Tifo

Certainly has. The Specialized Status 1 had the exact same brakes for the exact same type of riding. Guess their product manager must suck also? Arm-chair product managing is fun!

Airborne's frame builder builds its prototypes for them and changes them with employee input. In the case of the Toxin, Airborne worked with the frame manufacturer to improve the rear triangle for stiffness and clearance, and went thru 4 versions of ride testing and machine testing before final production.

That's not entirely correct. Airborne does do its own designs on most of its models. All of its hardtails are engineered, tested, and ridden by employees and riders. The FS frames are co-designed with other reputable frame makers, and ridden/tested/tweaked by Airborne employees. So its not like Bikes Direct. If you got someone in Customer Service who had to look up a ratio because they didn't have it memorized, that doesn't mean they don't know what they are doing.

"Mr. Product Manager" does ride. Everything was done to make this bike hit a particular pricepoint. It's an entry level park bike. There are going to be compromises. If Airborne made it perfect to everyone's liking, with a ton of nice parts, then everyone would biatch about the price being too high. Case in point, when the new Pathogen frameset came out at $1599 everyone complained that it was way too much and stated that the Taka was a much better deal at $1400 when it used to be made. But it was probably those same people that biatched about the Taka being underspec'd. It's a no-win.

freeridemanic, what you don't understand is that the problem with the rear end on the Airbonre was related to Marzocchi parts and not anything else. I own one that's been upgraded with a Vivid and it is perfect and has been on countless runs at Snowshoe and several other DH venues with not even a hiccup. I will give you partial credit: the Juicys are not the best brakes, but Airborne isn't the only company that offers them on their DH bike. Mongoose has Elixir 1's on their Boot'r and they are the same brake as the Juicy's with just a refresh and new name to be in the Elixir line (SRAM is doing away with the Juicy name this year). The Boot'r is a $2500 USD rig. Scott has Juicys on their $3000 USD Gambler 30. Now, on my own personal rig I wore the Juicys out and replaced them with Elixir R's, but even then anything with only two pistons per caliper instead of 4 like the CODEs is a compromise for DH. I will eventually upgrade to 4 piston calipers as my budget allows and my riding improves. Which is why I was the perfect demographic for the Taka. I didn't want to drop huge $$ on a rig to get into the sport, but once I found out that I loved it, I can upgrade my bike over time if I want to. Here is a bit of constructive advice: Before you jump into the fray and bash/comment about a product that you don't even own, you should take the time to educate yourself first. You may also consider going back to school to learn punctuation and grammar. Then, and only then, would people take you seriously when you post.

Those are post-2007 888rv forks. They are still available OE, just not aftermarket. A product manager could still spec a brand new bike today with one and Marz would supply it.

Jonathan, I do know the whole story. The problems were with a Marzocchi product and Airborne did everything to help you that they could including an eventual full refund, and in exchange you send them a broke-dick, abused, partial bike and then bash on them on multiple forums. If you really wanted to keep things private, you should have done so in the first place by not bashing Airborne repeately online. You are young, I understand that. Maybe someday you will grow up and take responsibility for your own actions. Until then, heaven help anyone who buys a used bike from you.

That bike was poorly maintained and abused. It was missing more than just the brakes. You got a free bike basically for an entire season and then sent it back for a free refund. You should be bashing on Marzocchi and not Airborne since your beef is with the rear shock and Airborne went over and above to help you. If you treat the rest of your bikes the way you treated your Taka, you can count on more issues in the future.