lews-therin

@BenPea: Is Rude going to be racing?

Very likely a ‘crank stopper’ to prevent the cranks from rotating during the flipwhip and tailwhip. Usually they are drilled so that they contact the crank spindle and create more or less resistance depending on how far you tighten them. You can also use an old cut off ring of slip-on grip between the crank arm and the BB, which is what most DJ/BMXers use, but it’s not tuneable.

I love Anthony Messere's riding style, it's almost like he knows he has the skill to finesse a bike to do what he wants the same way Semenauk and Johansson do, but he'd actually just prefer to muscle it about and be aggressive. Nothing is just landed, everything is stomped.

Looks like it's a loose tank top with a skin tight base layer underneath for the arms - pretty cool concept. Seven MX do loads of jerseys like this, wonder if they're making the Yeti clothing this year?

@thedirtyburritto: I don't really understand how it's going to make Shimano bikes more expensive, as they are already having to specify a hanger on bike using Shimano and SRAM derailleur - surely if SRAM then removes the need for a hanger from their derailleur they will just keep the price the same as they are currently, saving the frame manufacturer £15 (unlikely), or they will increase the cost of their derailleur by £15 (likely), at which point you have parity on price again... If anything surely the UDH means that frame designers don't have to design their own hanger for each model, thereby saving time, effort and cost vs designing and testing one from scratch. If the suggestion is that it's 'slimy' for SRAM to innovate in ways that may decrease the price of their products vs Shimano, and that they should in some way do Shimano a favour by keeping parity on price, then that's just insane. If what they are doing is as you describe then it's 'good' business, and will hopefully get Shimano to respond by innovating and/or lowering the prices on their products - that way we can all have better products for less money, it's the way it's always gone.