Edge Composites - Sea Otter 2010

 what if you eat one less piece of toast and have this wheel?? I think they are a waste of money for the majority of riders.

 lol good point i like your thinking!

 I don't get why "this shit is stupid." New tech for all industries has to start at some point and is of course initially more expensive than it's mainstream counterparts. And of course there are always going to be people who dismiss all forward progression at first like many are here, but as the old saying goes "Rome wasn't built in a day." Little by little our mtb companies will make progress... and to dismiss any forward progression is idiotic at best.

 65 grams lighter but is the strength the same? this is probaly as strong as a wheelset 165 grams heavier than yours

 Ha they sell each rim for approximately 900 dollars... I see ghetto carbon wheelsets in the future, laced to your old hub. -Sarcasm-

 I agree, the price does seem quite steep considering a ZTR Flow rim weighs only 70g more but costs $800 dollars less. But hey, they're not forcing anyone to buy them so each to their own.

 the WC is raced on AM rims from some time now... It's hard to call under 2kg Deemax Ultimate a proper DH wheel... the same goes to ex721 rim. In general any alu rim under 600g is hard to be considered as a year round DH rim. The difference is that amateurs do not get like 10 pairs of rims per season... you want to do bikeparking, some racing on ex721 rims - no probs. Just try to take them to all races through the season so they make it till december... So Edge AM rims are kind'a already alright for Wcup...

 Hmm Mavic 721s are much stronger than you think. I run 721s all year round, DH racing and are still running after many months in the Alps, France. They dent but hold together very well.

One thing i'd be worried about is hitting the rims. I've got dents in my wheels which have dented the walls in, so what would happen if i did that to a carbon rim? Is that 900 quid down the drain? 721s cost about 45 quid, so its not TOO bad if you break them... i'd be more worried with these rims.

 I just said my opinion on riding AM rims in DH WCup. I didn't mean anything specific about ex721s, I just used them as example. I think they are great rims, it's just that I think EDGEs 400 AM are as strong as they are.

Though as you write here, I am also having concerns about their resistance to type of hits causing alu rims to dent.

The price is totaly different discussion, but well if their strength is comparable to EX721s, and they are stiffer (have to be as they are from CF) then 160g less of rotating mass might be worth it. (obviously for those who want to buy them: Im not one of them until I get a 6 figure GBP salary)

 Waki, I partially agree and disagree with your statement. Deemax and 721 are most definitely not All Mountain rims. Full stop. However, some DT Swiss sponsored teams have been using 5.1 rims (or ex1750) wheels for their race runs. Similarly have some Mavic teams been using 521 rims. These are clearly AM rims. The difference is that nobody expects these to last and can be considered to be disposable. At $900 dollars a rim its a different story...

 deemaxx ultimate about what waki was speaking doesnt use moded 823 rims like the full deemaxx but from what I rember crossmax sx rims - last time i checked there would qualify as am rims.

 They are neither. Its the same rim profile as the Crossmax but with 8 more spokes making them considerably stronger.

 If this turns into a full blown trend then you can expect prices of all wheelsets to rise comparatively. That would be a problem

CEO: "Did you just say our nearest competitors msrp at $2300? Hmm i guess our customers won't notice another ten percent."

Take fox for example. A 36 rc2 was 1200, what will kashima coat cost extra now? In the meantime rock shox introduces a "new" Argyle with aluminum uppers and suggests retail at 700, because surely no one will notice its basically a solo air pike with slightly different cartridge dampers. Whatever the market will bear...

 First of all there's too much focus on label here. If someone writes AM it does not necesarily means that the wheel is proper AM ready! For instance lets take Easton Haven AM alu wheels, 1600g for AM wheelset?! There is no miracles here, if the alu wheel is meant to hold up to requirements of certain riding style the rim cannot weigh under: XC 450g, AM under 500g DH under 550g, that's it that's all. The Ex 721 is at the edge, and only because its welded and made out of Maxtal.

Deemax Ultimate, well 4 spokes more means only that is easier to true it, as the distance between spokes is only slightly smaller.

Regarding raise in price R-trailking-S: since when in any economy, market logics increase of variety of products makes them more expensive? Further, it is totaly illogical to me to believe that a new technology coming in is going to higher the prices of older one. It just works other way around - always. Thanks to development in new materials, older ones get cheaper.

Regarding Argyle: IMAO releasing it from the start with steel uppers was a stupid move from RS. It was expensive enough anyways so why not put lighter ALU legs...

 Lets leave the rim debate be. People who want to run certain rims will, others won't. To be fair to trailking, he does have a point. Prices, especially for suspension has been spiralling up incredibly over the past 5-6 years far beyond any inflationary expectations or raw material prices.

 yes the price goes up for the new stuff, as the new stuff has lots of new stuff in it. If you want to get out of dark ages of Boxxer 2004 WC you need something like the new one. Just compare 40mm legged Monster to Fox 40. Which one do you prefer? even if the first one is cheaper? 5-6 years ago we had a 130mm fork called Marzocchi Z1 FR at MSRP equal to 2010 Lyrik Uturn being lighter! Thanks to development of forks such as Lyrik you get forks like Recon cheap. Thanks to that you can buy your kid or wife a bike that works without breaking your wallet. Before you could choose between crap and caviour, nothing in between. Furthermore I assure you that todays Recon is way better than some JUDY SL which costed more.

Regarding Fox: it has always been expensive stuff for deep wallets. Companies thrive on this stupid lust for having the same thing that racers have. We eat our own sh*. Plus nobody forces anybody to buy anything. You don't like to pay for Kashima coating buy something older second hand.

 Let me put it differently, a LCD TV now does not cost more than a CRT TV 15 years ago if prices are adjusted for inflation.

 Undercoverfreak – I disagree, prices for suspension have not been spiralling up for the last 5-6 years. Since the introduction of the Boxxer WC back in (I think 2002 or 2003), its price has always hovered around £1000. The original dorado’s (I think 1999 or 2000) were also around £1100 and the dorado x-works (2003) was £1700. The fox vanilla rc was around £300 and so was the 5th element coil. I think we should consider ourselves lucky that prices havn’t sky rocketed.



As for a $900 rim that isn’t even tubeless ready – I would say back to the drawing board Edge, and look at what riders are really looking for.

 yes but the first LCD TV was way more expensive than CRT - thats how the development works.

SCottlanddownhill: regarding Edge rims I agree, it's stupid for them to say you can use conversion kit. Conversion kit gives you only one thing: puncture resistance for 1-ply tyres. It weighs more than a regular tube, and for 2ply tyres it makes absolutely no sense. Easton done their homework a bit better (though they still dont understand that 21mm inner width rim is an XC rim, not strong enough for i.e Alpine AM)

at least i understand AM as going up and then rocking it down to the bottom, as hard as the bike type lets you do it. If you want to go up 3000ft mountain and then ride carefuly so you dont destroy your wheels or get a puncture, take XC bike to save yourself some pain on the climb...

 I'm going to use the fork I personally owned in 2005 as an example. Top of the line 2005 Marzocchi 66RC £529. Top of the line 2009 Marzocchi 66 ATA £969. 83% price increase while inflation may account for 10-15%. At the same time Marzocchi like most companies have outsourced their manufacturing. Similarly 2005 Dorado DH £1250, 2010 Dorado £2399. 91% price increase over the same period.

 Well, it depends you know. Your examples are just from top10-biggest-fails-in-history-of-bike-industry list. 2010 Dorado PRO carbon is bullocks. With all the respect it's bullocks, If some PRO gets it for free fine: but any regular buyer should get it with big L sticker for the forehead, and be noted in Amawanka register.

To the point: FOX Racing Shox actualy improves their products every year, and when you pay more money for it you actualy get more satisfaction. Not sure about RS but in most cases you get more with the price too. With Marzocchi you just get worse and worse product every year since 2006. even if those 2010 are getting good again, the price tag makes the buyer deserve a place on the forementioned list too.

66 models from 2005 and 2006 were truly the best long travel single crown forks ever. If I compare it now with this Totem crap it just makes me laugh... we'll see if Fox 36 180 will step up to the game...

 We're not getting anywhere with this. I'm pretty certain that if you compared Fox and RS product prices it would look similar. Prices have gone up disproportionately. Thats a fact. Whether its justified or not is arguable. In my books it isn't.

 ok you are right You defeinitely have a point there Im just bored at work so I wanted to have a discussion Cheers!

 if youre denting your rims pump your tyres up

 qua?! I don't think many fancy riding FR/DH on 4+ bar, and I guess that's the minimum letting you avoid denting a rim. everyone dents rims

 Someone had a crappy CRT Tv 15 years ago

As for prices going up - so did the manufacturing costs because the gear progresses.
And looking at the msrp of bikes (completes) - the economy was going up so the prices were going up, this season a lot of them dropped. Its normal. Now they are pretty much on par with 5000-6000$ for a top of the line dh bike from 5-7years ago.

 lol don't even get started debating about Apple products

 10 rims a season... they probably have gone through 10 after the first 2 races

 I would have to disagree... even though I would love to have them and I can't even come close to affording them! From a marketing standpoint, it's these ultra-high-end products that make us common people drool over them, even though they are FAR out of reach. Then, several years down the road, the technology from these high end parts will eventually trickle down to mid-level components, and all of a sudden... we can afford them, and we are happy. And they are off to the next exotic product. If the median-priced products were released first, the buzz would be short-lived. Also, from a research and development standpoint, it is necessary to come out with these high-end products first, without any need to keep costs low. Then, with time, they can figure out how to make it cheaper. Look at F1 racing. Honda invests millions on their race cars, and eventually the technology trickles down to the Civic, which normal people like us can afford

 The crank brothers wheels are really strong, have a good width, profile and weigh very little. I have been running mine for a year now and have never needed to tighten them up and there are no dents in them.

 probably that it is laid multidirectionally or something?! little confused myself...