jkertz

@dentedrims: The problem is the new version of the Trail Boss is stupid heavy, it's just over 1700gr in 29er form, which is insanity. They discontinued the previous version in favor of this ebike optimized version, so there just isn't a Trail Boss for mtb now unless you are ok with a 1700gr trail tire. The tread also just didn't last. I'd usually get 250-300 miles out of one before the center knobs were gone. IMO it did better that way, being closer to a Minion SS, but for areas where the tread mattered, it was a problem. I love the tire otherwise. The previous version was really great, they just have no interest in maintaining it anymore.

I'm glad that I'm not the only one that remembers this

That doesn't align with my experiences. Maybe if someone is highly experienced and had the chance to work with a lot of skilled engineers to get dialed in the value is lower, but a lot of riders don't know how to feel out changes in their suspension setup and how it correlates to what they feel on the bike. If they get some type of data from concrete sources, it can point them closer to the ballpark. I do agree the data can be dense and hard to interpret without someone that knows how to read it and what ranges to aim for, though. I had the chance to use MotionIQ some years ago for a few weeks and it made a huge difference in how I setup the bike, along with how controlled/composed it was. Prior, I was pretty in tune with how things feel when I made changes, but it had me completely rethink the way I set up suspension and correlate it to on bike feel. It can also help folks narrow down what they are feeling on the bike. "I feel like I'm in the backseat on major compressions". Is this because the fork is oversprung? shock undersprung? rebound too fast front? too slow rear? compression wrong? Data can be used to at least try to pinpoint this, but again if you are experienced already in feeling these things out (e.g. a pro rider) then you might be able to figure it out intuitively, newer riders not so much

@HuckminsterfullerAF: I'll add to the disagreements and say it's the reverse. An experienced rider can make any setup work well and perform close to a dialed setup, a newer rider is going to see much more improvement in confidence and control if things are setup correctly. The amount of traction and comfort provided by a proper setup can be a huge gap, which makes a bigger difference for less experienced riders with less confidence and skill tools to work with.

@tacklingdummy77: Totally agree. I posted something similar above. The diminishing nature and challenge of the trails is really bad for bikes, but hikers around here don't like it either. When we paved over one of our previously natural trails, groups of hikers were complaining about how dull the trail had become. None of the recreational groups want the trails done this way, at least around here they don't. The issue from the USFS point of view is not related to the difficulty of the trail, it just happens to be a coincidence that their guidelines for building are easy and paved over. Their mandates for the other things on the list take priority over recreational needs. If making trails hard met those needs, we'd see a huge spike in difficulty, it just happens to be that's not the case. The trails are reworked the way they are because, in their mind, it's sustainable. I have a different view considering how gross some of them become in a literal rainforest, but they call the shots. As I posted in another post, it's also just a factor of increased funding available via grants, arm twisting of user groups ("We'll close the trail if you don't fall in line!"), and availability of contractors. The user groups obtain funding under threat and contractors fulfill the work. We recently lost one of our legacy trails due to this. In order to address ~100ish ft of trail (out of several miles) that was a sedimentation issue, they decommissioned miles of natural trail that drained well, was fun, paralleled a river, and was beautiful in favor of a dirt sidewalk that handles water like crap and is on a completely new alignment further in. No one rides it or hikes it because it sucks. We've also had numerous segments recently reworked that were previously natural and interesting in favor of bridges, manmade rock armoring, and log staircases. We're losing all the uniqueness of our forest and are told to be happy about it. We have another forest nearby with hundreds of miles of flow trail, so no one wants this or needs this from any user group. It's purely the rangers dictating that trails be re-routed or "fixed" and it just happens their fixes abide the USFS guidelines, which is a dirt sidewalk.

I agree with you 100%, but there is one mistake here. The USFS has several directives, recreational use of trails is one of several. Here is their self described priority list: https://www.fs.usda.gov/about-agency/priorities Recreation is one of several priorities and, at least where I live, at the bottom of the list. The primary goal is to prevent excessive erosion ("sustainability"), protecting the watershed, wildfire reduction, logging facilitation, and protection of wildlife. Recreational use comes after all of these things on the list and anything that recreation does to impact these is going to be shot down or eliminated. Our use of the land is low on their list of priorities and mountain biking comes after almost every other group. I'm not saying it should be this way, just that it is. There is also an issue that a lot of these things are...inflated...by trail orgs and contractors to promote getting work done. We lost one of our most iconic / interesting trails here in favor of a dirt sidewalk, the claim made by these orgs was sedimentation in a local river, despite the USFS refuting it several times and saying they just didn't like how rutted out it had gotten and sedimentation wasn't an issue. I agree that there is a disconnect where the USFS rangers don't understand why people build illegal trails, there is no introspection to realize that they are wrecking our legacy trails in favor of boring smooth singletrack everywhere, but you need to view it in light of recreation being low on the priority list. Another factor is USFS trail building standards are dictated in stone and have strict rules, like rock has to be from a certain source and can't be moved from more than a few feet off the alignment. These rules mean any new USFS trail is going to be like all the others unless the alignment has natural features built already.

Just because the sport has historically progressed due to illegal trails doesn't mean it has to continue that way. I'd rather see greater collaboration and work done to allow these trails to be built legally rather than resorting to discussions about how it's been historically. but that's a pipe dream. The only way the sport will progress in many parts of North America is via illegal trails. Land managers have put up too many blocks to making trail building legal AND they are actively decimating legacy trails in favor of stuff a lot of riders do not like. They tear down our legacy technical trails then complain when the remaining trails are getting blown out and illegal trails pop up that mimic what was lost. There is a middle ground here and it seems like a lot of the mtb community is willing to meet in the middle, but land managers are refusing to do so.

The trailbuilding industry that has been popping up seems responsible for a lot of re-routes and reworks. It's always existed, but the growth the past few years is responsible for a lot of the work going on around here that probably wouldn't have happened otherwise. With the larger availability of public finding and people willing to take that funding to do work, you end up with massive changes. It's really detrimental if you like natural, raw trails, because rarely that's what is built due to land restrictions. It's all new trail design that's a dirt sidewalk. Our local trails have lost a lot of their original character due to this.

@heywood-jablomi: Absolutely, that's why I put "well behaved" in my question :) I have friends who are Japanese and I've heard all the stories about foreigners coming in and being disruptive, loud, disrespectful, demanding, etc. I've also understood that some areas (mainly rural regions) do not accommodate foreigners as much as larger cities, ranging from not wanting to tackle the language barrier (which is reasonable) to (more rarely) being aggressive towards foreigners and kicking them out. I've not heard much about this region of Japan, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Perhaps "hostile" was a poor choice of words on my part. I know it doesn't paint the entire country with that brush and, honestly, given the stories I hear, I'm not sure how much I'd want to deal with some of the visitors either. Sounds like it's a non-issue, though, so that's great. I would love to do this. It looks beautiful and the trails look awesome.