Joseph-Kony

If that BMC rides half as well as it looks I'd buy it, really reminds me of my old IH 6Point.

True but in my case most of these solo rides tend to be more functional. Cool to read this though as what you described is pretty much exactly what I do most times when I'm on my own - just hit the local tracks and see how much speed you can milk out of corners and analyzing line choice.

Waki - well said, as usual. All of my best and most memorable riding sessions were with friends and involved some sort of friendly competition (and lots of heckling..).

He's still a pure racer which is good to see when everyone else is whipping and manualling around these days. I also wonder if any WC team takes racing as serious as Sunn did when they were around - that super analytical approach to line choice and bike set up seems to be lost a bit which is a shame.

Nice article although I think the DJ series deserves to be mentioned as well, being the first dirt jump specific forks.

In most cases that's the only reasonable way to look at it. It's the rider's responsibility to take a look first: isn't the track too difficult for me? Are there rocks or sticks on the trail? Are the lips in good shape? All of which are clearly visible so the rider has all the information to make a good decision to ride the track or not. In case he still messes up it's either a case of overestimating his skills or just bad luck - neither of which is the builder's responsibility. I do think in some specific cases this might be a little different. Let's say you abandon a north shore you know will be ridden by others. To me it would be reasonable to either demolish it or somehow warn the others you stopped maintaining it. This is because I think it can't be expected from riders to perform a complete check up on the structural integrity. Having said that, you could argue that all of this is true but that would mean a reasonable person wouldn't ride it.. Also, props for Pinkbike and RC for including articles like this, MTB really seems to mature in the last few years which can only be a good thing.

True, if you know where to look you can get some pretty nice deals. Personally, I'd never buy a complete bike. I just finished building my Kona Honzo, costed me around 1200 euros whereas the stock one is close to 1800 with some pretty horrible components on it.. Nice build, I like the Ultegra derailleur.

Depends on the purpose of the review. If it's purely entertainment it would only make sense to review bikes like this but if it aims to advices people in the market for a new bike, I think it's a bit stupid to review a 10k bike on a site mostly frequented by 16 y/o's. Thinking about it, it's pretty bad actually, telling them this bike will make riding SO much better, implying you're missing out a lot riding your 'standard' aluminium bike, but that's how the industry works I guess.