It IS about value - and that's why I was mildly grumpy about some stuff. The only answer I kept coming to is that most mountain bikes never get ridden hard enough (or really just enough) for any of this stuff to matter, so most bikes come with enough flash to grease the sales skids, and that's about it.
Some context - for giggles, I did an entire graduate project in a engineering related course on parameterized selection of an optimal all-mountain bike for me, based on the consideration that I'm a 6'2" 230lb oaf who rides into cacti regularly. I really thought I'd find myself focusing on how much performance for value I could extract out of offerings present.
It's a 47 page paper, in condensed format... but if anybody wants it, I can put that up - might be useful for you engineering minded analysis-paralysis types.
What I found is that I was instead comparing bikes based on how few things on the spec sheet I had to put straight into the bin (or practically donate to shorter friends who weigh 80lb less), and virtually no other performance consideration came close. As soon as I got a little bit picky about things like whether or not I wanted enough dropper post travel to keep my dangly bits attached, or having sufficient braking power, I was finding that the figure of merit for bike value to me was how few things I wouldn't have to replace before going out in the first serious ride.
I found that I was money ahead gutting the dampers from OEM suspension in terms of raw performance [by the way, a Yari with Avalanche cartridge and Luftkappe is pretty baller anyway]. I wish more companies specced Guide RE brakes on XL bikes (or offered SLX brakes). I'm still mystified why anybody sells 100mm dropper posts on trail or all-mountain bikes of any size, or offers 125mm posts on XL's. OEM Tires - see Dave's thoughts on that. Crazy, right?
Ken - FWIW I'm a consummate tightwad, really destructive on equipment, and still want to exist at the bleeding edge of performance.
Still, after all of this, I went and found a second Instinct (used). Couldn't be happier with it, although I'm essentially on a 999MSL frameset with the stock Pike fork and XT brakes: from there it's a custom build.
May 9, 2017, 11:21 p.m. - Tehllama42
It IS about value - and that's why I was mildly grumpy about some stuff. The only answer I kept coming to is that most mountain bikes never get ridden hard enough (or really just enough) for any of this stuff to matter, so most bikes come with enough flash to grease the sales skids, and that's about it. Some context - for giggles, I did an entire graduate project in a engineering related course on parameterized selection of an optimal all-mountain bike for me, based on the consideration that I'm a 6'2" 230lb oaf who rides into cacti regularly. I really thought I'd find myself focusing on how much performance for value I could extract out of offerings present. It's a 47 page paper, in condensed format... but if anybody wants it, I can put that up - might be useful for you engineering minded analysis-paralysis types. What I found is that I was instead comparing bikes based on how few things on the spec sheet I had to put straight into the bin (or practically donate to shorter friends who weigh 80lb less), and virtually no other performance consideration came close. As soon as I got a little bit picky about things like whether or not I wanted enough dropper post travel to keep my dangly bits attached, or having sufficient braking power, I was finding that the figure of merit for bike value to me was how few things I wouldn't have to replace before going out in the first serious ride. I found that I was money ahead gutting the dampers from OEM suspension in terms of raw performance [by the way, a Yari with Avalanche cartridge and Luftkappe is pretty baller anyway]. I wish more companies specced Guide RE brakes on XL bikes (or offered SLX brakes). I'm still mystified why anybody sells 100mm dropper posts on trail or all-mountain bikes of any size, or offers 125mm posts on XL's. OEM Tires - see Dave's thoughts on that. Crazy, right? Ken - FWIW I'm a consummate tightwad, really destructive on equipment, and still want to exist at the bleeding edge of performance. Still, after all of this, I went and found a second Instinct (used). Couldn't be happier with it, although I'm essentially on a 999MSL frameset with the stock Pike fork and XT brakes: from there it's a custom build.