Intense Reintroduces the M1 to Their Catalog

 Everybody: We want cheaper bikes!

Also Everybody: Only if they are as at a high end, generally expensive bike shop with limited purchasing power!

 ... if/when the Kirkland label is slapped on it, then we can have a discussion; until then, any additional exposure in this market is a good thing, don't see the issue. Everyone I ride with that has an Intense loves them

 I almost bought one of those Costco bikes. The Geo wasn't too far off from what i wanted, but it looks like a great bike for the price.

 I've also seen those 951s for sale at multiple LBS. I cut them some slack as they're a small company that still manages to maintain a factory race team including our boy Dak. That's quickly becoming a rarity.

 Is costco the US tesco? There's NO way is trust a tesco employee to build my bike...

 Are people getting Costco mixed up with Wal Mart because they are both in big buildings? Costco's business model is to curate only good products that they know aren't likely to be returned, not make any profit on them, and make money on the memberships. I don't see being sold at Costco as a negative at all.

minesafetydisclosures.com/blog/2018/6/18/costco

 @warmerdamj: And realistically meeting the costco numbers means a bump in production quantity which will ultimately lower production costs and that likely means more profit rather than cheaper prices but if that means they stay in business then that's cool.

 @naptime: the 951 bikes are sold online, direct-to-consumer, and shipped “mostly assembled”. Not sure who assembles them, but it’s probably not a retail worker for Costco.

 @naptime: The way our supermarket prices are going, we won't be able to afford Tesco bikes anyway

 @GorgeousBeauGaston: Today I learned. Interesting info, cheers

 @GorgeousBeauGaston: same place many buy the most important thing...food they put in their bodies.

 @shredddr: I often ask to see the manager at Costco and inform them of incorrect assembly on their bike fleet on the floor. " hey Jim can you take the bikes off the floor" goes the call on the radio. The bloody forks have front/back stickers on them.

 Sadly not available in Canada. It's great bike for that price

 @naptime: ASDA

 @naptime: ASDA

 @GorgeousBeauGaston: the Kirkland brands generally rock too.

 @GorgeousBeauGaston: I liked my 80” Sony TV until I saw a Sony TV for sale at Costco today. They must be crap. BRB throwing my TV in a lake.

 The real question we want to know is- has anyone ridden the piss out of one and then tried to return it to Costco for the new model year?

 I like it! Race proven, heritage name, and great solid color. Hopefully pricing is strong. Nice job intense!

 @SATN-XC: A Kirkland branded bike would be siiiiick!

 3 intense bikes later: 2018 Primer; 2020 Sniper T (son’s bike) 2023 Sniper XC and nothing but good things: durable, smart design that delivers a great suspension tune which i have taken all over North America. Customized the heck out of them bc i could afford too, didn’t matter what i put on the bike what Stieber (like Ibis, Transition and Yeti) and team design works and holds up to a beating. The alu 951 Series is so smart and certainly would consider for my next trail bike!

 @SATN-XC: but how sick would a Kirkland M1 be....

 @mahargetan: they are just sold in a bike box. Assemble at home. Just like their direct to consumer.

They probably sold enough that way to cover the cost of a few carbon molds and make the company financially sustainable. Good on them. Personally, I’m glad to see them return to their aluminum glory.

 @thebiz: they would sell millions

 @DCF: I took a lap with a college XC racer who claimed he did almost exactly that. Said he hammered it, returned it and went and bought a YT Izzo. Who knows.

 @GorgeousBeauGaston: thanks for sharing the link, very interesting

 @naptime: you know there are Costco stores in the UK right?
You haven't heard of them?

 @puukkopedro: not in my ends

 @puukkopedro: OH SHIT!! they have an RC Op Prime!!!!!!

 @TimMog: Hoping to see one of these on the middle aisle at Lidl.

 @chakaping: Me too, right between inflatable kayaks and packets of mystery meats

 People can be soooo intense sometimes…

 @SATN-XC: I will absolutely ride a Kirkland signature bike and love it.

 @sfarnum: They are slightly different. I bought a Samsung Smart TV at a premium type store and then soon after what looked to be the same one at Walmart....what a difference! Way lighter and felt cheezier.

 @dv8416: MEC carries them over here and a comparable deal to Costco if not slightly better after exchange.

www.mec.ca/en/product/6018-056/951-trail-bike?colour=Grey

 @dv8416: it is available at MEC though I believe

 @barrysbikes:
1. Costco =/= Walmart. Costco sells premium products and strips away as much overhead as possible to lower prices. Walmart cheapens prices to hit a price point.

2. You were likely handling a display mock-up, not the actual product

 God that would make my life so much easier

 I think Knolly also puts torque specs on their pivots

 Of all the bikes I've worked on in my bike wrenching career, Intense has been the best to work on. I personally owned an aluminum M16 and it was a mechanics dream to work on. It definitely seemed like the bike was designed by bike mechanics. Torque specs printed everywhere, and the service manuals were great and easy to find on their website. 10/10 would buy again.

 amen brother !

 @masonstevens: you and I have very different experiences. The two years we tried to sell their alloy bikes, they were the worst bikes I had ever touched. Like a 4th grader had build the frameset.

So I hope they’ve greatly improved.

 @mattmatthew: and their pivots fail so not sure it is helpful.....

 It’s aluminum. You don’t need to torque anything

 @mattmatthew: can confirm. my Knolly is awesome to work on - very well thought out.

 I would like to see the spec for shock bolt. Just a thread in the frame that's it

 Shout out to Deviate for this, torque spec on all bolts, plus double seals and grease ports mean pivot maintenance is a very rare thing compared to any other bike i've had, heading into it's 3rd scottish winter and the original bearings still feel like new. Liking this new direction for Intense tho, good looking bike apart from maybe the funny little seat tube.

 I dislike torque specs without further instructions. If you know anything about designing with threaded fasteners, you'll know that the spread in effective force for the same torque can be massive depending on the treatment of the bolt (greasing/dry/cleaned/loctite..). I guess it's hard to print that part on, but it should at the very least be in a service manual.

 @finnspin: Per the majority of industries, torque specs printed are dry threads. Engineering req'ments where lube is necessary will be called out/has to be listed, along with the appropriate torque. You lube the bolts, you're on your own, but a good rule of thumb if you don't want to use a calculator for it is a 20% knockdown on torque.

 @krashDH85: I usually assume it's for dry threads too, if I use a torque wrench on a bike (since I don't have any carbon parts and nothing super fancy and lightweight either, that isn't often).
But I've met enough people that religiously use a torque wrench, but don't think a second about how the bolt and thread should be treated. Most torque specs are conservative enough for that to not be a big issue luckily, but still it annoys me that many manuals and tutorials don't specify it.

 Good rule of thumb Metal to metal on nearly every bike is 10-12nm for axles, shock and linkage bolts, cranks pedals,etc.. Metal to Carbon or carbon to carbon is 4-6nm.

 Yes that paintjob is clean and tasty

 Eh, lots of shades can be done well. But there is 100% a sharp divide bewteen tacky and done well.

 They actually stepped back into their past for the paint scheme.

 How else are customers going to know how INTENSE the bike is?

  #5shadesofshit trending!

 @psycln: hahaha

 @lkubica: the rocks in Socal are quite intense. Especially in murrieta (where intense is based) and southridge/fontana (many racers on intense) I would not want to ride carbon at my races

 @mior: the southridge race barely has rocks and is on a tiny hill though, well the dh course is like one giant rock haha. still super fun

 @mariomtblt: I do the DH beg/sport. it is still a black. never done the XC or enduro

 @mariomtblt: I'll be racing there this saturday LOL

 @mior: dude I'll see you there next time! and yeah it is, but its like, so short. Its still crazy and I'm definitely not winning so I'll see myself out haha

 @lkubica: Pivot and Atherton have adopted the metal lug bonded to carbon tube design, which also allows quick adjustments to be made without having to completely retool.

Turner Bikes did something similar in 2021. They ceased production of all their carbon models and turned to titanium. Rather than paraphrase Dave Turner's words, here it is verbatim, which might apply to a lot of companies recent decisions to go back to alu:

“Due to the rapid changes that the industry was creating, I was never on pace and the commercial success of the three carbon designs never met sales expectations,” he said. “For this new phase, I wanted to return to metal, where changes can be quickly implemented to meet yet another new standard, or where a change in geometry is just a matter of adjusting the miter and weld fixtures.

“With a carbon design, one has to look into the future a couple of years when creating a new model and accurately guess what will be in style. Miss the mark, and basically throw away six figures in tooling when the market shifts.”

But I guess that's also a reason why companies outsource to Taiwan instead of producing everything domestically.

 @mattmatthew: just gonna say the new turner bikes are incredible. had a nice chat with Mr. turner and rode one of the bikes last weekend.

 @mattmatthew: that's fair, but new standards each day era is a bit over now, but I can see the point. Santa Cruz somehow manages to be up to date with carbon though. Personally I don't care about frame material (cause I am simply slow), but looking at Neko's adventures and Commencal DH cracking rate I would be little bothered. I mean, it's great for racing and prototyping, but from casual buyers perspective, if you buy something pricey you would rather not watch it crack, and all alu frames will eventually crack somewhere (and especially DH frames), of course depending on rider style, weight etc.

 @mariomtblt: Having lived in Fontana for years, this is the first time I've heard Southridge not having rocks. Technically though I guess your correct. They're more like boulders.

 @lkubica: i like alu frames. i don't have a single carbon bike. 3 steel, 2 alu. i crash a lot so it helps to have something that can endure my inept riding style lol.

 @SacAssassin: yeah thats what I was saying haha, they're rocks you ride ON not ride OVER

 I miss SoCal ridinggggggg

 @mior: dude, I only ride carbon bikes. And there is nothing yet that has made me nervous. Nothing at Southridge, Mammoth, or even Utah. I sent my carbon E29 flying down a rock face for a solid 30' at St George this spring, that was a crappy hike to get back.

I have nothing against aluminum. But carbon isn't weak.

 @JSTootell: I wouldnt ride carbon. it doesnt "fit" my lifestyle. If i buy a DH bike I would want to be able to hammer it for 10 years without issue.

 @mior: I just purchased my first carbon frame. It does have alloy rear, which is probably the main reason I felt comfy finally going the carbon route. The frame has a 7 year warranty, so my plan is to thrash the thing for 6 and then ‘crack’ it and warranty another, and repeat.

 @mior: The lifespan of aluminum with bicycles is around 2 years. They may not break immediately, but become flexible over time. Carbon is about twice that of aluminum for consistency and longevity.

 @mior: I've got a suggestion for a tech article. Please ask Kazimer or Quinney to go talk to some engineers like Dan Roberts who design alloy frames and ask them about durability and fatigue life. So that this "alloy frames only last 2 years"-nonsense can finally be put to rest once and for all.

 @dualsuspensiondave: how come i have alloy bikes from 96 with no fatigue signs?

 @Muscovir: i only make cranky and hot-take comments and moderate the buysell. youre better off messaging them directly.

 @mior: I'm at 6 years on my E29. 4 more years to go I guess.

I've blown up every aluminum wheel I have put under it. The carbon hoops are the only thing holding up.

I'd buy an aluminum DH bike because I'm only going to ride it a handful of times a year, so I'd want to save my money. That's my use case for aluminum. One of these days I'll get one, I just hate lift lines and prefer to pedal up (my preferred way to ride Summit), so I'm not in a rush.

 @slayersxc17: you’re a small part of the reason bikes cost so much.

If there is a legitimate warranty claim, a company should handle quickly.

Purposely abusing it to get a new frame is whack. I hope they deny you when you try.

 @dungeonbeast: guess I wasn’t sarcastic enough. I do not do or hope for this

 @JSTootell: fair point.

 When I was a youngin my dad would occasionally pick up their Rotisserie chicken for dinner, highlight meal of the week or month.

 Also got a pretty good deal on a nice HP laptop from them a few months ago. Costco sells plenty of great stuff

 Finite fatigue life sucks, leading to overbuilt frames that are heavier than comparably tough carbon frames. But I'll only ride aluminum.

 @GTscoob: The tradeoff in the comparably tough carbon frames being you could crash it once, and it could be totally compromised without showing visible signs of it. It's a tossup, but both materials can lead to frames needing to be replaced at a similar interval, so that's why we go with the one that's cheaper and recyclable.

 Steel should be mentioned somewhere in this tradeoff.

 A carbon bike should in theory outlasted an alloy bike by atleast 2 fold. Carbon is also repairable where as Alloy is junked if it cracks. The bike will be in alloy to allow for more fine tuning and flex rather than having a new mold made all the time. I've seen some poor Alloy bikes recently with cracking etc. Some brands, like trek have beefed up their alloy bikes, The new Fuel ex is quite heavy and very burly, the new slash is the same.

 @vinay: yeh fair point. I ride a steel frame. It's more expensive though and the skinny tube aesthetic is not for everyone.

 @HeatedRotor: but you can easily recycle the aluminium. The carbon frame will end up in the ocean.

 @tremeer023: I would like to see some genuine data on Bikes alloy frame recycling vs Carbons longer life and reparability(and also junked ones)

I would also like to know some facts around if its better to build better quality/qc frames and have less Warranty frames, as 99.9% of warrantied frames are made unridable and are usually binned.

 @HeatedRotor: yeah, it's a shame that despite the repairability of carbon, many (most?) are hacksawed as part of the warranty process. while i understand the motivation, it's such a waste. be cool if there were some sort of manufacturer authorized repair channel option rather than the dumpster.

 @xy9ine: I suppose Robotbike/Atherton uses a permanent glue (appears like this stinky pink 3M glue) to bond the tubes to the lugs. But if they'd use something that could be un-glued they might be able to replace a tube if it gets damaged. A large part of the cost is obviously the printing process and it seems unlikely someone would break one of these (let alone all of them). I don't know about their crash replacement policy but it seems to me like the customer would pay for the labor and tubes, but not anymore for the (custom) design process nor for the lugs.

Have to add though, lugs isn't exclusively something for carbon frames. Many steel frames are also lugged. A friend of mine rode a lugged Al2xxxT3 series frame (Al2025T3 I think). This is a more fatigue resistant alloy allowing them to work with thinner tubes (hence allow for more flex) but it can't be welded hence it was lugged.

 @GTscoob: Ok, I'm going to spare you the technical jargon and the long-winded explanation and get straight to the point. Material fatigue won't affect an aluminium bike frame anywhere near as much as you probably imagine. Material fatigue is a neglectable factor on mountainbike frames made from high-strength alloys with good fatigue resistance, such as 6066 or 7005. These bikes are typically tested to more than 200.000 cycles at their designed maximum load without showing any significant loss of strength or stiffness. That's a couple of times over what any bike frame would ever realistically see within its lifetime.

 @dualsuspensiondave: Where are you getting these figures from? Because, no offense, none of that is true.

 @HeatedRotor: Duroplastic composite material structures such as typical carbon frames aren't really repairable - at least not to their full strength. Composites usually rely on the uninterrupted structure of the individual fibers for strength. Once these fibers are broken or torn apart, the part will never be as strong again. Sure, you can patch up a crack in a carbon frame and the repair might hold, but that doesn't mean the frame is as good as new.

 @dualsuspensiondave: I've spent the past 11 years crashing into big piles of rocks on an aluminum Intense. Still going strong. Also, spend quite a bit of time riding DH on a 20yr old aluminum hardtail. Not sure where you're getting your data. Are you talking about old Kleins and Cannondales, with pop-can thin downtubes? Then I'd believe 2yr.

 Excluding economics, carbon fiber is the best. You can make the bikes last a very long time even with repeated abuse, you can design the right amount of stiffness or compliance through layer orientation, and of course the strength to weight ratio is way higher.

The issue with carbon, at least in the modern age, its a very human labor intensive process. Some companies have experimented with doing CNC material application (like Guerrila Gravity), but all the major brands rely on manual labor of laying up pieces. The issue with manual labor is that humans are very error prone, and you can get things like voids or poor layer adhesion in places that can cause delaminations, which are stress concentrations. Companies rely on the fact that few people ride hard enough to break bikes, and for the ones that do, they offer warranty replacements (which is really just frame insurance that you pay for in the original bike cost, since the warranty is not transferrable and only applies to the original owner).

Technically, companies could do a safety factor on the manufacturing and add more material to account for this, but then your fancy carbon fiber bike weighs as much as aluminum, and they can't justify the extra cost. Instead, they aim for some degree of lightness, while still marketing carbon fiber bikes as premium items and upcharging the shit out of them.

As far as metal goes, steel is way better than aluminum for anything except race bikes.

 @dualsuspensiondave: not sure why your down voted. in my younger days I broke aluminum frames.

Turner dhr
Yeti 303
Azonic ht
Specialized fsr
Specialed fsr dh
Specialized fsr enduro

Never from a crash the just cracked around the rear suspension or head tubes. The finite fatigue aspect is a real concern for people putting a lot of stress on the frames.

 They have a very poor history of longevity with both carbon and aluminum. They can’t align an aluminum frame to save their lives, they break easy, and their customer service is non-existent.

 @dualsuspensiondave: this was my experience as well. Bought a tracer and cracked it, it was like pulling teeth to get it warrantied and then I cracked the replacement and they wouldn’t help me. Never again.

 Correct. 6 links, 4 bars.

 Yeah, it's a four bar not a six. It's got nothing in common with the Atherton or commencal six bars.

 Yup, Like the Specialized Enduro and Canyon Sender.

 This is basically four paragraphs. You'd think it wouldn't be that hard to write four paragraphs without a major mistake.

 @dancingwithmyself: to be fair, intense calls it a 6 bar design in their ad copy.

 @dancingwithmyself: you must be new here.

 @xy9ine: They could call it a perpetual motion machine and it still wouldn't make it true.

 @harryhood: the M1 is identical to both the current Demo and Sender in terms of the rough location of all of the pivot points, and the Enduro is also very close albeit realistically the same basic concept. The Saracen prototype is the other one that is very close to these bikes, only it is a split pivot design rather than a Horst link, which is intriguing given their recent experimentation with floating brake arms

 @samdaman1: Moving the pivots by only a few millimeters can dramatically change kinematic properties, which are often too subtle to notice visually.

The kinematics of the Demo and Enduro bear a strong family resemblance, but the Sender isn't as similar as it might appear from the linkage.

 @R-M-R: oh yeah I know, its more just the packaging and basic layout being similar that is interesting

 To be honest I was expecting it was a bike with pedal assist, as seems to be the way to go with old bike model names. The only bit of the tradition they did honor though was to use to latest suspension design rather than the original one. Bike definitely looks pretty though. Would love to sticker one up with some Muddy Fox decals, just to honor the fastest (and most gnar) family in the history of the sport.

 I'll take the Uzzi SLX

 I remember seeing a custom painted hot pink M1 at a DH race at Plattekill...that bike was

 @dualsuspensiondave: back then performance and reliability were good enough every pro who could ride one repainted with sponsor correct colors and badging.

All full suspension bikes 20 years ago had serious reliability issues, but Intense had DH performance figured out something like 6 years before any other brand.

These days-their fit and bearing alignment is good, they hold up fine. You’ll break one if you thrash it, like any other bike (and I’ve cracked a few, various brands).

 oh rly? #teamrumors?

 @pisgahgnar: Don't you mean O' Reilly?

 This to infinity and beyond.

 A linear spring and linear motion ratio is ideal for mid-stroke support. Can be as "bottomless" as you like, if you run a high enough spring rate, but it will be very firm off the top and through the mid-stroke.

The support has to come somewhere. Some +/- trade-offs:

+ Plush off the top and in the middle.
- Low ride height and rapid ramp-up at the end.

+ Firm mid-stroke.
+ High ride height.
- Firm off the top.
- Narrow tuning window to access full travel while maintaining "bottomless" feel.

+ Plush top, bottom, and middle.
- CLANG CLANG CLANG

 @R-M-R: "Can be as "bottomless" as you like, if you run a high enough spring rate, but it will be very firm off the top and through the mid-stroke."

Yes, exactly. But usually when people talk about a suspension feeling bottomless, it's relative to having a normal spring rate to give a fairly normal top end. Just like as you mentioned, you can have plush top and middle and bottom with lots of clangs, or you can never bottom-out but get rattled on every small root.

But I'm talking about more useful set-ups, and a linear curve with coil is usually not ideal for that. Which makes me think that this "LIN" setting is not truly linear, just less progressive than the other setting.

 @justinfoil: Simulate it in Linkage and see for yourself. Until I get a better view of the frame, my model has too much uncertainty for me to include it as part of my dataset, but I can already see the two curves are surprisingly similar and the shapes are fairly middle-of-the-bell-curve for a DH bike.

 Looks like a Commencal

 I was wondering the same thing. Doesn’t seem to connect to anything as far as I can tell. Maybe it adds structural rigidity where the down tube meets the lower “clamshell” section?

 Second / lower / sixth link?

 @boopiejones: thats what i was guessing, the bolt is there to help it keep shape maybe, or could be a flex tuning thing... who knows, we will find out.

 It is the lower pivot for the linkage that actuates the shock. The design is very similar to to the specialized demo. The only difference is that the demo's lower swingarm pivot is concentric with the shock linkage pivot in question, while the M1's swingarm pivot is moved to the high pivot location

 @vesania: No it's not. The link that attaches to the base of the shock pivots on the same axis as the idler.

Possibly in there to support the welded machined tunnel. They might have found those welds were cracking due to flex and adding the bolt holds the tunnel together? I do recall Aaron talking about cracking frames etc on a Downtime Podcast, er, podcast.

Or it's holding the battery in place?

 @handynzl: I don't know, but these photos make it look like it is the shock linkage / link pivot. Note that on the factory race bikes, the pivot is only accessed from one side (like on the YT tues)
https://www.pinkbike.com/photo/24179995/
https://www.vitalmtb.com/photos/features/g-out-project-downhill-southeast-rock-creek/g-out-project-downhill-southeast-20
https://intensecycles.com/blogs/news/searching-for-speed-intense-m279-hp6-dh-prototype

Maybe a better bike comparison would be the Canyon Sender CF but with the main pivot moved up to a high pivot position

 The 2016 sender but high pivot. Which makes sense, I think what people complained most about the 2016 model was the pedal kick back.

 Rode and raced a 2014 Intense M9 for many years. The M9 has 16 feet of welds on it. Not a single crack on any of the welds. Intense makes good bikes.