alywayyy

"Ideally we would like to provide a more supportive compression tune or recommend a firmer compression setting profile with the chosen OEM tune, along with a faster rebound setting however that might suit more advanced or aggressive riders while leaving behind the rest of our customers." Is it me or is this a bit of an oxymoron, isn't this supposed to be an aggressive race bike? Should a bike like this really have its performance compromised off the shelf for the riders its supposed to be aimed at so that its ok for a beginner or intermediate rider? Should there not be bikes available for the less aggressive for those who are less "advanced"?

Unfortunately this is the direction the industry has moved in recently, more frames adopting the "blind" or "bearing-spacer-bearing" design for their pivots (I'm not sure if there is any performance benefit to this or if it's just cosmetic) and internal cable routing make our bikes harder and harder to work on :(

@motdrawde: when trying to change frame bearings it's significantly easier to work on part of a frame if the other parts aren't still attached; for example trying to remove the axle pivot bearings from the chainstay on my slayer is difficult as its a BSB link so I can't use a drift tool, it needs to be done with a slide hammer or hammer and punch which is made even more difficult when the front triangle is still attached or dangling off by the brake hose. If removing your derailleur for any task, with its an externally routed unbroken cable, the shifter, mech and cable can be removed in minutes without disconnecting the inner cable from the mech and so when re-installed won't need re-indexing. I appreciate this type of maintenance is not done that regularly, but for me personally the aesthetic of internal routing does not outweigh this inconvenience.

It might look nicer to some but the improvement in looks nowhere near outweighs the inconvenience in maintenance. removal of tough bearings becomes a huge challenge, especially with the trend in "blind" or Bearing-Spacer-Bearing arrangements. Personally I appreciate the look of well thought out external cable management but I realize I'm probably in the minority on that front.

Remember when Shimano released Microspline stating they couldn't use XD because a 51 tooth sprocket generated too much torque? Now you can get 52 tooth XD cassettes, are the XD freehub bodies going to fail or did Shimano want to move away from an industrywide standard....

Interesting that the 52 tooth is compatible with the XD driver body; didn't Shimano claim that the reason they didn't adopt the XD driver body when they went 12 speed was that the XD driver body "couldn't handle the torque" produced by their 51 tooth cassette?