david-max profile

I understand the intent, but as lovely as it is, it would keep me from buying the bike. As a tall rider with long legs, 640 mm is the minimum stack I would consider acceptable on an XL all mountain/enduro frame, and my preference would be for 650 mm to 660 mm. I could see the stack numbers they chose working on the 120 mm travel version of the frame, but not the 150 mm one.

I know that high-rise bars are a thing, but to get my bars to within a reasonable drop from my saddle is going to severely limit the choice of bars available to me, and I would still have to use a tall stack of spacers. This compromises front end stiffness and aesthetics (which does matter to me when I'm spending this much on a bike), and it eats into the effective top tube and reach. 

I think at this point, I'm just feeling somewhat annoyed by geometry decisions that penalize riders on either end of the height bell curve. The stack grows 10 mm across 3 frame sizes, while the reach grows by 50 mm. According to their geometry chart, that means they are suggesting that a rider that is 6'4 would only want their bars 10 mm higher than a 5'3 rider, and vice versa. There is something clearly off about that recommendation!

I know that not all bikes are for all people, but I feel like they failed to hit a reasonable happy medium on a key geometry number, and that is disqualifying for me. Nonetheless, I am still deeply impressed by the quality of the manufacturing and the ethic behind it, and I wish them all the luck in the world with it. I hope that future bikes from WAO will have somewhat more reasonable stack heights. It's probably a long ways off, but I would also love to see them expand their capacity enough to take on production for some other smaller BC based companies. A made in BC Forbidden would be so hot!

I couldn't agree with you more on this review. These are unequivocally the the best gloves I have ever owned. They are light, cool, and comfortable, but offer a surprising amount of protection. Essentially unnoticeable until the point where you really need them.

I'm pretty sure they saved my riding season last summer. I was travelling along a good pace, I'd guess 18-20 something km/h, when I slightly misjudged my line and clipped a boulder that protruded out into the trail with my right pinky. The impact was solid enough that it hurt a fair bit and I let out some sort of expletive, but I kept on with my run. When I got to the bottom of the trail I took a moment to take off the gloves and check out my finger. It turned out that the impact had split the skin on my knuckle through the armour on the glove. There is no way to know definitively, but I'm fairly sure that without the protection on the gloves that impact would have resulted in a broken finger. All I can say for sure is that it was a very solid impact and that for such light weight and comfortable pair of gloves they offered a truly surprising amount of protection. Yes they cost a bit more than some other gloves out there, but given the extra margin of safety they seem to offer I'd be hard pressed to find a reason to ride in anything else anytime soon.

As a side note, it's interesting to hear you say that you find the large to fit snugly for a large. I pretty much always wear an XL glove and found that the Leatt XL is a little loose compared to what I would normally expect. I ordered mine off the web because none of the local shops were carrying them. When its time to replace them I'd like to try a large to see if that might be a better fit for me.

The Raaw Madonna is definitely on my wish list, although that's probably where it will stay given its cost and the fact that they're not set up to distribute in North America yet. It's impossible to say for sure without riding it, but the way the numbers add up on paper make me very curious about it. As a taller rider the size specific chainstays and the and steep actual seat tube angle are both very appealing to me. The weight weenie in me (which is I'm slowly letting go of every time I break yet another part) does kinda wish that the frame was a bit lighter, but I can let that go in favour of the overall design philosophy and geometry.

So yes please to an XL Raaw... with an 185mm Bike Yoke Revive :)

To take this a step further since we're nerding out already, I've been wondering whether we'll see the introduction of carbon composite springs in MTB at some point. Essentially, they are stacks of individual carbon belleville washers that would allow for rate tuning throughout the stroke by swapping out individual disks. Without having done too much research on them my suspicion is that the space constraints inside a MTB fork are such that it might not be possible to make use of them, but it seems like they could easily be used effectively for rear shocks. 

MW industries, one of the main companies that manufactures them, is a subsidiary of Hyperco, the company that supplies springs for Push. I did ask Darren about them years ago in a MTBR thread and he implied that it was something they were looking into, but it doesn't seem like it ever went any further than that. If you are talking to folks down at Suspension Werx about funky, progressive spring systems it would be great to hear what their thoughts on them are.

More Info:

https://www.vitalmtb.com/photos/features/INTERBIKE-Part-2-Some-of-the-Latest-and-Greatest-for-2015,8119/MW-Industries-Carbon-Composite-Bellows-Shock-Spring,82137/bturman,109

https://www.mw-ind.com/product-types/composite-springs/

That's  a really neat insight, thanks for digging into it! It sounds like a nice and simple, albeit expensive approach, to being able to adjust all the spring rate throughout the stroke. Next time, I'm going to be wrestling with my brakes I'll drop you an e-mail and hopefully learn something new.

Cheers!

Thanks Andrew,

I just wanted to add that I've really been appreciating your thorough and thoughtful reviews. It's the wrong thread and I don't want to divert this one too much, but your teardown on the Quadiems has me salivating over them a bit. If they live up to the hype performance wise I just might dig up some cash to spring for the extra shiny ones at some point. I know you like them a lot, but I've struggled to get balanced piston movement on the MT7s that I have on my Nomad and the idea of fully rebuildable, modern brake is really appealing to me.

For anyone who's interested Bike.de has done what looks to be some quite scientific testing of various brake pads. The google translated german isn't the easiest to read, but the results are interesting. They have a fairly extensive test that they did in 2014 available as a PDF, and a newer updated one from this year:

http://www.bike-magazin.de/komponenten/bremsen/mtb-scheibenbremsen-30-bremsbelaege-im-grossen-test/a23181.html

http://www.bike-magazin.de/komponenten/bremsen/test-mountainbike-bremsbelaege-2017/a37195.html

After having read through all of it, it was interesting to note that there seem to be some pretty marked differences between the friction materials being offered by different manufacturers. Overall it seem like Koolstop sintered offer a pretty good balance of power and wear characteristics. Take from it what you will...

Wouldn't this apply for the Push ACS3 coil conversion that you mention in your introduction as well? Or does the the air bump stop feature provide mid stroke support on top of providing ramp up to prevent bottoming? There certainly seem to be a lot of very positive reviews of it over on MTBR http://forums.mtbr.com/shocks-suspension/push-acs-3-coil-conversion-kit-1050590.html

While we're at it, do you have any plans to review the ACS3 conversion at some point?

You're right, impervious is too strong a word, but I'll still take much better protected! I'm running e13 TRS 2.4" tires that inflate to close to the same size as the Maxxis WTs on a 32mm internal rim so overall its a pretty similar setup...

By the way, when you need new tire check out the e13s I've been on Minions a good bit before and I'm really loving the e13s!

@Metacomet

Thanks so much for taking the time to write such a detailed reply! It helped me answer a lot of the questions I've been wondering about with CushCore. Really, you've pretty much sold me on it! I'm in pretty good shape aerobically and based on your description I'll happily drag the extra weight around for the performance gains and imperviousness to flats that you described. If it works as promised I'll build my next wheel set up around a lighter rim and then we're really of to the races, so to speak.

Thanks again!