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‘Releasing’ a product/sending a load out to influencers, but then don’t have any stock for people to actually buy.
Stop changing anything that can be changed just because you want to make more money.
although, to be fair, that is not unique to the bike industry.
Stop using stupid ****ing names for tyre casings and compounds. Light, medium and heavy for the casing. Soft, medium and hard for the compounds.
Can't disagree more about carbon. A carbon frame is both lighter and easier to repair than an aluminium one, and IME less likely to need a repair in the first place. But carbon rims are the opposite - many times the price of an aluminium rim and almost guaranteed to fail.
Personally, I'd say massive rear mechs and tyres over 1kg need to stop. As do brands making single component ranges that do all genres of riding - expecting a GX crank to be light enough for XC and strong enough for Enduro, or having one front triangle do several travel iterations, means you have a compromised product.
I think you mean "Essentially using hot glue to not keep cycling apparel in place" cos in my experience silicon grippers never, er, grip.
1kg need to stop
You don't need to buy the tyres that aren't designed for you. I'm happy with a heavier tyre on the enduro bike as it means I don't destroy them. I still have the choice to put a trail tyre on the trail bike for easy singletrack riding.
You're wrong about Torx bolts. Buy better quality tools and use them correctly. FYI, Park is not a quality tool brand...
Yes, it's you, and the other hamfisted gibbons.Is it just me, or are torx bolts more prone to rounding out than Allen key bolts?
Nod, Nod, Nod... Torx, Shake head. It's a pain having mixed bolts on the bike but most multitools come with a T25.
And maybe add electronic shifting. I have it one bike as I really wanted to try it. It's good, mostly great but when it inevitably breaks (I'm looking at you massive SRAM mech), I'll be going back to good old XT mechanical.
Or, Presta valves. I know there on many on here who've never bent one, but for us mechanical kltuz's - can we have a more klutz appropriate solution (that doesn't cost a million quid...)
As long as they only use one size of torx, across the whole bike, it's fine with me.
expecting a GX crank to be light enough for XC and strong enough for Enduro
The problem with this, is some riders will put their XC bike through far more abuse and strain than others will ever put their Enduro bike through. Components tough enough for everything reduces complaints about a few breakages (which in the internet age can seriously damage a brand's reputation).
Daring to put an item of clothing out there thats a bit different to the norm... Apparently.
Daring to put an item of clothing out there thats a bit different to the norm... Apparently.
Across multiple threads now?
This poses a question for me:
Is it going to be more fun or effort to keep you on the hook a bit longer?
I reckon it's not going to be worth the effort, so you've won the forum for today.
👏
Carbon rims are just daft and Silicone grippers are a wonderful invention - try using knee pads without them and they'll be around your ankles in minutes. I quite like Torx bolts, any damaging of mine has been through not identifying them as Torx and mangling them with a hex.
You're right about through stem shit and chainstay mounted callipers though. Anything coming back from the evolution in road bikes is going to be bollox and should stay there. MTBs dragged them along and they're now dragging us back.
I was a metal frame enthusiast too, but I have just replaced an alu-framed enduro bike with a (low-priced SH) carbon one - and I have to reluctantly admit it's a big improvement for me.
I believe that there's a much bigger profit margin on carbon bikes, so perhaps what the bike industry really needs to stop doing is seeing them as a cash cow?
Is there a similar mark-up on carbon rims? For now I reckon most of us who pay for our own rims will stick with aluminium anyway.
If you want to ban a frame material Ti is the low hanging fruit. Expensive, high hassle and energy to build for no point bar fashion points
Cause we recycle our titanium obvs....
The best bikes I've ever owned have been carbon. And the big differentiator has been comfort rather than weight.
Telling us 32” wheels offer more choice whilst removing 27.5 for small sizes?!
I hadn't even clocked it was Ben who posted this, but hells yes. 32" is not going to be a new standard, stop pretending it will be/ trying to create yet another "standard" that forces everyone to replace their entire bike/ parts collection
With you on the pointless helmet peaks, and exactly same manufacturer; I bought a Specialized helmet with a large peak specifically for commuting as large sections of my commute in either direction had the sun in my eyes. The Specialized peak was literally 100% useless.
The Fox helmet I have OTOH, is brilliant, so I suspect it'll be discontinued six months before I decide to replace it, and due to the actually functional peak, people will snap it up inflating the price of any remaining stock.
That's it. Discontinuing product lines that actually work well for those on smaller budgets because they're not in line with the latest & greatest.
You're wrong about Torx bolts. Buy better quality tools and use them correctly. FYI, Park is not a quality tool brand...
Torx is ......... divisive. Fundamentally it'll strip the tool before it strips the bolt, rather than the other way around. And I hate how loose the interface on some fastens feel, the suspension mount on my motorbike are great big 1/2" 8.8 bolts, and the T45 bit feels very precarious in there. I know it's designed like that, it's original USP was that it could be driven in at an angle, but it still feels completely wrong. IT actually works/feels much better with a proper ratchet set and bits where you can push the bit in with one hand and apply torque with the other. With keys the 'bit' tends to fall over at an angle when you turn it.
So on the one hand if you mash the tool you've still got a 2nd chance. On the other hand a similarly sized hex would not have slipped in the first place and if the bolt is stuck then trashing several tools before taking the grinder to it isn't any better than rounding it off and taking the grinder to it.
Personally, I'd say massive rear mechs and tyres over 1kg need to stop. As do brands making single component ranges that do all genres of riding - expecting a GX crank to be light enough for XC and strong enough for Enduro, or having one front triangle do several travel iterations, means you have a compromised product.
There's a commercial logic to it though.
Say you're a big brand and need to produce low, mid and high tier component ranges. Not a niche company that only makes high end components.
If you make just those three, then your R&D budget only needs splitting 3 ways (probably skewed tot he top end). If you need to make XC, Enduro and DH versions now your top end budget is split 3 ways and the lowest tier budget barely covers the graphic designers crayons. So it very much depends whether spending 3x more on the top end R&D results in a crank that isn't any heavier than the XC version or weaker than the DH version you would have developed.
When the fashion was towards lighter bikes, plenty of DH riders were running XT cranks. And I remember a race report in Dirt where Sam Hill bent his Truvative cranks every single run of the weekend. Srams DH cranks weren't as strong as Shimano's 'XC' offering! The light/cheep/strong mantra is still true, but you can make it cheaper just by economies of scale.
6mm front axle, 5mm rear axle- who signed that nonsense off.
I have an 8 on the rear of one bike! Most multitools don't have an 8!
I remember the days when pretty much everything was a 5mm hex bolt, then they started sneaking in 4mm ones, then it all went to shit.
It's not even sensible.
Tiny, barely adequate 4mm bolts on a stem to save weight, then things like brake levers get 5mm bolts that barely need to be finger tight. Or worse, a mix of 4 and 5 on the same stem! Component brands really should have standardized on 5mm for everything on the bars then just made the brake/shifter/dropper clamp molts from aluminum.
Stop using stupid ****ing names for tyre casings and compounds. Light, medium and heavy for the casing. Soft, medium and hard for the compounds
Same goes for other components like suspension and saddles - just call them "good" , "better" , "best" , "pointlessly expensive but in our range because someone will buy it". For suspension I'm familiar with the RS naming and just CBA to try to understand Fox etc. Also looking for a new saddle and some come in different variants of the same shape but with small differences - just makes it harder to work out what you actually want.
What a weird article. Says that carbon frames are shit and carbon wheels are great. Absolute garbage on both counts
Most multitools don't have an 8!Old ones do, from the days your crank was held on by an 8mm hex.
I remember the days when pretty much everything was a 5mm hex bolt,
Ahhh, the young. My first MTB still had 8mm nut/bolts to pinch the cables and 14mm to clamp the saddle rails IIRC. Stem was still an expander, 6mm hex.
First *road* bike was about 50% imperial and 50% metric... needed something like 9 and 11/16th" cone spanners and a 14mm bolt to hold the crank on. Once i'd removed the 1/2" cotter held on with a 5/16 nut, then the 1/2" bolt to adjust the expander wedge in the stem, and the 32mm nuts for the headset too... ah. Such joy.
As long as they only use one size of torx, across the whole bike, it's fine with me.
BMX pretty much standardised the 5mm (I think, maybe 6mm) allen key for the whole bike a long time ago. I wonder if it lasted? Probably, because BMX is smarter than this side of the bike industry. Simplify and do simple well. I wish more BMX people/brands would get into rigid 29er design.
Chainstay mounted brakes .. new ISO tests will be helping get rid of those, or at least encoraging them back to a more sensible place for any bike that doesn't use racks and guards (edit, suspension bikes get a pass if they have pivots there). And even if you do use racks and guards, just adapt them to fit around a better frame / brake layout. Priorities.
Car industry aping
All these ‘Works’ bikes. Or eebs with stronger motors in the top tier models. Feels very Beemer M Series. Naff.
+100. And bike brands or events teaming up with car companies. F the car industry.
Is there a similar mark-up on carbon rims? For now I reckon most of us who pay for our own rims will stick with aluminium anyway.
High Quality carbon rims are available from reputable Chinese OEM's for $150. A lot of what you're paying for from a Western brand is the warranty support when you smash it on a rock (apart from DT Swiss). Carbon rims definitely make sense on a road bike but I'll stick with aluminium for mountain biking.
"and just CBA to try to understand Fox etc"
Is Rhythm, Performance, Performance Elite and Factory really that difficult to get ones head around?!
I would agree that Torx bolts need to get in the sea - they're a PITA compared to a (decent) allen key/head. Star fangled nuts are barbaric too, while saddle rail clamps are the devil's work.
Fox's fork line-up is ridiculously easy to understand compared to the array of different forks that RS offer.
I can have a Lyrik with various levels of damping poshness (which they keep changing the names of), or a Yari which uses the same chassis and has more basic damping... but hang on, now they do a Psylo, where does that sit? And there's a 35 as well - that looks pretty similar but I've no idea what's inside it.
I'm not particularly a Fox fan, but at least they don't make a "bad" fork. Just got a secondhand bike with a 38 Performance and it's comparable to the Zeb Ultimate I was used to riding.
A lot of what you're paying for from a Western brand is the warranty support when you smash it on a rock (apart from DT Swiss). Carbon rims
Was about to give a hearty "amen" to that, but then realised you might be saying something different to what I thought you were saying...
Anyway, the DTSwiss warranty on carbon rims is indeed a joke
Yes, it's you, and the other hamfisted gibbons.Is it just me, or are torx bolts more prone to rounding out than Allen key bolts?
Will nobody think of us hamfisted gibbons? I much prefer Allen bolts, but then I’m a klutz with cheap tools.
… on the other hand I always use Pesta valves, and I’ve never yet bent one.
Bikes are brilliant. Bikes today are brillianter than bikes from even a few years ago. Ebikes in particular are getting brillianter and brillianter.
I'd like the bike industry to carry on doing what it's doing please, because as far as I can see it's doing a brilliant job.