Not defending anything, just adding this for a little bit of balance…
Evil blamed their manufacturer in the Far East for the problems they had with various bikes up until The Following. The Following and the new Insurgent are being made by the same factory that makes all of the Santa Cruz carbon frames now (and I suspect a lot of others), so we expect the quality to be better. Or, at least Evil went out of their way to remove that variable from their frames…
I ride a Following, and so far (touch wood) have had no issues with it of any note. I’ve sold several of them now too, some of those that have bought from me also dwell on this forum. I’m not saying there aren’t going to be issues (every manufacturer is going to have issues, especially with carbon, it’s how they deal with the issues that often counts) but given how many Followings are now out there against the number of reported issues (and given Evil’s past rep, it’s fair to assume we’re going to hear about ANY negativity on the internet ad infinitum), I’m putting my faith in this being an isolated case and “the right thing” being done by Evil/Silverfish/your LBS etc…
From a personal point of view, the bike rides incredibly, the best bike I’ve owned in 20 odd years of MTBing. It’s raised the bar so high for me personally in terms of my own riding, I struggle getting on with other bikes these days! As an owner myself though, I’m also very keen to know that I will be looked after should anything bad happen, but as someone who sells these frames too, I’m always paying very keen attention to how any issues are resolved.
Interestingly enough, I was speaking with Jaydyn from Fanatikbike in the US the other day on their web messenger, he was saying that The Following has been their best selling bike by far this year (they shift a LOT of them too), and the Insurgent had dozens of pre-orders from their one shop alone! And so far the only negative feedback had been to do with a couple of heavier riders struggling to get an ideal shock setup, which is more to do with the limitations of the Rockshox Debonair shock than it is Evil.
Good luck to all concerned, keeping my eyes and ears on this one with interest…