Spurred on by TAFKASTR's thread, which "improvements" to bikes are genuinely worthwhile, and which are just "different" - so we can all keep spending £££ upgrading, when manufacturers don't have any genuinely new ideas that are worth buying?
My view: 31.8mm bars, 8 & 9 speed, 15mm, hollow chainrings on Dura Ace etc (FFS!), the numerous variations on the basic suspension concepts and no doubt many, many others.
I'd say the stand-out,[i] genuine[/i] steps forward, worth the £££, are: indexing, hyperglide, suspension, spd, discs brakes, camelbaks, tubeless. (no doubt I'll have missed a few!)
1 Disc Brakes, you can go a lot faster when you can stop
2 Pro Pedal/Pedal Platform - rescued the single pivot from the bin
3 10 Speed (and maybe 11) brought 1x gearing to the masses
4 Dropper posts (or uppy posts) smoothing the ride out allowing for more flow and less faffing
5 Longer travel, lightweight, strong all day bikes - the fact I can have a sub 30lb bike that has 140/160mm travel will ride up and down anything all day long, pedals well, sucks up the hits well has brought us to the world that is Endurom/AM riding.
6 The Chairlift that works without snow - best thing to happen to mountain biking
Good innovations off the top of my head: Quick release bits, LED lights.
Never used one, but predict a few will mention dropper posts on this.
Aheadset/Threadless headset. Can anyone imagine trying to keep a quill stem with a threaded headset adjusted on an MTB with 6+" of suspension?
Cartrige BBs. How long did adjustable BBs stay in adjustment? (I won't mention ISIS, BB30, or the numerous pressfit varieties though... 🙄 )
Shimanos square taper bbs, since then they have all been a backwards stepCartrige BBs
Very few a first timers nowadays eg Aheads were about pre war.
Nowadays everything is about refinement or modifying. That's doesn't include, of course, "progress" purely for commercial reasons ie to keep so called ahead of the rivals.
Pretty well everything is subjective. An extreme example might be suspension. It modifies how you ride not changes. we still went down hill before. Interesting to find something totally new.
Dropper posts, wide bars, usable 1x10 set ups, clutch mechs - all great innovations from the past few years
And of course the lightweight/ strong 150mm everyday bike.
The 'innovation' no rider ever asked for - 27.5 wheels.
Strava 😉
From riding a heavy old rigid gate of a Scott with canti brakes 20 odd years ago, to a carbon framed, sub 30lb, 6" travel £4k bike now - the single thing that has transformed my riding enjoyment the most....
Dropper post - wouldn't be without one.
Been riding my old Lava Dome (with V brakes) recently alongside my mates on their 6" bikes and the dropper was the thing I missed the most.
Aerobars on TT bikes
Quick links and mini tools that work.
What I really miss though is the wtb greaseguard stuff. That really helped keep the bike in shape with the minimum of hassle
STI shifters once they became reliable
Led lights
Powerful front lights made night riding possible.
Arse butter
29er and the surly 29+ krampus format... This is something special, I reckon you will see a lot more of these oversized tyred bikes next year, being used really effectively in DH situations.
Splash maps are brand new and excellent. Maps have been around for years, fabric too. These are tough and so easy to stow away, just scrunch them up and stuff them in a pocket.
[url= http://www.charliethebikemonger.com/splash-maps---purbeck-and-dorset-3748-p.asp ]Kinky linky[/url]
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Isg05 tabs.
Big bikes which are comfy all day - coverts/ mega etc
2.4 rubber queens
X9/XO cranks with the removable spider
Shimano MW80s. Winter boots that actually keep you warm and dry. Been waiting almost 30 years for those
Monocoque carbon frames. Metal tube frames have almost reached the end of their evolutionary life whereas carbon fibre is still getting better. I have a 2006 Roubaix and a 2013 Roubaix and the improvement in the feel, stiffness and handling is remarkable - the 2006 is a collection of carbon tubes whereas by 2013 they've really got the stresses and the layup sorted.
Decent reliable GPS. Load route and follow. No more nav faff.
Most of these things are just personnel preference and not game changers
Dropper posts (used by the minority), OS bars, heavier and in some situations inferior, numebr of gears, travel lengths blah blah blah are just evolutionary changes
Real game changers
Tubeless, lighter, lower pressures, more grip no more flats what's not to like
Wheel size, whatever your preference there is now a choice which is only a good thing
Disc brakes, rim brakes sucked in the wet and mud
Suspension, Not a fan myself these days but has transformed the types of riding you can do so great to have a choice
I like matsccm's point about suspension. I went back to rigid over the winter to save my stanchions wearing out and I'm still riding it now, in the middle of summer. Don't really want to start a whole new debate (!) but I'm having just as much fun without shelling out the insane amounts of money suspension costs these days...
One more thing! While I'm on my soapbox, has anybody noticed any difference with tapered headsets? Or are they there to annoy us?
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Certainly clipless pedals. Possibly disk brakes.
GPS is an amazing invention.
[quote=shermer75 ]One more thing! While I'm on my soapbox, has anybody noticed any difference with tapered headsets? Or are they there to annoy us?
Yes it means I can fit a tapered fork into a tapered headtube 🙂
Just a reminder how far we have come
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For me, The advent of cheap LED lights which has brought night riding to a lot of people that would never of ridden with 15w Electrons or afford a Hope HID.
Nick
Seeing that retro bike photo made me think of how much bike geometry has evolved. Think there is a much better understanding now of what works for various disciplines. Sure someone will be along to point out the genuine innovative steps in this evolution.
that retro bike photo made me think of how much bike geometry has evolved.
Agreed although that old stumpy does appear to have a modern slack head hangle - Don't fancy the standover height though!
Rohloff bottom brackets.... Oh - hang on a few years...
Shimanos square taper bbs, since then they have all been a backwards step
Square taper wasn't great. Creaked and kept coming loose.
Did someone mention SPDs yet?
I feel like anything that already exists that has simply changed sizes is fashion (31.8mm and now 35mm bars, wheel sizes, headtube sizes after 1 1/8", BB shell sizes etc.) with the exception of s'pension travel and bar width.
Genuine innovations in the last few years I reckon are few and far between-
Full suspension XC race bikes that're good
6" full suspension bikes you can ride up a hill
Shimano Dyna Sis (more for the improved shifting than the 10 gears)
Everything else (carbon used for the sake of it, propedal, clutch mechs, Uppy/downy seatposts) is just fluff- nice, but not essential or life changing.
Full suspension XC race bikes that're good
That's evolution not innovation.
Big modern bike is broken at the moment so been back on my 10 year old enduro
It's less travel and a good few lb heavier.
So just evolution between the two
But genuine game changer tubless
Lock On Grips. simple, brilliant and so far in this thread totally absent!
for those that remember the early 90's mtb, it was a right of passage to pull up on the bars on a wet ride and lose a grip from the bars.
I discovered them in 1998 in a very wet Morzine after one too many crashes from grips sliding off my bars.
I have never gone back to slip on grips. never will.
after that, Hydraulic Disc brakes, why its taking so long for other bikes (namely road)to adopt them is beyond me.
5 Longer travel, lightweight, strong all day bikes - the fact I can have a sub 30lb bike that has 140/160mm travel will ride up and down anything all day long, pedals well, sucks up the hits well has brought us to the world that is Endurom/AM riding.
^ This + lots.
It's the whole package of parts and frame design which gives us bikes which are bloody excellent.
Seeing that retro bike photo made me think of how much bike geometry has evolved. Think there is a much better understanding now of what works for various disciplines. Sure someone will be along to point out the genuine innovative steps in this evolution.
Theres a degree of chicken and egg. If we're talking about droppers, and suspension, and disks, and platform shocks and wide bar - we're describing trail centre bikes. Trail centres weren't about when that bike was built, and the centres and the bikes to ride them have developed hand in hand over the years.
When those bikes were built people went out with a map and might carry their bike as often as ride it. They wouldn't have found any berms to rail while they were out there.
UST.
(An innovation that seems to have been dropped with 29ers in favour of the inferior tubeless ready version)
Disc brakes ...
I can remember careering down Lakeland hills in Novemeber, hitting the bumpy bit, appraoching the road to Elterwater and just hoping that a car wasn't coming around the corner ... cos theer was no way I was ever going to stop.
Even with my Onza Mega Bastard cantilevers with arms the size of a small child. Brake blocks were awful in mud, rain and grit ...
Front suspension
The most is fad / evolution
Marketing, the idea you need lots of bikes one for dh, one for trail centre, a cross bike, a single speed etc.
for those that remember the early 90's mtb, it was a right of passage to pull up on the bars on a wet ride and lose a grip from the bars.
Us motorcyclists solved that problem years before the 90s. Glue. And for racers, lock wire. Lock on grips are the most utterly pointless weight adding innovation I can think of. Apart from mudguards.
If we're talking about droppers, and suspension, and disks, and platform shocks and wide bar - we're describing trail centre bikes.
Nope, disagree.
When those bikes were built people went out with a map and might carry their bike as often as ride it.
Again no. I was riding in the early and mid 90s, and the hike-a-bike folk pre-dated even that. I was tearing around my local woods which were chock full of great natural trails, and periodically heading out in to the mountains and doing long rocky technical descents there. I just did them a lot slower than I do today.
lock on grips are brilliant, yes you can use glue and wires and mongoose sweat but it's faff, it takes time and it fails, locks on's work all the time and don't discriminate against the newcomer or technically incompetent.
Not a very long list so far. Though there must be loads of ground breaking innovations out there in suspension design alone if the number of patents is anything to go by 😉
Call me a luddite..
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Not convinced that much really needed to change, looking at the contact points relative to axles and basic geometry. Revision of road-derived parts to take extended off-road use was needed, but so many innovations have been more evolution than innovation and few are really essential. 'things that make us faster' would be a longer list. Things that are innovative and allow 'better' off-road riding is a trickier one.
Innovation imo has been tubeless tyres, discs and indexed gears. The move to bigger rims and tyres is welcome and I hope it gains some momentum, I think Keith Bontrager is a design legend but those re-rolled road rims were a low point, we got fixated on weight and went down an evolutionary dead-end for MTBs around that time. Suspension is a good option to have, that was a major innovation, Horst Leitner, Bob Girvin and John Whyte deserves a lot of credit for that.
Bike-packing luggage has been the biggest revolution in riding (in terms of scope and possibilities) in the last 10 years for me though.
Disc brakes aren't much of an innovation though. worthwhile but just an imported idea. Likewise tubeless tyres, that's just car/motorbike tech.
Dropper posts
Thick/thin chainrings (ok, arguably also an imported idea)
Clutch mechs
Platform shocks
SPDs
Quick releases
Mechs and indexing 😉
Tubs, probably
If we're discounting borrowed ideas, that really does shorten the list.. if we discounted stuff that you wouldn't / couldn't rely on for a long ride somewhere remote (the basis of 'mountain biking' to me since I started out, but accept that's another debate) then we may be looking at a very short list indeed. Clutch mechs and mechanical dropper posts maybe? Neither of which I think of 'must haves'.
Thinking of road bikes too, maybe carbon construction methods. And DI2, that's pretty cool stuff.
Baggy shorts !! 😆
Innovation is something that fundamentally changes the landscape that the product inhabits. There is nothing that says it has to be being new, or not stolen from anywhere else !!
So I will stick with front suspension and disc brakes. If you don't know why they are such a game changer, then you wern't mountain biking in the 80/early 90s
The idea that riding your bike in the woods or up a mountain can be legitimate fun for an adult?
I think Keith Bontrager is a design legend but those re-rolled road rims were a low point, we got fixated on weight and went down an evolutionary dead-end for MTBs around that time
then again if it hadn't been for the re-rolled MA40's proving what you could get away with we would still be running round on 40lb bikes rather than 25lb bikes.
Compare a Stans Crest to a Mavic Oxygen!
There has been no innovation in biking. All the things discussed are things that already existed but just applied to bikes. Basically the bike has remained unchanged for decades, and in many cases things have got worse - bikes are now massively more expensive than they used to be and a damn sight less reliable and only quicker in a handful of areas. The things that have improved MTBing - i.e. improved the fun of riding a bike and enabling people to ride down stuff they previously couldn't and ride stuff alot faster than they could before is suspension and disc brakes. The rest are all just evolutionary, but not innovative. Carbon frames have made no discernable difference to the fun of riding or the performance (small percentages), tubless tyres? I have no issues with tubes and Tubless have their downsides too. But suspension and brakes in MTBing have enabled people to access parts of mountians and hills that before they couldn't. But It all depends what you want out of your bike and if any bit of kit enhances that for you.
...bikes are now massively more expensive than they used to be and a damn sight less reliable...
nah, you can get a specialized rockhopper for £600.
back in the day they were around £450-500, allow for inflation, and disc brakes, and suspension, and you've got a bargain.
and, i'd much rather live with a 2013 rockhopper, than a 1993 rockhopper.
(right then, i've done a math: £400 at 3% inflation, for 20 years, is equivalent to £722, modern bikes are cheap AND brilliant)
remember barrelling down hill in the wet squuezing the brakes to the bars and getting faster and faster, rim brakes were certainly exciting but discs have totally transformed our riding.
for me:
Discs
droppers
lock ons
clutch mech
and
replaceable mech hangers
2 day old GT Zaskar frame plus small twig = written off frame - I'd saved for a YEAR for that... Remember those alloy derailleur bolts we used to put in to save our frames?
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I remember cycling to the Radio 1 roadshow in Hunstanton, standing in the crowd cheering Simon Mayo, wheeled my bike backwars half a metre and BANG, the bolt snapped and all the gubbins spread amongst the crowd, had to grub about amongst the British Knights to retrieve my mech bits and walk home. What a load of shat.
and you tube probably.
Modern bikes less reliable? Sounds more like a failure of their modern owners tbh! Yes, modern bikes are more complicated, but considering the abuse they get, they are so much more reliable, and that's before you include the weight difference.
I spent last week battering my 160mm/28lb AM bike down off numerous Alps, including doing things like black downhill runs etc, and i didn't need to touch it all week, not even put air in the tyres or tweek the brakes, it just worked. 10 years ago the bike would have weighed 40lbs and needed a complete rebuild every evening!
Added to which, after one chairlift up, we found the next lift was closed due to snow, so we just pedalled up the next ~1000m. 10 years ago that would have just about killed you trying it 😉
bikes are now massively more expensive than they used to be and a damn sight less reliable and only quicker in a handful of areas.
There's still no need to spend more than £1500 on a good bike and £2500 gets you a brilliant bike imo. In 1990 my high-end bike was £1100, Deore 2, Pace rc30s and maguras. £3k was the normal 'limit' then and still is, you get more for that these days though. You can spend £9k now but that just tells you something about the wider appeal and market growth since then.
And now I have cranks that don't round out after a few months use and a headset that stays done up, plus tyres that can go for 1000 miles and more without a flat. Reliability of some new kit is poor but there's no reason to use it if durability is a priority. Hydraulic dropper posts for ex - great to use, but would I take one on a 10-day trip that wasn't based in somewhere like Morzine? No chance.
Things have got better, but maybe not as much as some expect. Depends on what you want out of a bike. For the more AM-enduro crowd the progression since 1990 has been siginficant, in the last 3-5 years it's really matured. For the wilderness/explorer kind of XC rider, less so. Much of recent innovation hasn't been aimed at them.
Road tyres that are lightweight, puncture proof any have low rolling resistance. Modern tyres are a fine upgrade for any vintage race bike.
Both: index shifting and clipless pedals.
Both: GPS logging has added to enjoyment immensely.
Well light FS are not a revolution, they are an evolution and only made fat and lazy rider being able to ride uphill.
GD seat post are great (I haev one a each of my bikes) but they are just a very good evolution of a QR seat clamp.
Front suspension, disk brakes and tyres that actualy grip are real inovation.
Added to which, after one chairlift up, we found the next lift was closed due to snow, so we just pedalled up the next ~1000m. 10 years ago that would have just about killed you trying it
10 years ago it would ahve been piss easy to pedal up, coming down would have been the harder part. First went to the alps 14-5 years ago to do Cristalp. In that time not much has changed, just more people use the lifts rather than ride up the hills.
well the thread was asking for innovation... They also allow the thin light fit rider to get up the hills quicker.Well light FS are not a revolution, they are an evolution and only made fat and lazy rider being able to ride uphill.
??GD seat post are great (I haev one a each of my bikes) but they are just a very good evolution of a QR seat clamp.
Another where we came from pic DH bikes then and now 🙂
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juan - MemberGD seat post are great (I haev one a each of my bikes) but they are just a very good evolution of a QR seat clamp.
In the same way that suspension forks are "just" an evolution of rigid forks, perhaps.
Single biggest innovation in the bike world? The Internet.
If not for that we wouldn't be anywhere near where we are now as a sport.
But yeah, for bikes if I could take one thing of any of my bikes now and put it on my first 90's rigid it would be my droppy seat post. For road it would be clip less pedals.
In the same way that suspension forks are "just" an evolution of rigid forks, perhaps.
Not really, suspension has changed riding. Dropper post just mean you don't have to stop your bike to change saddle height.
There's no trail you can't ride without a dropper, but there are ones that you'd seriously struggle on without disc brakes, quality tyres and suspension.
I think dropper posts are great but there are some many other innovations that come above them.
nah, you can get a specialized rockhopper for £600.back in the day they were around £450-500, allow for inflation, and disc brakes, and suspension, and you've got a bargain.
On the flip side, try and find a hardtail with a high end double butted chromo frame + forks and full LX/XT level groupset for £600 these days.
These bits are being far more mass produced these days and shipping stuff around the world has got a lot easier I'd imagine.
You can get a modern Rockhopper for £600, but barely. They're down to Suntour XCM forks, Acera/Alivio gearing, A1 frame. Pretty much identical to a £300 Hardrock from 5 years ago or so.
5:10 shoes
In 1984 I paid £300 for my Orbit Gold Medal tourer. 531c, no indexing and mainly mid range parts.
In 1986 I paid £600 for my Raleigh Road Ace road bike. 531c, full Shimano 600 Groupset. Not top of the range, probably next one down.
In 1989 I paid £500 for my Marin Pine Mountain. That was not the top model (IIRC That was the 'Team') but the next one down. That's a ferking lot of money in '89.
Not sure how current tackle compares but as with most consumer products, I think they've effectively become cheaper over time.
Its not really a fair comparison comparing alivio from now with 5 or 10 years ago, the only thing that is similar is the name.
The only reason I'd pick a 10-15 year old bike with xt that was £500 over a modern alivio equipped equivalent is nostalgia.
interesting seeing peoples responses on this, i notice many people saying dropper posts, i havent used one but spoke to a fair few who have, they all say its brilliant.
spd, i used them when they first came out, havent used anything else since, technically an evolution though.
high up my personal list would be:
indexing for mtb: made gears much easier to use on bumpy terrain
disc brakes: they work in the wet and dont wreck your expensive rims
sti for road bikes: you can change gear while sprinting
most stuff is just evolution: aheadsets, cartridge bb, spd, os bars, 8/9/10/11 speed, lightweight FS bikes, these are all just refinements of older ideas.
bikes now are better than they have ever been imo, and they are good value too, my 92' eldridge grade cost £600, about the same as my dads mk1 cavalier bought at the same time,
my current full susser cost about £2k, the same as my dads focus, but its a world away from that old (and much loved) marin.
The moment manufacturers started hiring engineers rather than artisans to develop designs. This allowed the shift from "finger in the wind" suspension design to properly thought out and engineered solutions: anyone remember s-bikes, trek 9000s or Y bikes and the days where bike tests rated rear suspension based on the amount of rear wheel sideways flex?
Toasty - MemberOn the flip side, try and find a hardtail with a high end double butted chromo frame + forks and full LX/XT level groupset for £600 these days.
when could you ever do that?
maybe, about 20 years ago, when we paid for things in goat-hides, and bags of grain, you could have bought an orange clockwork, and put some mag20's on it, but you'd have spent well over £1000 even then.
don't make me do the maths... 🙂
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oh go on then! - it's £1800.
at about the same time, i bought a kona fire-mountain, for £600, it had deore 300 gears, a boggo steel frame, and forks that bounced on bits of rubber - £1100 in today's money.
for £999, here's my current recommendation;
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lovely frame (not quite 'high end'), sram x5, and an air-fork, much better than that old fire mountain, cheaper too.
(and you could never buy a rockhopper with bouncy forks for £300)
Singlespeed_Shep - MemberNot really, suspension has changed riding. Dropper post just mean you don't have to stop your bike to change saddle height.
Dropper posts have changed my riding for the better. I have a bike in the garage with no suspension but a gravity dropper- ridign without suspension can be fun, riding it without a dropper just feels daft.
There's been very few groundbreaking ideas since the early 2000s - my '04 Enduro features hydraulic discs, platform damping, five inches of travel and I can fit a myriad of current off the shelf parts to it if I choose. With the addition of wide bars and a short stem, it's a very contemporary ride too.
The only game changer in the last decade that I can think of is the humble Maxle.
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both a couple of grand just a few years between them, not much has actually changed, one has rear suspension and that is about it.
maybe, about 20 years ago, when we paid for things in goat-hides, and bags of grain, you could have bought an orange clockwork
Well yes, that was pretty much the context of the conversation. 🙂
oh go on then! - it's £1800.
What's £1800? You've just made up a number, multiplied it by (1.03 ^ 20) and used that as reference.
The discussion was more whether:
is better relative value than:
With inflation the older one is slightly more expensive, not a lot in it tho.
Full XTR and a 4.4lb steel frame for the equiv of £2.2k? 🙂
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[url= http://www.bikepedia.com/QuickBike/BikeSpecs.aspx?year=1993&brand=Kona&model=Race+Light+Explosif#.Ud_Gam1gukw ]http://www.bikepedia.com/QuickBike/BikeSpecs.aspx?year=1993&brand=Kona&model=Race+Light+Explosif#.Ud_Gam1gukw[/url]
mikewsmith, but could you then race the XC on the sunday on the same bike you did the DH on saturday?
and have a chance of winning both?
but there are ones that you'd seriously struggle on without disc brakes, quality tyres and suspension.
The most technical natural trails I ride now are the same ones I used to ride 15-20 years ago on a fully rigid bike with cantis and 1.9" tyres. It's a different experience now though 🙂
The only reason I'd pick a 10-15 year old bike with xt that was £500 over a modern alivio equipped equivalent is nostalgia
I wouldn't. There's absolutely no comparison between old XT and modern Alivio. Modern Alivio is however much better than 200 GS of course.
If we're talking "Genuine innovations in mtbs", then you can't have
31.8mm bars
"X" Speed
29ers
650b
Making the same thing but slightly bigger, smaller, middler, or with "one more" isn't an innovation.
You also can't have:
Disc Brakes
Suspension
LED lights
Tubeless
All innovations from somewhere else, arriving on bicycles eventually.
Propedal, instant change in damping to suit conditions, yeah maybe.
Weird parallelogram arrangements of lever and pivots in rear suspension to avoid pedal bob, also a yeah maybe. Although, most of these arrangments go with a propedal equipped shock so one does wonder! 😆
It all depends on what you consider "Innovation" to be.
Innovation is quite an over-used term and often wrongly applied to [I]refinement(s)[/I] of an extant concept rather than true innovations.
If you think of innovation as the first application of a concept or idea in the field, then you're talking about things like the Simplex derailleur; arguably where all the current Dura Ace, XTR and XX1 trace their roots ultimately...
First MTB suspension fork? I'm sure there's something that predates the RS1 (anyone?) but that's certainly the one that caught the market first and introduced a, now common, concept to the masses which has been heavily refined over the last ~25 years.
Disc brakes? again someone will know better, but was it Mountain cycle that first "innovated" and applied them to an MTB on the old San Andreas? and then everything that came after was simply incremental refinement...
Recent innovations? I'd have to agree Droppers are a fair example, obviously the [I]Hite-rite[/I] is always mentioned but is'nt quite the same thing IMO, I think it's Gravity dropper (Correct me if I'm wrong here) arguably that started the whole telescoping, bar or lever operated, on the move, seat height adjustment thing. so GD = the initial innovation, Reverb/DOSS/Lev/etc are just refinements of the concept.
The pace and scale of refinement has noticeably picked up in the last couple of decades. I think that's what people see and label as "Innovation" especially when a refinement is substantial but moving from ~2" to 4" to 6-8" of suspension travel over 25 years is just the evolution/refinement of one idea.
mrmo - Member - Quote
mikewsmith, but could you then race the XC on the sunday on the same bike you did the DH on saturday?and have a chance of winning both?
No because if I had the talent of SP I would have owned the DH on the Sat then got pissed as a fart on Sat night and have been happy 🙂
I think maybe using the words "innovation" is misleading. For me, the game changers are the bits of kit/tech that have changed either the way i ride my bike, or the difficulty/phaff i need to endure to ride my bike in that way. For example:
1) LED lights. Of course we had lights before, but now, for about £30 you buy some LED ones, that last for a couple of hrs, keep working when it's raining, are small, compact and light, and reliable enough that you don't need to pack spare sets generally. No filament bulbs to pop at some inoportune moment and enough light to tackle a difficult off road track without killing oneself.
2) Dropper posts. Again, if you wanted to drop your seat a QR did that, but now i don't have to think about seat height in advance. Just barrel along, see what is, or just "might be" a tricky bit of trail, jab the button, seat down, in we go. No pre-emption required, just smooth flowy riding.
3) Light FS bikes. Now i simply don't have to choose, i can just grab my 28lb 160mm bike and ride it. It works just about as well on a canal tow path as riding down an Alp. Most of this is due to suspension geo advances that now control the system so much better. Potentially EI shocks will lift this yet another level higher.
4) Thin, light, breathable but waterproof jackets. A Biggy for me, you can now stash a jacket in the space of a can of coke (or less for the veyr expensive ones!). A jacket that is breathable enough to let you sweat without it feeling like a hot cheap hotel in manilla! Whilst the tech has come from climbing etc, the fit of these jackets is now bike tailored, allowing comfortable pedalling whilst wearing them.
Toasty - MemberFull XTR and a 4.4lb steel frame for the equiv of £2.2k?
Pretty unfair comparison tbh- these days a 4.4lb steel frame will be CEN'd and warrantied for a longer fork, that Kona was, what, 80mm max? And no guarantee it'd pass CEN even with a short one. Today's Soul weighs the same despite the legal requirements but can carry almost twice the fork.
Trouble is you can't really do a like-for-like comparison because who makes a quality 80mm-max steel frame these days?
Likewise, direct price comparison misses out minor details like the Struts being a) much simpler than a modern suspension fork and b) absoutely dire- you'd be hard pushed to buy anything comparable these days unless it came on a bike from Tesco. And similiar applies to other bits- modern XTR is better than old XTR, the brakes are inferior to entry-level hydros (and much cheaper and simpler to make) and so on.
No because if I had the talent of SP I would have owned the DH on the Sat then got pissed as a fart on Sat night and have been happy
have a read of Peats Palmare, he raced XC as well as DH and getting pissed. Same with Dave Hemming et al. It was an era when you raced everything.
Is it progress that we need a different bike for everything these days?
the LED lights comments. no inovation there just refinement, been night riding for 20 years, only advance that has come with LEDs is smaller batteries.
mrmo - MemberIs it progress that we need a different bike for everything these days?
You don't need a different bike. My rather nice hardtail's been used for XC and enduro racing (actual enduro, not riding-round-fields enduro), uplift days, downhill world cup routes... Likewise I've raced downhill and enduro on my everyday 5 inch full suss, I've never raced XC on it as I've got better bikes for that but it'd do it if I chose.
But, I have individual bikes that are fantastically better at different jobs. And [i]that[/i] is progress. And also things that used to be considered impossible/too dangerous/no fun/just plain too damn hard for normal folks, are now more accessible to people with the right hardware, which is also progress.
Everything that you could ride with a 60mm travel elastomer suspension bike, you still can. You probably can't win a downhill race on it, but then most riders can't win a downhill race on anything, due to other innovations in the field of Really Good Riders.
So, a conclusion is appearing, lots of borrowed-tech evolution but not a lot of real innovation that's changed our riding apart from the dropper post?
I come back to thinking that people like Mike Curiak and Eric at Revelate have done more to re-define what we can do on a bike by developing the first bike-packing kit, but accepted that it's a bit outside what most people think of as mountain biking. And could be considered an evolution of touring kit. But it'd get my vote anyway.