This is the kind of testing I would like to see more of in MTB products — blinded back to back testing. There is a very good reason that double blind randomized controlled trials are the gold standard in medicine for figuring out if something actually works. Bias is a very real and powerful thing. Unfortunately, for MTB products, it‘s generally pretty hard to do. You always know when its 2 different bikes you are testing because they look different, but this scenario was pretty cool. It would be more difficult to compare different forks (like Fox vs RS) this way — you could wrap them with vinyl to obscure graphics but most reviewers are savvy enough to tell them apart by the knobs alone I would guess.
Anyways kudos to a really well done test. It really is too bad you can‘t upgrade to buttercups on existing products.
Feb. 11, 2024, 9:11 a.m. - Moritz Haager
This is the kind of testing I would like to see more of in MTB products — blinded back to back testing. There is a very good reason that double blind randomized controlled trials are the gold standard in medicine for figuring out if something actually works. Bias is a very real and powerful thing. Unfortunately, for MTB products, it‘s generally pretty hard to do. You always know when its 2 different bikes you are testing because they look different, but this scenario was pretty cool. It would be more difficult to compare different forks (like Fox vs RS) this way — you could wrap them with vinyl to obscure graphics but most reviewers are savvy enough to tell them apart by the knobs alone I would guess. Anyways kudos to a really well done test. It really is too bad you can‘t upgrade to buttercups on existing products.