Beggars Would Ride
Leave The Driving To Us...
The header above is not intended as an actual suggestion, but is instead a song title from Neil Young’s album Greendale. There is a section of lyric that I hear whenever I hear the breathless exhortations about the benefits of the Next Big Thing, whether that Next Big Thing be a superfood, a political movement, or a bicycle part.
"The moral of this story/Is try not to get too old
The more time you spend on earth/The more you see unfold."
We are entering a Perilous Time here at the fantasy factory. This bicycle media thing is a beast that thrives on change. It needs to be fed a constant diet of hyperbole and speculation. We so-called journalists, cogs in this voracious machine, need things to argue about. We need to herald the new technological salvation that will revolutionize our sport. We need to wag our fingers incredulously and warn the unwary away from the Patently Bad Ideas, every once in a while. Positions must be stated, then demonstrably validated or refuted. Big wheels are dumb, big wheels are awesome. 15mm axles are a poorly thought out conspiracy, 15mm axles make sense for most of us. Four-piston brakes are more important than big rotors, big rotors are all that matters. Carbon is the future, no, steel is real, no, aluminum is the people’s metal. Instant center manipulation is the most important thing to ever happen to suspension design, but hydraulic bottom out and dual damping circuits are too. Flats or SPD, fight!
The Perilous Time bearing down upon us carries dark portents for the cycling media. The Perilous Time has a name. That name is “stasis.” Bear in mind, this is speculation on my part. See the previous paragraph. Speculation is just what we do here in the cycling media. And hoo boy, I have got it wrong more times than I can remember. So, don’t feel the need to attach any of your personal convictions to my speculation. My batting average has not been stellar. But still, since we are here, hear me out.
A rare image capturing the collective mountain bike editorial illuminati meeting to argue about chainstay length.
I first started noticing a slowing down of what I refer to as The Slackening last year. It seems like the rush to slack off head angles, steepen seat angles, and stretch out reach numbers has abated somewhat, and mountain bike geometry is once again settling down. When the most we can find to argue about at the moment is stack height, I consider that an omen of some sort. I think we are reaching a geometry plateau. Naturally, this means that we, the cycling media, are going to need to find something else to fixate upon. The easy talking points are becoming common across the board, rendering them moot.
So where next? Suspension design? Feels like we are reaching a relative stasis there as well. The established multi-link designs are hitting their respective maturity points and are all well enough thought out that when executed correctly offer really good broad range ride characteristics without any glaring areas of suck that allow us to vilify or champion one type of design over the other. The simpler designs are benefitting from optimized pivot locations and really damn good dampers that they are still viable for most people in most places, and don’t suck enough to be damned by the pundits for their lack of sophistication. Meanwhile, dampers are getting more and more refined, AND more and more reliable. You can count the number of wildly different suspension ideas entering the MTBverse on one or two fingers. What IS happening across the board is continued refinement of existing designs. This is not a bad thing. It’s harder to get all frothed about refinement, though, than it is to scream loudly about how “the Trust fork is doomed to fail.”
Instead of choosing which metallurgical hill to die on, we are generally at the point where most of us realize that steel, aluminum and carbon fiber all have their merits and applicability, and when done right, can all be made to ride really well, and really reliably. Yeah, titanium too, I guess. Hell, we are barely even raising our eyebrows at carbon fiber tubes being bonded into 3D printed titanium lugs. Which, to be perfectly honest, makes me shudder reflexively, but that’s only because I am still mentally scarred from the mid 1990s.
We are pretty much done arguing about wheel size.
What, then, do we argue about now? Glad you asked! Now that we’ve cleared the room of Big Idea Stuff to talk about in our collectively half thought out fashion, I do have a few things I would like to point out from the perspective of Surely We Can Do Better Than This. And, what the hell, I’ll even throw in a bonus conspiracy at the end.
First up: High pivot, idler wheel suspension. Yes, I understand how it works, and why it works. And if gravity is the only game in town, I get it. Really, I do. But by that same token, anyone who actually pedals a bike for any length of time concedes that these beasts suck energy. And, damnit, some of us spend more than half our time on bikes going uphill. A lot more, when you take into account that going uphill is generally a whole lot slower than going downhill. Unless… insert battery here. Which, again, fine. Buuut, no. There are so many better ways to do almost everything HPIW bikes do, and none of them involve having to buy two chains at once when it’s drivetrain maintenance time.
Look, I admit I'm an old singlespeeder, so maybe that's the core of my beef. Some sort of deep seated mistrust - "Show the jury where the bad idler pulley touched you" - kind of thing. I dunno.
Next: Headset cable routing. Come on. The argument that this is aesthetically superior is questionable at best. Aside from dramatically reducing headset bearing lifespans, what I suspect is really going here is a way for manufacturers to reduce cost at their end. No more need to carefully drill or mold holes into frames then run cables and hoses through sleeves. Hell no! Just route that shit through the headset, let it slap around in there, charge the same for that frame as before, laugh all the way to the bank.
Old man yells at clouds... I know, I'm like a broken record here. The original caption in Deniz's review of the Canyon Spectral:On had read: "More cable integration to make Ferrentino lose all his marbles."
This of course leads us to: Great big holes in the downtube. Take some of that money that was saved, throw it at some design time, lay some more carbon fiber in there to make things heavier than they would otherwise need to be, and call it storage. The bonus here, as far as I can tell, is that IF you also have headset cable routing, you can jam some foam pipe insulation up inside the downtube to shut the damn cables up. As a bonus, you get a door under the place where you normally mount a water bottle cage, but it’s more breakable, so you gotta be careful how big a bottle you put there. But hey, if this particular trend keeps going, maybe downtubes will get big enough to fit entire hydration bladders inside them, and then… Jesus weeps.
At least 50% of you think that every bike should have this. Fine, be that way.
Now comes the conspiracy. This is sort of like the part in Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy where Arthur Dent ended up on a planet where the poor-quality shoe based economy had ultimately caused the beings of that planet to evolve away from having feet: Batteries for everyone! Work with me here. Since the headset cable routing has made everyone hate cables and hoses, how about we just ditch the cables and hoses entirely? Already happening with shifters and droppers, can’t be that much of a stretch to jam a couple more batteries and some brake by wire tech down the throat of consumers. In fact, there’s that gaping hole in the downtube that would be a great place to stash a centralized battery unit that could power all those controls. Right? Hold that thought…
At least he still has his feet, allegedly.
Finally, the last of the logs on this funeral pyre I am building around my career in speculation: Great big derailleurs, great big cassettes. I was on a ride last week and watched, in real time, for the second time this year, as a brand new AXS X0 derailleur kissed a rock and managed to immediately mangle itself into a pretzel. Kudos to SRAM for that UDH, really reduces the side-profile of things. Bummer that the derailleurs are now about three times the size that they were a decade ago so that they can get worked over by stuff that is laying on the ground!
Bigger is... bigger. Marvel at the bigness. Prepare to be assimilated.
I get it. Front derailleurs were a pain in the ass on so many levels. But I cannot turn a blind eye to the 52-tooth monstrosity on the rear wheel or the roughly foot sized device that is now required to move the chain (precisely, but ponderously) across that huge spread of gears.
Hence the conspiracy: Stasis be damned. The people at the pointy end of design and technology are just catching their breath. Priming the consumer demand pump with death-by-a-thousand-cuts small frustrations. Getting us used to drag with the HPIW. Introducing lethargic (but precise) shifting behavior to our thumbs. Prepping our collective aesthetic for the normalization of bulbous downtube/bottom bracket areas. Simultaneously indoctrinating us to increased complexity of componentry while at the same time making some of those components eye-wateringly expensive and fragile in ways that we should have seen coming.
Well, at least they got rid of the damn idler wheel...
Brace yourselves. “They” are priming us for the internal gearbox. Battery powered servo shifter. Barely more drag than an HPIW. No cables. Fits around a bottom bracket with a bit of fudging. No more pie plate at the rear wheel. No more gigantic derailleurs. Strong enough to work with integrated motors, since that’s where the majority of them will go (duh, I mean, lookit the size battery you can ram down that massive downtube, amiright?), but it’ll work well enough for the rapidly-decreasing-in-market-significance rest of us. And by the time it gets here, we will be so sick of all that other shit that we will call it a revolution.
You heard it here first. Or worst. At least I didn’t try to warn you about the coming Singularity. Don’t forget the final stanza from ol’ Neil and Greendale:
"And as an afterthought/This must too be told
Some people have taken pure bullshit/And turned it into gold."
At least the same percentage of people who like downtube storage absolutely hate Neil Young. Probably that same percentage of people who actually like Neil and Crazy Horse are inclined to despise Greendale. Ah well. So be it. I leave you with this. Just be thankful it's not the extended live cut of Sun Green:
Comments
Andy Eunson
2 days, 5 hours ago
I sense the bike industry is taking a page or two from the auto industry text book on marketing. A recent news article pointed out that some automakers have dropped their small fuel efficient and easy to maneuver small vehicles from their line up. More profits in bigger vehicles. We have been convinced that we all want trucks and SUVs. We all want cars and trucks with a gazillion electronic doo dads that do what they say they do and replace what we used to do like pay attention and use mirrors and shoulder checks. As I have quoted before, they can’t sell us more cars but they can sell us more car. The bike industry is convincing many of us that we need more bike. And I will point out that Tom Pidcock won the last WC short track and XC on mechanical shifting. No "game changer" bzzzt bzzt shifter. Droppers are game changing. Electric shifting. No.
Recently I bought a headset steepening adapter and a seat tube slackening adapter. Subtle changes but I prefer it. I agree that bike geometry has plateaued.
The wife has an ebike. She loves it because we can now ride together. She has a medical condition that prevents her from going hard. But for me the complexity of this motor and battery thing is a no go. The bike was creaking badly last week so I pulled the pivots and cranks and cleaned and greased them up. But I looked at the bb area and it looked like I didn’t have the tools to fix it so we took it to the shop. The figured out the chainring needed grease where it mounts. But then a single red light came on the display after reassembly and the motor wouldn’t go. Leave the bike and they update the software and it’s all good. Let me ask you guys: Who wants a more expensive more complex bike that we who do our own work but now are unwilling to do? Or car. Or my fucking bathroom faucet. I had to order a stupid 32 mmm socket the remove the cartridge. I get on the Grohe website and search for the cartridge I might need and get over 800 parts. They don’t seem to list my faucet any more but there are similar ones but they don’t show the part number for the cartridge.
One can go on forever with all kinds of new and improved bullshit "ubiquitous they" are selling us. Boas on ski boots, slapchop and vegematic. Blind spot beep fucking beepers, cables in the headset. Yeah they do what they say to an extent but how do they actually improve things? I need a big car because it’s more safe. Or maybe we all need smaller cars. I need guns to protect myself. Maybe we need fewer guns.
Frog in a pot of boiling water we are.
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Mike Ferrentino
2 days, 5 hours ago
Grohe, don't even get me started on that shit. I mean, okay, it's awesome in some ways. Until you need that discontinued cartridge tool, or discontinued cartridge, and then your $1000 faucet is a very expensive paperweight.
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Jotegir
2 days, 5 hours ago
Goddamn Andy +1 for the slapchop/vegematic line alone.
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Pete Roggeman
1 day, 20 hours ago
"You're gonna love my nuts!"
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Andy Eunson
1 day, 18 hours ago
I actually rode a trail called Slapchop Saturday. It’s not on any map. Kind of loamy.
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Jotegir
1 day, 17 hours ago
It's for the house, the car, the boat, the RV!
(I'm mixing my infomercials now but they're all Vince so it's okay)
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Lynx .
2 days, 1 hour ago
Andy, that's so hilarious about the angleset to steepen your HTA and a post to slacken the STA, had that same discussion with Keith from Banshee when I was considering getting the V3 Phantom, that STA is just too damn steep for me, so I'd have to over fork it to slacken that out and then the HTA would be too slack, so would have to steepen that back up, or maybe my offset 9point8 dropper would suffice once I get the seals and rebuild kit.
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Andy Eunson
2 days ago
What can I say. I’m old. My muscle memory is older than most people around here.
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Dave Smith
2 days, 16 hours ago
A photo of Mike with a tinfoil hat would really tie the room together.
Also yes. The slackening has been replaced with the thickening - an abhorrent trend in frame design that makes everyone get used to monstrous thick downtubes.
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Fat_Tony_NJ
2 days, 7 hours ago
The thickening. Ha! I like riding my skinny tubed steel hardtail as a patale clenser.
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Cr4w
2 days, 3 hours ago
As an owner of two super thicc downtube bikes I can say that they work but I didn't pick them one way or the other for their aesthetic. Though I can see a time coming when I get a nice lean steel FS bike to live the slim life for a while.
Presumably we got these giant down tubes to accommodate in-frame storage, which is another thing I have but didn't ask for or care about. I use it since it's there but I couldn't really care less about it or bottle cages.
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Geof Harries
2 days, 2 hours ago
In-frame storage, at least to me, was and remains a solution looking for a problem.
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Lynx .
2 days, 1 hour ago
Don't understand this myself, why try to build a bike and maybe keep weight reasonable to then stuff pounds of crap in there instead of in your pack, on your back, where it's a negligible difference and that pack will probably save you if you have a hard fall to your back :skep:
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Jerry Willows
2 days ago
I can’t stand wearing a pack. Having weight down low can be beneficial. Different strokes for different folks but consumers are definitely wanting the frame storage.
Cr4w
1 day, 5 hours ago
I'm with you on this. I tried to take advantage of the bottle and in frame storage but in the summer it just isn't enough water and I don't drink enough so inevitably I end up wearing a pack anyway. As long as it's my Osprey Raptor 14 which is light, voluminous yet compact, and stays put, I'm happy. I'm also big and strong enough that the weight of the pack doesn't bother me.
taprider
2 days, 7 hours ago
I find fat down tubes repulsive
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Perry Schebel
2 days, 6 hours ago
agreed re: frame bloating. one of my favorite features of the starling was the aesthetic counterpoint offered via the wee pipes (~1.5" dt). i love skinny tubes. for better or for worse, dt storage has had the side effect of normalizing ebike aesthetics.
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Dave Smith
2 days, 4 hours ago
Agreed. My wr1's sleek stealth fighter inspired tube design contrasts nicely with the curved carbon girder that we see on most bikes these days.
Sidebar: That mini-murmur is on point
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fartymarty
2 days, 3 hours ago
I gotta get my Murmur on a diet this summer. I'm thinking short, slack and fast.
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Lynx .
2 days, 1 hour ago
Mike, you do help give a lot of us "old farts" hope and let us know we're not alone, everything you wrote, times 100 for me. I'm still happily riding my 10 year old Banshee Phantom, tubes are nice and slim, frame is robust and alu, so it's just fine to "lay" it down on the coralstone rocks we have, if needed. I forsee me still riding my "new" 6 year old Kona Unit for another 10 years, geo's quite fine by me, have several configurations I can run swapping wheels for both the Unit (and Phantom) and while 142x12 would make life a bit simpler (I don't have those drop outs) 135x10 and 100x9 solid axles are plenty stiff.
Tell me that Unit isn't a pleasure to look at, anyone.
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Karl Fitzpatrick
2 days ago
Yeah but those cables 🤢😉
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Jotegir
2 days ago
If only there was a clean way to route them internally but without drilling into the frame... say, through the headset, perhaps.
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Geof Harries
1 day, 22 hours ago
❤️
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Frorider
2 days, 6 hours ago
Ha! Don’t get me started ;). First off Mike you’re not the first to make these observations & predictions, it’s almost standard campfire talk these days. I’m sure we all recognize that Scott & Trek (among others) intentionally fattened downtube/BB area to make regular mtbs look like emtbs. Anyone interested in resisting the pie plate sized cog hilarity should consider a 46-9 or 48-9 cassette (Leonardi or E13) coupled with a med cage X01 (cheap! Works great with 11 or 12 spd shifter).
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taprider
2 days, 6 hours ago
and look what Radavist dragged up
https://theradavist.com/wheelbased-patent-patrol-ip-transfer-vyro-praxis-and-sram/
could we be going back to 2X and smaller cassettes and shorter derailleur cages?
reminds me of the old Browning electric shifter of the 1980s
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Mike Ferrentino
2 days, 6 hours ago
Iiinteresting. But it's still a front derailleur, with all that entails. I had initially intended to work the Browning Electronic Accu-Shift Transmission into the article, but figured that I had already bummed out enough people between hating on their bikes and forcing Neil young down their throats. Best leave that rant for another time.
Meanwhile, in an effort to ditch the dinner plate and the crowbar-long derailleur, I have been trying unsuccessfully to get my hands on a Classified rear hub/wheel for the past year or so. Apparently the planetary gear drag on that thing "sucks less" than the previous attempts. Not sure if this is a case of the frog willingly jumping back into the pot, but I still want to give that thing a try.
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Brad Nyenhuis
2 days, 4 hours ago
Return of the HammerSchmidt for the win!
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Jerry Willows
2 days ago
I had it on for 1 ride. The extra 3lbs and very noticeable drag was an a quick No Sale.
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Mark
1 day, 2 hours ago
I'm still happily running 2X on my trail bike and laughing all the way around - cheaper parts, greater range, better chain line, less wear and tear on the drivetrain, etc.
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fartymarty
2 days, 6 hours ago
Frorider - 11-42 cassette with a nice short cage Zee mech works for me.
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Perry Schebel
2 days, 5 hours ago
nice. i've settled on a sram 10-42 (11 spd) w/ mid cage xt mech & shifter for the last few years. light, compact, cheap, and robust. lack of a bailout keeps me honest.
random: i'm a bit surprised we've happily embraced the bloating of rear wheel hung drivetrains: wear items, located in one of the most vulnerable locations possible (one where increased weight is detrimental to suspension performance) that are now the heaviest, largest, and magnitudes more expensive than they're ever been. i'm sure at some point we'll look back & think - what the hell were we thinking? seems like an evolutionary misstep (vs pulling things inboard).
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Mike Ferrentino
2 days, 5 hours ago
Fuuuuck, we swallowed it without even blinking. And for every person who says "everything is so much more awesome now than it was (insert bygone era here)", there's someone wistfully remembering when the shift up to the biggest cog was smooth and quiet, or someone whose jockey wheels are now staring at each other after their insanely expensive derr cage twisted into an approximation of a figure 8.
Once upon a time people thought it was a good idea to loosen the rear hub while riding in order to shift gears as well, so, yeah, we are progressing. But it's not all skyward in triumph...
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Jotegir
2 days, 5 hours ago
Perry, I'm on the same setup as you except with an XTR shifter. The only gripe I have is that I can never seem to get the shifting quite right compared to a full 'proper' drivetrain. It's either sweet at the top of the cassette range or sweet at the lower range. I was considering swapping to something shimano-specific aftermarket rather than running SRAMano and keeping the shifter, crank, and deralleur the same once the rest ran out. Too bad the nice aftermarket stuff is so expensive and those XD driver SRAM cassettes last forever.
It's too bad Shimano never had an 11 speed cassette that mixed long lasting, light(ish), and affordable(ish) like a bunch of other companies managed to do. Shimano seemed to skip 11 when they were dealing out the quality cassette cards (revisiting it now with LinkGlide, apparently).
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fartymarty
2 days, 4 hours ago
10 speed for me. If I can't make it up the hill I need to get fitter, not add more cogs and weight and cost.
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Lynx .
2 days, 1 hour ago
Marty if I could POS rep you a bazillion times for those 2 comments, I would. Seems that every corner of society now is being pussified (sorry to you who find that offensive, grow a pair). Used to be that that was just the foregone conclusion most came to in years past - can't make it up that hill with the easiest gear, must need to put in more work and get fitter, these days it's straight to the internet to ask people what they think, only wanting to hear the limp answer of no, of course not, get easier gearing, or a motor-bike.
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Cr4w
2 days, 3 hours ago
XT and XTR 12s cassette still come in 10-45 which is great but pretty much nobody buys it except maybe some gravel people. I think it's awesome but then again I rode 11s 11-42 until last year. I hate those giant cassettes and even bigger derailleurs.
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Jotegir
2 days, 2 hours ago
Man, those 12 speed 10-45 cassettes, particularly at XT level, were pure weapons-grade unobtainium when they were released and around the covid-y years that:
1. to this day I've never seen one in person; and
2. I totally forgot they existed.
I have a bundle of standard faire 10-51 Shimano 12 speed cassettes, which mostly aren't on bikes to burn through, but I'd prefer the 10-45t eventually. Too bad, like all cool but slightly off the common path Shimano stuff, it'll likely be discontinued by then.
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Lynx .
2 days, 1 hour ago
My friend came from an old GF Sugar, he couldn't fathom how anyone could need anything so massive as a 45t cog and so he got the XT one and if sometime in the future I finally move to 12spd (still happy with 10spd on my 10 year old bike) I'll be going that route too, paired of course with at least a 34t ring, maybe even 36t because right now 34-42 10spd seems to give me enough range, if a bit hurtful at times - but I am most definitely not fit, just don't drink, smoke, eat crap etc, so even with my lack of really regular exercise like I used to do, I've seemed to hold onto something.
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Cr4w
1 day, 5 hours ago
None of the shops around here carry them that I know of. That's an online treasure for sure. One of my bikes came with the 10-51 and I figured I'd give it a go. It feels like too much. I rarely use the 51 unless I'm really tired. I just prefer the tighter more consistent jumps on the smaller cassette.
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Doug Shannon
2 days, 5 hours ago
Old bikes sucked. New bikes suck so much less.
Been doing this since 1984, so I've seen the whole show, so far.
Except for headset cable routing in an off-road bike. That's just dumb.
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Jotegir
2 days, 5 hours ago
It's dumb on an on-road bike too. Building Trek Madones, Emondas, and Speed Concepts was utter misery. Half the time on the rest of the build, half the time dealing with the stupid cables.
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Cr4w
2 days, 3 hours ago
For the most part it's all good. And some stuff we went a little too far and then we settled somewhere reasonable like how we're doing with head angles/reach/wheelbases, tires as well. I could happily run an 11s XT drivetrain if it was 11-45 without that goofy jump at the end. They sell 12s cassettes in 10-45 with a tight consistent jump between cogs so they understand that concept.
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Vincent Edwards
1 day, 18 hours ago
I’ve been running XT 11 speed (GS) with a e-13 Helix 9-46 Cassette for over a year… it’s excellent.
I have also heard very good things about the garbaruk 10-46 (11 speed) cassette from folks putting a lot of miles on them.
If I bought a new bike with transmission on it, I would not hesitate to sell that stuff as new take-off and pocket the difference.
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Andy Eunson
1 day, 23 hours ago
I agree with one caveat. We had just as much fun on shitty 1980s bikes as we do now.
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Perry Schebel
1 day, 19 hours ago
yep. (high 5 old bastards riding off road bikes since the 80's crew).
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Mark
1 day, 2 hours ago
If people can't have fun on a lesser bike then they're doing bikes wrong.
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taprider
2 days, 6 hours ago
Mike, I am afraid that you are right
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Jerry Willows
2 days, 5 hours ago
Not all HP's are created the same... my Slash is dead silent and climbs way better than the Enduro.
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Jobgnar
2 days, 3 hours ago
High pivot bikes are great and like Jerry said they are not all the same. Most newer designs don’t require longer chains or a lower pulley. I have had several forbiddens and am now on a Deviate highlander. I don’t notice anything real draw back to them just benefits. The extra drag when climbing is almost nonexistent but when climbing trail the extra traction is definitely noticeable and I live in Cumberland where climbing is a must. Up or down they are better bottom line
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4Runner1
1 day, 21 hours ago
I’ve never understood this. What bikes were you riding before that had such bad traction?
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Ryan Walters
1 day, 22 hours ago
Everything in this piece speaks to me - thanks Mike.
Everything except the lament towards in-frame storage. There are certainly better and worse examples here, but I've never experienced a storage door failure of any kind on my bikes for the last +5 years (Specialized). It's one of those things you never want to be without after you've had one for a while. Not wearing a pack of any kind is the best ride enhancing thing I've done in a long time. I do wish they were a bit more waterproof.....
It bugs me how difficult it's getting finding a properly spec'd bike WITHOUT any batteries on it. I'm so tired of the claims of superior performance, when it's these electronic systems that are breaking down on the trail at an alarming rate - far more frequently than any other system on the bike. I see more electronic derailleur related failures than flat tires these days. Don't get me started on how ridiculously big and heavy the Transmission derailleurs are. It's like we're surprised that failures arise when hanging a massive electromechanical device off a spindly little bit of aluminum in an incredibly abusive environment. Weird!
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Mike Ferrentino
1 day, 20 hours ago
Ryan, to be totally transparent, I have no real beef with in-frame storage (aside from the occasional plasticness related failure, or poor sealing doors, or...). I mean, if the frame tubes are big enough, why not stuff something inside them.
But then again, I was talking with engineers at two separate companies this year regarding their new flex-tail race whips, and the difficulty they had sending the bikes to market WITHOUT in-frame storage. The product managers were adamant that it would kill sales. The engineers were adamant that a race bike did not need an extra 200 grams of material to make the frame strong enough to withstand the Great Big Hole that was there purely as a sales tool since racers these days don't store anything anywhere, they just run to the pits if something goes wrong.
Much as I think carbon fiber is pretty damn amazing in terms of how it can be applied, them holes come at a cost. Neither here nor there for most of us, and rational conversation like this just gets in the way of my conspiracy theory, so I'll shut up now...
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Ryan Walters
1 day, 18 hours ago
A cursory look online revealed to me that small hip packs average about 300g without a hydration bag.
;)
But yeah - the XC race crowd is alien to me, and I certainly can't speak for them!
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Dave Smith
1 day, 16 hours ago
In the 90s, I was landscaping in Kelowna in the summers and I used to drive a 1986 three-in-the tree-enabled f150...I have flashbacks to opening up the glovebox and finding a half-eaten big mac every time someone with in-frame storage cracks open their frame and finds a naked cliff bar stuck to the tube roll.
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fartymarty
2 days, 14 hours ago
While the mainstream toward electrification a small weary fringe minority go back to roots of the sport with single speed rigid klunkers.
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TristanC
2 days, 13 hours ago
I have two conflicting ideas about that, as a single speed rigid klunker guy.
One, yes, it's almost reactionary; seeing people on ebikes or with robot derailleurs or whatever and thinking about how much I don't want that stuff in my life, and how simple and easy to take care of my rigid singlespeed is. Heck, spring maintenance this year? I oiled the chain, checked chain wear, checked the brake pads, greased the freehub, added some sealant, and was done. Took less than half an hour. I haven't even washed the bike for a year, and it doesn't care! Technology just makes things more complicated, man!
The other: I'm not riding a rigid singlespeed because other people are putting batteries on their bikes. I'm riding a rigid singlespeed because it makes me happy and challenges me, and the high I get when I winch myself up that uber-steep climb at 10rpm is incredible (even if my heart feels like it's going to explode). It's not a thing I do in response to the general direction everyone else is going, it's a thing I do because I like doing it. Maybe someday I will not like doing it any longer, and then I will do something else.
Just doing your own thing regardless of what other folks are doing is the antithesis of hyperbole and speculation, though, and it sure won't sell any bikes.
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fartymarty
2 days, 13 hours ago
Good points. I think those who are going down the rigid single speed klunker (or is it just called an mtb crusiser?) route will do so anyway and all the marketeering wankery in the word isn't going to make it happen for mainstream mtb as it seems focused on "more is more".
I keep going back to https://theradavist.com/2024-stooge-speedbomb-review/ which is the path I "think*" i'm heading down. I do enjoy the challenge of simpler bike - it's then scary getting back on the big bike and seeing what you can really get away with.
* If nothing else this is a nice bookmark to come back to in a few years to see how things panned out.
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Muesliman
2 days, 7 hours ago
Interesting read that Radavist article. I can see the attraction as I'm currently wincing at the cost of a new damper cartridge.
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Karl Fitzpatrick
2 days ago
This.
The people that might trying going in the opposite direction of battery powered, fluffy tubed uber bikes might not stick with it. For some, it's just more effort than they can be bothered with (which is funny as the simplicity is the biggest reason those of us that love it keep going).
I really like the challenge of tackling all kinds of terrain on my cobbled together rigid 69er single speed but, I won't lie, I get a moderate buzz from freaking people out on the trail when they realise what I'm riding.
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Lynx .
2 days ago
Karl, if I could only have one bike, it's be RIGID for sure, but you can keep that masochistic 1 gear thing, I hate walking my bike and hate being in the "right" gear probably only 1/4 of the ride.
I too enjoy letting the rest see that you don't need a modern 160mm> travel enduro bike to ride a lot of stuff, might have to go a lot slower on the Rigid, but man does it feel SO much more rewarding when you clean something super tech that's giving the enduro bros trouble.
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Karl Fitzpatrick
1 day, 18 hours ago
Interestingly, I'm the opposite. If I had to choose rigid OR one speed, it'd be the latter. I'll get there when I get there but I'd rather be able to ride DOWN all the things.
🫶🏽
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Mike Ferrentino
1 day, 7 hours ago
I'd prefer not to have to choose, but I'm in the "take the gears but leave by squishy fork" camp as well. I've done my time.
Lynx .
1 day, 7 hours ago
Karl, honestly, I just am not that risk averse, I play it quite safe and as such, there's like 2 features I won't try to ride on the rigid because I don't have that sort of skill, suspension definitely makes both of them much more doable, mainly for the so you don't go skittering off the trail because no dampening. I'm still on the lookout for a, in good conditions Cdale Headshock, 60mm would do, just want the ability to dial in some dampening to help control the PLUS tyres beach ball behaviour when run at pressures that provide good cush and grip.
kamloops_rider
2 days, 6 hours ago
The one constant in life is change and this article sounds like it’s an old guy taking about the good old days. I know as I’m turning 50 and had a similar conversation with my close friends. We eventually realized that we’re just getting old and things are changing and will keep changing whether we like it or not.
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Kos
2 days, 6 hours ago
True, in many cases. But SRAM's decision to go to a 52t cog just because Shimano chose 51t?!
SRAM Engineer: But we'll need to change the whole cassette to keep the 1/2 shifting from being worse than it already is.
SRAM Cost Dude: Nope, just slap it on there. Don't change anything else. And no raise for you.
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Mike Ferrentino
2 days, 5 hours ago
No. Well, maybe. I am an old guy. But the good old days sucked. I just spent a couple hours down the wormhole of linkage suspension forks to remind myself. Buuuut, one of the things about getting old, is you get to see bad ideas served up, eagerly consumed, revolted against, barfed back up and swallowed down again, and again. There are some really awesome things to celebrate in the current techno-evolutionary state of mountain biking. And there are some other things that are absolutely not worth celebrating.
Personally, I WANT a drivetrain alternative to derailleurs. I celebrate the death of the front derailleur in mountain bikes, and can't wait for the rear to follow. But if it is going to drag as much as current internal gear hubs and/or idler bikes, ewwww. Maybe I don't want it that bad.
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Kos
2 days, 4 hours ago
Well, I had a Lawill Leader linkage fork back in the day. Hell, you may have written the Bike Mag review that sold me on it.
At least all I had to do to it was replace simple plastic bushings on occasion. The Rockshox Mag 21 it replaced was seemingly under near-constant major self-destruction........
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Cr4w
2 days, 3 hours ago
I still have a Lawwill Leader at home. It's amazing especially compared to the other elastomer junk coming out at the time.
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Mike Ferrentino
2 days, 3 hours ago
Wasn't me. Somehow I managed to never ride a Lawwill. Rode most of the rest of them, though. AMP. IRD. Fournales. USE. Shudder... I was a Girvin Vector guy, through and through.
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Geof Harries
2 days, 2 hours ago
And Girvin Flexstem? I had one of those!
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Mike Ferrentino
2 days, 1 hour ago
Yep, them too. Sometimes the weld would give way where the brake stay was bolted to the elastomer, happened to me a couple times (slow learner) when climbing, pulling up on the bars. Bars would suddenly yank upward, which, in one case managed to pull the front brake on hard because the brake stay was still attached to the stem, resulting in a high effort, low speed, very unexpected, totally graceless endo. Still one of the more painful crashes I've ever had.
Then there were the Softride/Allsop parallelogram stems, or if you were super fancy, the trick machined JP Morgen versions. I remember crawling around in the dirt at the Sea Otter one year looking for the bolts that had just backed out of my Softride stem when Juli Furtado almost ran me over on her way through the men's expert field...
Mark
1 day, 1 hour ago
I honestly don't get the hate against FD's. In some applications they don't make a lot of sense (DH), but when the trade-off is pie-plate cassettes and stupid expensive drive-trains vs the benefits 2X offers seem to outweigh the imagined (?) negatives.
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Lynx .
1 day ago
I still run one (FD) on my Phantom and have a tringle (24/32/36t) ring setup on the Unit with a combo of wheels and cassettes from "old school" 11-34 to 11-46, depending on what tyre and/or wheel size I'm running, Generally I'm running the 36t ring for the commute to the trail or cranking out lots of flatish, pedally miles and then the 32t for trails and the 24t is just as an emergency as the knee isn't quite strong enough yet. Run a 24/34 combo on the Phantom, like to keep the flow and run either an 11-36 or 13-42 cassette.
I honestly don't see all the fuss except maybe it just shows how little people like to think, seriously how hard is it to figure out when and how to shift a front derailleur and it then allows for shorter RDs and smaller & lighter cassettes where it matters and puts the weight where it doesn't matter.
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Morgan Heater
2 days, 2 hours ago
I think we're already there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HllQ-da8fhk
I have to admit, it looks pretty sick.
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fattirerider
1 day, 21 hours ago
That's the most intriguing bike out
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Mark
1 day, 1 hour ago
I think something like this with a very small motor that is just enough to counter the drag of the gearbox system would be very well received by a lot of riders.
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Geof Harries
2 days, 1 hour ago
On the day that our local trails are dominated by bikes like below, I'm selling everything, finding a used rigid singlespeed and will ride by myself in Crocs, tattered jorts and with a single defiant raised fist.
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Mike Ferrentino
2 days, 1 hour ago
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Jotegir
2 days ago
In the context of that photo Miles' bike is 43 years old and was buried underground. So it works.
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Lacy Kemp
2 days ago
"Introducing lethargic (but precise) shifting behavior to our thumbs." The slow shifting KILLS ME. Whyyyyyyy
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Cooper Quinn
2 days, 13 hours ago
https://nsmb.com/articles/no-taste-crow/
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Kos
2 days, 7 hours ago
A couple of my bikes have internal storage. I'd never choose it, but it IS a great way to always carry a few light, simple first-aid kind of things. They're just always there. Why, the other day, I gave away one of my Big Band Aids. Felt good to help out.....
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Cr4w
2 days, 6 hours ago
If it makes you feel any better I am also pretty much against all of these things too. I've tried HIP bikes and don't find the marginal benefits to be broadly applicable enough to justify two extra pulleys that testers are always trying to assure you they don't really notice. Of course they notice them. I have in-frame storage and am totally indifferent to it. The system that came with my bike is pretty amazing and yet I don't care.
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Jotegir
2 days, 5 hours ago
I had a bike with in frame storage (now sold). I forgot I loaded it up with stuff to the point that when I sold the bike, I pulled all my stuff out and realized it really could have helped me out all the times I or a friend had mechanicals and I just totally forgot it was in there. Pretty much every time I was on the bike I was riding around with two tubes, two multitools, etc because one set was in my bag and one set was forgotten in the bike. Oops!
As for HPI bikes... I love em'. Of course, I essentially have (and use) two downhill bikes, both HPI. One happens to be a 180mm enduro bike, but that's mostly used for accessing shuttle trails that have a small pedal in them, very infrequently for real climbing. So as Mike says, if Gravity is the only game in town..... well, downhill is my business, and brother, business is good.
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Cr4w
2 days, 3 hours ago
You could say that the fact that you forgot what was in your in-frame storage is a testament to how good bikes are these days that you didn't often go in there to grab a tool, pump or plugs. I have two bike with in-frame storage and I made sure to have identical kit in each so that I wouldn't forget to move that stuff around and find myself stranded without tools. Despite that I still pulled everything out the other day to do an inventory so I was sure of what was in there.
I also loved the HPI bikes that I tried and probably would have learned to live with the quirks but that I disliked the geo of those particular bikes. Bike park and shuttles? HPI all day. For everyday riding I'm fine with something simpler.
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Cory Booker
2 days, 5 hours ago
As someone who was an early adopter of OneUp's conversion kit to get rid of the front derailleur and currently owns and loves a HPIW bike, I can handle most changes that a) don't involve a battery, and b) don't involve a change to rear hub spacing. Even the battery might be okay in certain circumstances.
Hmm. Actually, no headset cable routing for me either, please. But especially no more hub standard changes.
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roil
2 days, 5 hours ago
The design, engineering and ability to upgrade/tinker is part of the appeal of MTB for me. Compared to sports cars, it's a bargain.
My next bike is definitely going HP and I wouldn't mind a gearbox thrown in the mix.
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Mark
1 day, 2 hours ago
Ahahahaaha - love this article as it rightly calls out the industry and consumers for being the nitwits they (we) are. Question who is driving the bus - industry or consumers?
I'd challenge people to recognize if they really can notice how much better or worse a certain bike is while they are in the throes of riding. With the only caveat being that they need to compare relatively like for like bikes that are in good working order. My thinking is that if people are so focused on how relatively minor details are "ruining" their ride then they are probably focused on the wrong things. If people can't have fun on a lesser bike then maybe that haven't learned how to really have fun yet.
Prediction: the mtb industry is going to go through a huge contraction in the next few years unless they can continue to develop planned obsolescence via things like super extral special boost.
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Tim (aka DigitBikes/DirtBaggies)
20 hours, 46 minutes ago
If we had Pitch10 chains those derailleurs would be smaller and further from the ground and there'd be plenty to talk about. Maybe just talking about it would be enough.
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cal.uk.probs-never-pro
2 days, 9 hours ago
Good article .
Technology = power
Power = complexity
Complexity = fragility
You gotta find your own person Goldilocks point . In my career in construction my needs are different than with bikes.
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Kerry Williams
1 day, 2 hours ago
Heck yes Mike. The longer I've been a mountain biker, the more I see the futility of it all. Still though, what a sport! Love it, but am currently ignoring a vast majority of the media and marketing. It's been a revelation to let go of the idea of "gotta have it".
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