nation

@Opinionator: cheers mate, godspeed.

@Opinionator: I’m sure there are plenty of merits to a belt drive that I’m too stupid to understand, but having been a full-time mechanic for getting on for a decade now I can confidently say they consume freehub bearings/driver assemblies on more sensitive hubs (i9, Stans, Novatec, etc) at a way higher rate than chains, are liable to break with any sort of impact, are loud and draggy in moon-dust, get clogged and derail in sticky mud, are more challenging to design frames around, are annoying to keep inventory on since they come in predetermined lengths, have limited supply/availability of replacement cogs/tension pulleys, and are awfully inefficient if run at the wrong tension. Marry those cons to a bike riding populace who barely know how to lube a chain much less tend to the needs of a belt (hint, there are more needs than Gates marketing department lets on), and you have a recipe for longer and more expensive service queues. Chains are simple and effective, easy to size, easy to maintain, durable, repairable in the field, recyclable, simple to design a bike around, and can easily be fitted to gearbox, derailleur, and single/fixed systems. I appreciate that Gates is offering a different option for people who drive Rivians to help them feel superior, but in the real world free from sterile cities there are too many limitations to make them a practical choice.

As another long time mechanic and shop guy, I can for sure confirm that Spot is great to work with even as a non-dealer. Had a customer who rode a linkage loose and thrashed a bunch of hardware on an older Rollick and the Spot crew got us fresh hardware and provided excellent tech docs to get everything back together dialed with minimal waiting time. We’ve built a few as well and while there were a couple small details that made setup a little more time consuming, the bikes built up solid and felt pretty excellent which is more than I can say of several boutique-ish brands we sell.

Among a myriad of factors that informed the trail plans and allocation of certain “zones” to different outdoor communities, sustainability and maintenance have featured as primary concerns. While Blue Dot is absolutely a neat zone to talk about incorporating a bike specific trail, the amount of money required to build in that zone and have the build hold up would be astronomical. Moreover, our soil composition is pretty challenging, and Elden is known to get 1”/hr rainstorms in the summer which would likely destroy even the best builds out there; it’s just too steep for long term, regular bike use. The current plan does a superb job of adding or rebuilding trail in a more compact and accessible zone that is still plenty steep and challenging. Blue Dot slabs will always be there, and our trail running community are happy to share them with us, but a public DH bike trail is not really the best use of resources for that area.

@JonDud: cheers, we sincerely appreciate it!

Happy Ending will unfortunately be a relic of the past as it lands in a protected owl nesting site and is also too unpredictable to incorporate since it feeds riders directly into a constantly changing arroyo. You’ll be excited to hear there are plenty of features that will be added or revised to more than make up for it.