A lot can happen in a month, both good and bad, and this doesn't just apply to you or I. The mountain bike world has its ups and downs as well, and it's in the midst of slowly waking up from a winter hibernation, with the Taiwan Cycle Show, Boost hub spacing, Crankworx Rotorua, and yet another kinda new wheel size being pushed our way, not to mention a few other happenings. Some of that is great news, but it's not all rainbows and jellybeans out there, so here we lay out what gets us excited and what has us shaking our heads for the month of March. The third month of the year doesn't get special treatment, though, as you can expect to read about each month's winners and losers from here on in.Cost Conscious North Americans
YT Brings Consumer Direct Sales to America
The topic of turning to mail order instead of your local shop when it comes time to spend your hard earned coin is one that seems to get everyone's hackles up, but I think most of us can agree that better bikes for less money is a good thing. However, that can be a difficult ask when both a distributor and the shop has to take their rightful cut of the profits for their time and effort,
which is why YT is bypassing both and, at least by the looks of it, passing on a lot of that savings to the customer. I'm talking about as much as a sixty percent savings here, folks, not just a few hundred dollars, and the ability to pick up a top spec downhill machine for 3999 EUR (
apprx $4,479 USD). Cam Zink of I'm-going-backflip-that fame and his brother are handling YT's new North American operations, and it looks like the ball is going to start rolling soon. Local bike shops aren't going anywhere, and that's the absolute last thing I want to see - I spent more than a decade in the same small-town shop, by the way - but I'm also all for people having another option that gives them access to what looks to be some pretty impressive bikes at equally impressive prices.
Eddie Masters' HumorGooning on the Fat BikeTaking the piss out of fat bikes and the people that ride them is the sort of humor that's usually on par with knock knock jokes, but
John Colthorpe's video of Eddie Masters finding his life calling as a fat bike rider is a ridiculously funny parody on what is otherwise a dead horse in my mind. Sure, an old pair of sweats stuffed with pillows, a few thousand calories worth of fast-food and a set of crocs doesn't exactly scream clever, but Masters and Colthorpe not only pulled it off, they might have also unwittingly nailed why these funny looking bikes actually do have a place on the mountain: they're an insane amount of fun. If you haven't seen the video, Eddie actually does send it decently large on the rigid fat bike he's on, but he also shows that the bikes are all about being a goon, not giving a shit what people think, and generally having more fun than the last time you were in the ball pit at Burger King.
Race Fans
Back Between the Tape
World class competition resumed once again with the first round of the 2015 Enduro World Series at Crankworx Rotorua, thereby bringing the long, boring winter off-season to an end for race fans around the world. The event didn't include last year's EWS overall champion, Jared Graves, who was out with what sounds like a nasty double shoulder injury, but the champ will be back soon. Proper World Cup action is only a few weeks away, and Sea Otter's cardio fest is coming up as well, but a handful of the best downhillers in the world lined up at both the Aussie National Championships and the Oceanias to help get up to speed before the Big Show kicks off - I have to admit that these pre-season races have me primed for some mega early mornings spent watching the World Cup live feed while drinking a big tea and eating a bag of Doritos for breakfast at 5am. We also had the absolute insanity that is the City Downhill World Tour in Valparaiso, Chile, which, if you haven't ever seen before, is basically a cross between a downhill race and a James Bond chase scene through alleyways, down flights of stairs, and over sketchy looking gaps.
Being Angry at the Mountain Bike Industry
Do We Really Need New Hub Spacing?
The mountain bike industry is a funny thing. One year, companies are touting their latest product as a game-changer, and the next year they've moved on to something else. Why the hell did they not just do the second one first? Or how about not doing either of them unless there's a real, tangible advantage to be gained? The debut of the Boost hub spacing a few weeks back seemed to upset people in a way that only finding out your partner has been cheating on you or animal cruelty might be able to, and, as of right now, there's well over five hundred comments on the Boost press release, none of them worded too nicely. And I totally get it: why the hell do we need a new so-called hub ''standard'' that allows the spoke flanges to be moved out a handful of millimeters on each side? We're told it's to allow for stiffer wheels, more room for wider tires, and advances in drivetrain layout, all things that do sound like they make a lot of sense. After all, designs have to change in order for bikes to improve, and if they didn't we'd still be riding around on rigid dinosaurs rolling on single wall steel rims. Regardless, I'd argue that Boost's proposed benefits are not worth cost.
I've ridden a Trek Remedy with a Boost 148 back end, and while the bike performed well overall, I'm not exactly going out on a limb by saying that I would have been just as happy if it was sporting a 142mm width hub. Here it is: the very large majority of riders, if not all of you, will not be noticing any improved rigidity from a Boost fork or rear end. Yes, it will make room for 27.5+ tires while possibly helping the rigidity of such forks, and yes, it can make for shorter chain stays without clearance issues, but I don't see anything wrong with the spacing and hubs that we've been using up until now. SRAM may have taken much of the heat this month, but, because it's here to stay whether we like it or not - fork moulds have been made, hubs components machined, and frames have been designed - you can expect Boost frames and components from many companies in the near future. Are you ready for it?
Pre-Production Test GearThat Excuse Again...You'd think that companies would only send the media test gear that they're absolutely sure is good to go, at least from a reliability standpoint. But no, that's not always the case, as was highlighted this month by my otherwise stunning Yeti SB6C test bike being felled by a cracked swing arm due to what I feel was a relatively minor rock strike. I wasn't alone, though, as another media outlet had to deal with similar issues, and we both got the same ''but it's pre-production'' reasoning in response. Yeti has since reinforced the carbon layup on production frames, I'm told. Don't believe that it's only frames that get sent out too hastily, though, as my DVO Diamond test fork was offering performance somewhere in the same bracket as a 36 and Pike before it decided to push one of its fork seals out of the casting. The root problem was likely a near-microscopic piece of dried of Loctite that caused a leak in the fork's air cartridge, which then exhaled into the casting and popped the seal out like a cork. And yes, you guessed it, the fork was off a pre-production pilot run. Those Leatt pads that failed during testing? Yeah, also pre-production.
Looking at it from another perspective, companies want to get us on the new gear as early as possible, often times due to me nagging them with one or seven e-mails a day until they send me what I'm grovelling for, so there's some real pressure on them to deliver whatever's newest as quickly as possible. On the other hand, it doesn't make much sense if I'm not testing the gear that you're thinking about buying, does it? Attention companies: only send us production stuff, please and thank you.
Portland's Mountain BikersLocal Riding Area Bans Mountain BikesThe city of Portland, Oregon, is often thought of as being pretty damn bike friendly, but it turns out that might not apply to mountain biking. The truth is that there are very few places to find legal trails in or near the city itself, and the now closed River View Natural Area was the only real option for city dwellers who didn't want to drive out of town. That zone was closed down this month due to a familiar concern - the environmental impact of bikes - but while none of Portland's mountain bikers are out to harm mother nature, the story isn't as simple as the city looking to protect the area... I'm told that local cyclists had been working with the city for a couple of years to come up with a game plan regarding trail maintenance and the impact of mountain biking, and it sounds like the complete closure comes as a shock to every one involved except the city. The battle for trails might not be over, though, as local riders are howling at the outcome and planned a protest ride as a response. Now, I'm obviously not exactly an impartial observer to all of this, but the choices made by many local councils often seem a bit rash when you consider that ol' Mother Nature can turn everything upside down with a good storm or (heaven forbid) natural disaster, quickly erasing a foot-wide path through the forest. I've always been of the opinion that we're not really in charge, and that the over-protection of land that people could be enjoying is a real shame. I've taken a lot of heat for that view, and I know that it doesn't apply to every situation, but it's surely relevant to a lot of them. Here's hoping a solution is soon found to Portland's woes.
FOX's Public Image
New 27.5+ Fork Brings Unfair Criticism
There's nothing like like a newly proposed wheel size and axle standard to cause a shit storm. Here's the deal: 27.5+ wheels are coming, and not just from niche brands welding up odd but beautiful steel frames in their garage, but from major manufacturers as well. I'm not going to use this platform to tell you whether this is a good thing or not - I don't have enough time on 27.5+ bikes to make that call right now - but I am going to use it to come to FOX's defence. Why? Because FOX was absolutely roasted by commenters
when the press release for their 27.5+ fork went up in mid-March, but the truth is that they are only making these damn forks because frame manufacturers are asking for them. FOX is not fuelling this wheel-size fire, and they obviously knew very well that the general public was going to be barking mad when that PR went up on websites around the world. But imagine for a moment that you're making the important calls at FOX and multiple large bike manufacturers come to you looking for thousands of forks for their new bikes...
What are you going to say? You're going to say that yes, you'll sell them a load of 27.5+ forks, and you're also going to try to make them perform as best you can. So if you really want to fire your hate cannons, aim them at the bike manufacturers debuting 27.5+ wheeled rigs in the coming year, not FOX or any of the other suspension companies that will obviously be debuting 27.5+ forks of their own at some point soon.
Taipei Cycle Show Coverage
Yawn-tastic Product Coverage
If you've been paying attention to any of the new and exciting products being shown at this year's Taipei Cycle trade show you'll know that what I just said doesn't make any sense because there was almost nothing of any major interest to report on. Sure, there was a new set of pedals here or a new GPS computer there but, with the exception of
X-Fusion's Roughcut damper and
Praxis' 11 - 40 tooth ten-speed cassette, this year's show was about as exciting as watching the Home Shopping Network in slow motion. The days of never-before-seen bikes and gear being debuted at trade shows is likely behind us, but it shouldn't really come as a surprise: would you want your brand new product, something you may have spent years working on, to be debuted to the world during the same three days that every other company is doing the same? No, you'd want your own little gig and every media guy's camera focused on your baby, not a quick little blurb and a sub-par photo that gets drowned by so and so's new $30 ''technical socks'', that handlebar that's the same as everyone else's handlebar, or
stuff that you already saw at the last show. To be fair, we are still going to show you those socks and that handlebar, but don't get too angry at us when the only other things to see are 27.5+ tires and questionable bikes out of the Taiwan made-to-order catalog. At least we got the scoop on the wind-powered handlebar light!
Author Info:
mikelevy
Member since Oct 18, 2005
2,032 articles
I agree with most of it, although I'm doubtful about seeing many 27.5 bikes with 3" tires on the trail. The bike manufacturers who demand this standard forgot that most mountain bikers are weight weenies who aren't excited to jump on a slug and pedal it up a hill. That's probably why Master's fat bike edit had so much appeal.
QBP is the best distributor and they do some good things for the sport:
www.qbp.com/page/values
They and most distributers mainly deal in parts so distributor's won't take a huge hit. If this direct-bike-sales continues to catch on, its the lbs that will take the brunt of the blow, since a big chunk of their profits are from high end bike sales. One end result might be higher labor rates at bike shops for repairs.
On the other hand, less mountain bikes going through shops means less wrenches who have a clue what all the bits in a bleed kit are. The person who I see suffering as a result of direct distribution is the newbie rider who just bought himself a Tues and rode it all winter, who has to send his Void to Europe to get rebuilt because the monkeys at the LBS can't remember the last time they unscrewed an air can.
Cheers pink for article, it was a good read!
You wanna grab the industry by the balls and REALLY show them where you stand and who is really in charge?
DON'T BUY THEIR SHIT!
Buy a used frame, buy a used fork, buy a used bike for that matter and put some money in a fellow mountain biker's pocket instead of throwing fistfulls of money into the greedy hands of the Corporate Mountain Bike Industry.
But this incessant bitching about new "standards" and turning right around and buying those very products isn't getting us anywhere.
Sorry to pitch a fit, but I've been in this game for two decades and I'm just as tired of the Corporate Mountain Biking Industry as you guys.
Imagine what would happen if just 50% of us bought a fellow rider's used mountain bike for $2500 instead of dropping $7K on the latest plastic princess bike?
I'll shut up now. Flame me if you want, but this industry isn't out to improve your ride anymore, just their profits.
In some ways, I don't blame them if any of my tinfoil hat theory is based in reality. Companies generally like making money and selling new product lines. So I think it may be a combination of both consumer reaction and corporate shenanigans.
Btw, I'm officially going to steal the phrase "plastic princess bike". Much, much win.
I wish the industry was more standard, sure. I bought a boutique bmx frame and a build kit with every other part and it all fit. It was amazing
We should bitch about the bad ones. And no, i haven't bought a bike with a press fit bottom bracket. I'll be effing pissed if my current hubs won't fit the next gen forks and frames.
Maybe I'm not the average mountain biker but instead of having me buy more stuff, it just makes me want to sit on the sidelines even longer and see what actually sticks and becomes time proven. Ever since I bought my bike in 2012, there were tons of new standards and "innovations" to come out but very few have come to be real game changers.
Trying to strongarm me into to buying new shit will make me want to NOT buy it. Come out with something that actually fills a need (droppers, NW/clutches) and I will be rushing to the bike shop.
Growing up on a horse farm, I learned a lot about what animal feces can transport -- foreign and invasive species of seeds, chemicals from hormones that cause issues for native animals, and plenty of other damages (including wrecked native habitats, etc) that bikes will never cause.
I still don't understand the so-called 'logic' of most bike bans... Often, bikers make up a large percentage of the trail maintenance crews. Boggles my mind.
What that justifies is up for debate but let's not lie to ourselves.
It's true that opinions (and dirt) differ, but I don't think anyone is lying to themselves.
The greater difference is in trail density. A ten mile trail will entertain a hiker for day but a mountain biker for only an hour. Mountain bikers desire a much higher trail density than most other users which is of course a greater impact. Still, nothing irks me more than a manager who allows horses but wouldn't give a mountain bike club the dirt that's stuck on his shoes. In my opinion, if they allow horses, they just don't give a rip about erosion or treading lightly.
Take 650B: A slightly better rollover, slightly higher traction, slightly less agile. But why buy a new bike, when even in professional reviews the difference is rated insignificant and sometimes even unnoticeable.
Just a few years and your bike will come with a best before date and stop rolling the day after.
I don't always like the "bipolar" nature of the internet but when someone makes a stupid move, sometimes I can't help to feel the lynching was deserved and hope it is going to serve as a warning.
It just smacks of greed, not innovation, which is why I think so many of us are so deeply upset by it.
When you're perched on the edge between trust and betrayal of bike and component companies (as a lot of bike consumers are these days), a move like Boost 148 can easily provide the final push over the edge and into betrayal. We all know that 150mm DH hubs and spacing are that wide to provide stiffness/strength/yadda yadda yadda, but SRAM didn't decide to jump to DH width -- they shot just under at 148, forcing companies to conform to the giant that is SRAM.
It's a corporate-level greed structure that, quite frankly, is just f*cking played out. When bikes are a source of sanity for us, it's semi-emotionally crippling to have the industry infected by such unadulterated shareholder profit bullshit.
Just my long-winded $.02.
So the question I have is: If 26" was plenty stiff and wheel stiffness is that much important for them... WHY DOES YOUR NEW STANDARD HAVE WHEELS MADE OF CHEESE?
I can't help but feel that 27.5" was the answer to a problem nobody had and now that answer came with a whole new set of problems. Also, the fact that they now "need" to change axle/bbs and all that stuff because its not optimal really pushes me to believe that they didn't think it through when they made 650b. In my mind this really reflects poorly on the industry as they look like they have a bunch of amateurs working for them.
So what if SRAM is all like "boost, boost"; but Shimano, Hope, Halo, E13, Transition, Santa Cruz, Diamondback(e.g. companies not locked into complete bike component contracts) decide that they will stick with making products around 135mm, 142mm & 150mm standards?
I'll tell you what will happen; Wheels Manufacturing will make compatibility parts for fitting into the bigger standards. Then will drop it after 5 quarters of no-one buying the 'spacers'!
I 3 Rockshox
that reminds me of the South park 'smug cloud' developing over San Francisco, all because Kyle's dad bought a Prius. Its a slippery slope
Just travel up to Washington and enjoy the amazing forests they have. Some spectacular riding.
Tell me about it-- I live in Hawthorne and ride urban assault using two different styles of bike. I love the dirty looks I get.
.. These skinnies idiots also ride in traffic without a helmet and then yell at cars... Where is the bicycle safety corridor, but 2 streets north of the street they are yelling at cars on.
Don't get me wrong, I love the town, but no other cyclopolis can compete with the year-round "smug event" that hangs in the air over Portland.
Because they also love the town enough to study its madness & folly, the folks at Portlandia absolutely nailed it when they caught this "smug event" on film:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3nMnr8ZirI
Bicycle Rights!
there are man of them, nowonder that it has been 2 years Dirt magazines bike of the year in DH
That's why I put more stock in PB reviews, they don't call it such without spending some significant time with the product.
For that reason I'm happy that my track bike (/fixed gear bike) is the main bike I ride. No BS from companies trying to push all kinds of stuff down my throat. Just a bike that is made to be as simple as possible. Love it.
Fixies might not have performance benefits from it but there are still people trying to sell you bullshit you don't need. At least with MTB there is at least the pretence of performance enhancement not just peer pressure. "your bike isn't cool enough, nobody is going to think you are a real bike messenger".
@Patrick9-32 you're absolutely right. Fixies and track bikes absolutely are not without hype and marketing. Anodized chains, colored deep v rims, mission workshop and chrome bags... Not to mention the compatibility issues that arise when you're trying to resurrect a japanese/french/english frame from the 1960s or whatever.
Manufacturers cater to people who SPEND MONEY ON NEW BIKES. If they can deliver a better product for the same cost, they eventually will. This is mountain biking; when is there ever NOT a changing standard? Your solution for getting a stiffer wheel is to buy a carbon rim. Mine is to save that $800, run my current gear til it's clapped out and then buy a new boost-equipped bike a couple of years from now. No big deal. Face it, if you're not buying new bikes the industry is gonna pass you by. It's always been that way.
Fact is, unless you total your frame or fork, there's no need for you to switch to boost anyway. And if you DID have to replace one or both of them you're already talking serious money. What's another $100 to buy a new hub and axle? Get a f*cking truing stand, crawl into your fallout shelter, and grumble about the corporations while you lace up your new hub.
We've all done this already when we switched from QRs to thru axles. It wasn't actually that big of a deal.
And yeah, @mikelevy, I think the best thing that could possibly come of this would be that 29ers get their own hub standard. That would actually make a ton of sense.
@atrokz: you can divide fixed gear in two different scenes. The hipsters who buy shit bikes with a lot of flashy parts and only use it to commute to work 'in style'. And the racers who actually ride their bike as a sport, and train a lot for races (the first group is starting to fade away, but the second group is growing a lot since Red Hook Crit made fixed gear racing 'serious'). For performance riding fixed gear is actually a better training compared to riding a road bike. With a fixed gear you do 'interval' trainings all the time because you can't adjust your gears to the situation to have the ideal RPM. As for safety, it really depends on skills and attitude. I've been riding fixed for a couple of years now and never had a single accident. And I live in the street which is known for having the most (fatal) traffic accidents of Amsterdam, which usually involves cyclists.
But then again this is a whole off-topic discussion
It does not turn a profit.
What if -- what if -- bike companies and their engineers are not making innovations based on dark, sinister, backroom meetings focused on cynical ways to pick your pockets, but on a sincere desire to make their products better and give you a more enjoyable riding experience? Is every new innovation going to be a home run? No. But it's part of the process of evolution. It's how we got from there to here.
My guess is that the bike industry is full of people like us. They have a passion for the sport and want to make great products. The engineers probably take pride in their developments. Are they looking for a way to make profits? You bet. It's the carrot that spurs innovation. It allows them to innovate more. But is it their sole motivation? Probably not.
I know many of the people responsible for the new ''standards'' that we see (and the older ones as well), and they literally just want to make stuff better. That's their goal. And bikes get better every year, but somethings are more of a slight shuffle forward than an actual step in the right direction.
Like Tranny's clunker bike, the whole concept seems like a gag, and something that's fun to clown around on after a few german sodas, but not much else.
Try and incorporate an industry wide/racing/rumor 'By the Numbers' article in your rotation every month - sort of like this article, but include numbers that were significant in relevance to major news/results/developments in the industry every month as a recap. This was a popular page for me in magazines like Transworld Motocross (I'm 99% sure on that - it might have been another MX mag).
I love this sport!
Maybe it's different if you look at the big giants like Specialized, who as far as I know have something to do with Sram (not sure what though). But looking at the companies that most street/park/dirt riders follow, it was clearly that the fork companies pushed the tapered steerertubes, and not the frame manufacturers.
"just don't an idiot"
New internet meme. Thanks Mike!