flat-ish trails. It climbs tech like a mountain goat, and I've raced it in some chunky enduros without feeling outgunned, despite its small-ish140mm travel.
My point is, I'm pretty sure there is no one offering a parts spec anything like this, and it's perfect (for me).
_Taking a well-thought-out approach can lead to serious improvements.__
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AverageAdventurer
1 month ago
Hey Brad, I'm curious to know; do you have OEM accounts with whom you're sourcing the parts from?
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Lu Kz
1 month ago
I guess that's the joy of building one-off bikes for people with relatively non-restrictive budgets. You can get exactly what you want. I'm not sure it bears too much relevance for the brand manager or consumer beyond musings along the lines of "hey wouldn't it be great if everyone just spent more money?".
Sort of like convincing us that bitterness in beer is a quality trait.
If the people who made those 2005-2015 absurd IPAs could read, they'd be very upset.
I am curious to hear more on your experiences with those kenda tires. Gone are the days of the Nevagrip?
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Brad Nyenhuis
1 month ago
I had a bike shop for several years and we developed a niche market for custom one-offs. If you do your homework you can be very cost-competitive with typical high end off-the-shelf models. The key is knowing where to spend and where it doesn't matter as much.
My point in posting that wasn't to convince people to do frame-ups. It was to somewhat refute the idea that we're better off trusting the manufacturer's engineers to know what belongs on our bikes.
Been using the Kendas for a few years now. Really happy with them. As for the Nevagrip, IMO, Kenda made a really stupid move by reusing that name. A tire who's poor grip was only exceeded by its poorer rolling resistance is now a very fast rolling, decent grip, rear tire, with absolutely nothing in common with its predecessor.
The Hellkat is a great front tire that I recently reassigned to 2nd place behind my new fav front tire, the (drum roll please) Tioga Edge22. Very odd design that works really really well.
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Peter Leeds
1 month ago
I have had a custom spec bike on every bike I have had since 1999 and it is not hard to do, but you have to know what you are doing to. I think most simply like having someone else do the thinking and simply ride. My riding friend I have does NOTHING. NO derailleur adjustments, cable replacements or fork setups/service. Each to their own.
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XXX_er
1 month ago
If SRAM is on top thats just right now cuz they will screw up
and then its Shimano's turn to try and re-introduce rapid rise again
I want products on a bike ( or anything ) that have support behind them
If a product is unattainable its also gona be unfixable
so give me shimano or SRAM which ever one didnt screw up this year
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Dave Smith
1 month ago
Plus two for two old dog references:
1 - Archers of Loaf - Hearing Wrong live in 94 was pure fury.
2 - That TMX photo is like 20 years old.
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Pete Roggeman
1 month ago
Tolnai doesn't usually provide photos so I had to go digging. I was on Perry's IG account looking for a hardtail with a Boxxer (Uncle Dave screwed me on that one) and never found it, but boy did I enjoy scrolling through Perry's IG account! I've followed it for years and know what to expect but don't spend much time on IG these days and seeing everything all at once was a lot of fun. Nice work, Perry! If you're reading this and want an overdose on North Shore trail porn as well as sick old bikes (mostly belonging to Perry) mixed in with some rad beers and a wholesome amount of IRL stuff, give Perry a follow.
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Perry Schebel
1 month ago
Hi!
I had a couple DC LeToy builds; first was just silly:
the TMX was the one bike i lament selling; was objectively not a great bike, but just look at it. Would require extra burly wall hangers tho.
thanks for the complimentary words, Pete!
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Cr4w
1 month ago
Yeah this was a silly time for sure. But I'm so glad people did it. Everything that's status quo today was someone's goofy idea yesterday that turned out to be really good.
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Mark
1 month ago
Those bikes almost make this whole discussion - Dave's and Mike's - seem a bit comical when you consider some of the stuff that was being ridden on the Shore 20+yrs ago by the likes of Danger et all. For the most part that stuff is still above the heads of the avg rider, even on the new wonderbikes.
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Dave Smith
1 month ago
I can't believe you did the bear mountain DH on that thing.
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Andy Eunson
1 month ago
Yikes. So on a bad transition where the fork compresses all the way do you end up with negative trail?
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Peter Leeds
1 month ago
A Banshee Endorphin HT with a Monster T on it back in the day was something you saw more than once.......
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Straw
4 weeks ago
Uncle Dave said mounting a Boxxer to a Hardtail, with this picture linked. Of course he knows that's a Sherman, right?
I remember HTP - Hard Tail Pride. I rode a hard tail because it was cheaper. One time I was jarred around so much in Whistler I peed blood in the Crystal Lounge.
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GB
1 month ago
I worked at Race Face when they churned out cranks and chainrings in house .
The DH forks at the time had 4 inches of travel at best .
Everyone's jaw dropped when I rode to work on my Norco hard tail with a 4 inch travel bomber fork . The geometry is ruined they thought. I noticed a dramatic improvement in steering stability do to slacked head tube .
Back then many terrible ideas were attempted. Plenty of awful performing bikes . But the variety and creativity made the Industry exciting. Fun.
I don't think any modern bike or part performs terrible . What you don't like can be replaced with a myriad of options. Money is probably the greatest discerning factor .
My rides are dialed in. For fun.The reason I'm here is to see Innovation.
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Andy Eunson
1 month ago
A list could be made of things the bike industry has designed that were or are generally disliked.
Numerous press fit bb standards.
Proprietary stem and headset sizes
Headset cable routing and a lot of the internal cable routing
27.5 wheel size was pretty similar to 26 and kind of a dumb change.
Lefty forks with proprietary stems and hubs
Scott bikes in general.
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Brian Tuulos
4 weeks, 2 days ago
Nothing wrong with splitting the 10mm axle to crown difference between difffork manufacturers. Some people run 25% sag, some people 15%. Same thing.
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ShawMac
1 month ago
Given that science still can't explain how exactly a bicycle works, it is not a surprise that no one actually knows what they are doing when it comes to building them.
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Timer
1 month ago
The bike is easy to explain by science in every detail. The human rider is the problem.
And no, the obvious solution of replacing the rider with an AI driven robot is no use, because no one knows how any given ”AI” model works exactly.
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ShawMac
1 month ago
From what I have read the self stabilizing properties of a bicycle (i.e. a riderless bike) are still not definitely explained. Both gyroscopic and caster effect have been isolated out.
But my comment as primarily in jest. How a bicycle self stabilizes isn't particularly important to spec'ing a brake manufacuturer.
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shenzhe
4 weeks, 2 days ago
I decided to look into what you said, and found this article to be pretty interesting. They isolate out the caster effect and the gyroscopic effect and still have a self balancing bicycle. There's a link to a video towards the end that shows the "bicycle" they created to test with.
https://www.wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2013/04/18/what-keeps-a-bicycle-balanced/
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mk.ultra
1 month ago
Thanks for further justifying my need to build custom bikes.
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SilentG
1 month ago
Great piece, I think that is why some corpo brands just seem so boring - focus grouped to death but carrying the air of finely crafted whatever the hell...zzz.
Bikes are weird and that is OK, I love that aspect of it as far as just trying stuff to see what happens. What is it like? Is it better? What exactly constitutes 'better'? What do you believe, why?
All that good stuff.
Thanks for dropping Archers of Loaf, hadn't heard them before, listening to first album now.
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Kos
1 month ago
Thank you Uncle Dave, for, if nothing else, getting that horrific AI illustration off the home page's banner photo.
(actually some fine points in the article) :-)
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Lowcard
1 month ago
The other day I was thinking about how much Norco has f*cked up with the placement of the new portly Optic. If I were in charge of making decisions over there, this is how I would structure their new bike line up:
1. The Sight would become the new enduro bike with travel increased to 170/160mm. The Range gets dropped (it's a bitch to work on and doesn't sell).
2. The Optic gets reincarnated into a modified version of the old Sight: A simple 4-bar Horst link bike with 15/140mm of travel. No high pivot. Right now, my '23 Sight C1 is lighter and more capable than the new Optic.
3. The Fluid either gets axed from the line-up or the line up is geared for beginner/intermediates.
My theory (along with firsthand experience) is that High Pivots make more sense as travel increases. Maybe I should submit a story to the NSMB folk.
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Lu Kz
1 month ago
Meh... If Norco wants to release multiple bikes with substantial overlap, hey, neither you and I are responsible for their bottom line, why isn't a deeper product line better for the consumer?
You can basically do that to the new sight now on your own, you don't need their permission. The Range really is something special even if it isn't meant for the vast majority of riders.
I don't really know what the difference between your theoretical optic and the current fluid are.
I think the Optic has a place, it could likely be a race-winning bike at mellower locations that have featured races in the past. In my neck of the woods it could be the fastest bike in their lineup somewhere like Harper. I haven't spent any time on it. Is it a bike for you? No, you've clearly demonstrated that. But good news, Norco is offering a shitload of platforms between new releases and carry-forward this year, so there's plenty for you or anyone else to choose from.
The new Optic is exactly the kind of oddball shit we should still be encouraging. Flawed? sure. Fatal? to be determined. But at least they're trying stuff.
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Peter Leeds
1 month ago
Personally, I think a 75 STA and 64 HTA is sacrosanct; I don't see how it can ever improve. I have a Ti hardtail with such and I cannot see how it can be improved at all. I think the companies change only to have something new to sell since that is the whole idea. Long term sustainability is not part of the plan. Not sure whom is worse; bikes or computers.
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Shinook
1 month ago
It depends on how you ride and the nature of the bike. I found heavier, burlier big travel bikes do better with a steeper STA in the 77-78 range. My Murmur sits there and it pedals up the hill real easily as a result and I don't have to spend a ton of time pedaling out of the saddle. OTOH my SST does a lot better with a slightly slacker STA, makes it easier to get off the saddle and sprint or step, which is harder on the Murmur.
Computers have a good reason to continue growth, vendors keep adding new features to their software and demand for resources grows as a result. A lot of inefficient, poorly written code out there that assumes cycles and memory consumption aren't an issue in todays world doesn't help. I feel like it's somewhat the opposite of riding bikes though, at least around here the trend is for "sustainability" and our gnarlier, more demanding trails are being paved over to blue trail hell. It's easier to get by with less now than it was 5 years ago.
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fartymarty
1 month ago
Peter, I thought so as well until I slapped a -2 headset in my Solaris Max and it took the HTA to 62.5. It's a little compromised uphill but boy does it rip down and no real downsides on flater trails.
It does tie in with Andrew Majors HTs need a 2 degree slacker HA than FS bikes (1 degree for HT sag and 1 degree for FS sag). I also have a Murmur and it's 64 degrees with a 160 fork and I wouldn't want it slacker altho I will probably try it someday as I have the -2 that fits.
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Brad Nyenhuis
1 month ago
I agree that we have kindof hit the point of, dare I say? perfection, in bike geometry. It feels like we've actually hit the point where, this is as good as it gets. There are no more real gains to be had, geometry wise, in the long and mid travel bikes. Nothing to tempt us to upgrade.
I think that is why we've seen the bike industry turn its attention back to the lost child, XC bikes. Now the hope is to re-interest us in that end of the sport.
If we can't give them a real reason to upgrade their 150mm bike, perhaps we can excite them about a 100mm one.
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Todd Hellinga
4 weeks, 2 days ago
I'm here for the rebirth of XC! haha
I think there's a cohort out there whom laments the drift towards overly portly bikes, yeah, they're super capable and fun. I have a Bronson at 30ish+ pounds and the thought of bikes in the 35+ range is horrifying to pedal around for any amount of regular distrance and vertical. For people who don't mind the XC with their downhills, that's really not appealing.
Trail bikes feel like they've evaporated into the ether, but the advent of more capable xc rigs, wheels, suspension at lower weights means that this newer breed of xc rigs is kind of interesting again, imo. I just got a Blur with a Pike (lol in regard to this series of articles) and tbh I forgot how much faster almost everywhere a proper xc bike is, and it's a blast on most trails. Sure I haven't been taking it down fall line rut trails, yet, but loving it.
No wonder everyone's run to ebikes when pedal bikes have gotten so heavy and slow pedalling. But also, most people are probably a bit gun shy of the sharpness and lack of forgiveness of a firmer shorter travel bike, definitely requires a lot more attention.
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Lee Lau
4 weeks, 2 days ago
It's also fun riding hard trails undergunned. Focuses the mind
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Fat_Tony_NJ
4 weeks, 2 days ago
This mindset is how people end up on gravel bikes, Lee. It's a slippery slope!!!! :)
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Lynx .
4 weeks, 1 day ago
@Todd and Lee, and that's why I still ride and love my Banshee Phantom V1. While not designed even remotely as an "XC" bike, the 105mm of rear travel makes it a bike you can't just point and plow, lines must be considered.
Also why I also ride and love my 2018 Kona Unit in it's original rigid guise. Sadly haven't been riding real trails much the last year, so when I go out now I'm grabbing the Phantom over the Unit, but I'm starting to get some trail time hours under the belt and building back the confidence, the addition of acquiring a 180mm dropper for the Unit is also enabling that thought.
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Timer
4 weeks ago
The industry is already well underway in "reinventing" XC by splitting it into light short-travel trail bikes on one side and gravel bikes with suspension forks (and sometimes flat bars) on the other.
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Tehllama42
3 weeks, 5 days ago
I'm now officially enough of an engineer to confirm that every bit of this is true.
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tdmsurfguy
1 month ago
I just want a high powered ebike to come stock with a boxxer, is that too much to ask for?...And have a somewhat decent turning radius. Still too much to ask?
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ShawMac
1 month ago
The E-MTB I could see myself being tempted by is a full on 200mm DH rig with a dual crown that could substitute for shuttling. I can't convince my wife to drive me to the top of the hill often enough lol.
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Pete Roggeman
1 month ago
C'mon man, this thing has been around for years: https://www.specialized.com/ca/en/kenevo-expert/p/199954?color=322160-199954&searchText=98022-3003
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tdmsurfguy
1 month ago
Thanks Pete I’ve seen these before but I thought I heard they are discontinuing this model.? I just wish more companies would offer a model similar to that kenevo
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