RIOTT

For those who have been lucky enough to avoid the bike shop life, the reason bikes are generally all in one release (aside from special high-end drops) is because manufacturers ask shops to place indent orders ahead of time so they can figure out how many bikes to make, and shops are financially incentivised to place their orders then. Some brands (yes, exactly the big ones you're thinking of) will have minimums shops need to hit every year to stay at their current dealership level and this initial order is a big part of that. It would be much more difficult to manage if it was spread out across the year.

Interesting that skiing is so much more popular than snowboarding

@Dougal-SC: I just now realize i worded that in a way that can be misinterpreted, so to be clear I mean I prefer a relatively low front end on steep trails, not except on steep trails. I've ridden basically everything in Queenstown like that, as an example, up until I moved to the US a few years ago - and not just the super groomed Skyline trails. I now live in Tucson where a lot of the trails are super steep and rocky, as steep as anything I ever rode in NZ, so it's not that I'm just not riding anything steep enough. Obviously there's a limit to how low still works for DH, just like there's a limit to how high would work, but to me a 20mm bar on a modern bike ( I ride a Transition Spire) feels way, way better than a 2" rise. Stacks being higher than they were and forks being longer actually only proves my point, you need a high front end even less than you did in the past, because both those factors push your weight back along with the center of gravity being lower relative to the axles, although I'll concede that modern longer reaches and wheelbases counteract that to an extent. I do also feel that the modern high bar trend may be a possible response to another trend, people buying bikes that are a little too long/ big for them and then needing the front end higher to counteract the fact they can't get their weight far enough back to lift the front end properly, but there is obviously more to it than that because pro racers are winning World Cups on higher rise setups. Not sure if you remember, but we were both active posters on Vorb back in the day, I was Soba. I worked in various NZ shops as a mechanic between about 1998- 2015 so we've also had some professional contact.

@Dougal-SC: I've been riding a long time, through various front end height trends/ phases, and a low front end, to me, feels better for control on everything but especially steep and loose situations. High front ends feel like I can't put enough weight on the tire without a super exaggerated body position. I'm interested to see when the pendulum will swing back.

I think that's a reference to how T-Type derailleurs need totally replaced if any small part of them becomes mis-aligned, and there's no way to work around it.

+1 for Riders Republic, it's not perfect but seems to get totally ignored. Plus the snowboard/ski races are great and the wingsuit is a blast.

This is a high end wheelset - cheaper, totally usable options still exist. Nobody complains that Ferraris existing stops them buying a Toyota.

That GT LTS isn't carbon, it's thermoplastic. That particular bike is pretty rare, they only made them as an LTS for a brief period before launching a whole line of thermoplastic bikes called STS (Single Tube System, as it's one tube of thermoplastic that forms the whole from triangle inside the lugs). The LTS version wasn't even officially in the catalog IIRC, which is why it's not an LTS-1, the usual LTS top model, but they did show up under racers and at trade shows a lot that year, and some were def sold at retail too. //I'm getting old

I have the V1 at 800mm, and they're a good balance. Definitely much more comfortable than 35mm alloy bars I've ridden, but not flexy in a bad way at all.