daweil

This post was supported by suspension service gang™

@barp: yes but aside from the number it's actually not new. Please correct me if I'm wrong, what did they change?

So it's not an xc bike, it doesn't want to be one.. Why spend the whole article about the topic? I thought you guys invented the term downcountry for this. Xc is racing and this bike is (probably?) not competitive with the long wheelbase and 700g is a relevant weight disadvantage. Looks really good though! Would like to try it out. Intrigued by the super progressive frame with a baby shock, wonder how difficult that makes setup

@Torbo24: I don't know the exact economics but basically you sign a contract with your employer who leases the bike from a company which buys the bike (jobrad/jobbike and others in Germany), leasing rate is paid to the employer with your gross salary so you can save on salary-based taxes et al. which are quite high, meaning you only pay around 50-70% of the actual leasing rate from the net pay - depending on salary etc German tax laws get complicated quickly. Side effect you pay less into the pension fund but since that is a money burning system anyways it probably won't matter that much. So government gets less taxes on your salary but it's accepted with the reasoning so people bike to work instead of commuting by car. You also have to pay an insurance which covers for defects (like an extra warranty) and theft. Service for the bike is usually not included, but sometimes it is, contracts are different because every employer does it's own deal with the leasing company. Contract goes over 3 years and then you can a) give back the bike (but I've never heard anyone actually do that and I don't know how they work out dents and scratches on the value), or b) you can buy the bike out for a mostly competitive price. And if you then sell it to market value privately most of the time you'd make profit. This leasing-bike market in Germany accounts for a huge amount of sales especially of more expensive bikes and ebikes.

You can still buy all the old deraileurs (like the one here in the article - new number but same old deore 12x) and knowing Shimano they'll still be available long after their official retirement.

I found it cool for a change, why not change it for every race?

Deore is so underrated. This update seems to bring nothing to the table though. Clutch-less no thanks, the same slx/Deore cassettes but now they are all named Deore, the brakes look good.

12s microspline works fine though. Hg cassettes eat freehub-bodies for breakfast if they're not steel / cassette has a spider.

Lost alot of time in the bottom sadly, was on a heater

Suggestion: change it for every race. I like that they change it up. Do it every time.