ohio

I wouldn't put too much weight to a single engineer's viewpoint, even if they call themselves an "expert." They can be pretty ideological... and pretty wrong. Depending on the use case, a road race bike wants to have a very laterally stiff rear end (which come's from large dia chainstays), lots of torsional stiffness (from CS dia and DT dia) for sprinting, very stiff under braking (DT and TT) and a vertically compliant rear end (so small diameter seatstays, with bends in them). An exception would be a crit bike, where you may want to reduce that lateral stiffness for hard cornering but it's a tough one, because those guys sprint so hard you risk rubbing the tire or jumping off a sprocket from too much rear end flex.

That's an awful lot of wild speculation. 2 engaging pawls is fairly common; Bitex hubs have a pretty stellar reputation; and I think you're misidentifying the retaining ring as the pawl spring. Do you happen to know the temper or steel Bitex uses for their pawls? Have you seen a lot of Bitex failures?

@tim-at-esker-cycles: what's the max insertion on these frames? edit: nevermind - it is handily included in their geometry chart. NICE WORK Esker for publishing that info! Max Seatpost Insertion S: 375 ST / 195 max SP insertion (I'm assuming no bottle bosses) M: 410 ST / 190 SP L: 440 ST / 240 SP XL: 475 ST / 290 SP So the large is about 30mm shy of full insertion on a 175mm dropper. I still think it's a rad frame and looks really well thought out. Just highlighting why lots of builders skip the ST bosses...

@hermichut: for sure, depending on your height and the length dropper you want, it's doable. I'm guessing you're pretty tall? On a hardcore, rowdy hardtail like this, I would want a 200mm dropper to really let the bike move. For riders in the typical S - L range (ST lengths up to 440mm) there's no way to have both. - Full insertion on a 175mm post is ~270mm (stack 210mm) maybe 10mm less depending on the actuator clearance - Closest you can get first boss to BB center is about 140mm - Bottle boss i2i distance is 64mm and boss dia is about 8mm (rad 4mm) So to get full insertion on a 175mm post with bottle bosses you'd need a ST length of 270+140+64+4 = 478mm maybe 460mm which is way longer than even most tall folks want on a rowdy HT. For folks that made it this far, that gives a min BB to saddle rail of 688mm ... probably about max for someone with a 830mm (32.5") inseam. edit: related, I'm waiting for someone to produce external bosses. With the explosion of gravel and bikepacking, I do think it's only a matter of time. They'd be a smidge uglier and gram or two heavier, but would totally solve this problem and just bump the DT bosses up maybe a CM max.

It's an understandable problem. Dropper posts make this one tough. Do you want full post insertion or do you want a 2nd bottle?

I'm loving the pale turquoise too. Great looking frames from Esker...

I'm only in the saddle for the climbs, and forks don't sag much on climbs. So while I may sag 40mm of the 160mm and everything gets 2deg steeper on the flats, it's more like only 1deg or less when I need it most. Wouldn't want it back east, but not a bad choice for winch and plummet Western riding.

If these are using standard Bitex internals, it is extremely easy and cheap to get replacement parts. Bitex along with Novatec are the most ubiquitous performance hubs in the world - more volume than DT Swiss. I'll also say my anecdotal experience with Bitex is superb - very underrated and as durable as any hubs at comparable weight. With the newest high-engagement pawl counts they really give up nothing except cache. I'm currently on DT 240s, but the next wheelset I build from scratch will likely be Bitex (or possible the new OneUp hubs once those get some shake down runs by others). As for the rims, I'm cheering for F&B but they're not there yet for me. Their big value proposition vs epoxy resin is environmental impact and recyclability, but if that's the goal, they will never be as recyclable as aluminum despite weighing the same as the cheaper metal. And we haven't yet seen the same durability advantage over aluminum that traditional carbon has.

@hypermoto: Troy can (theoretically) feel that because spokes actually DO rub together as the wheels flexes. But spokes don't bend. They stretch, and the reason we tension a wheel is so that that strain is NEVER less than zero - which is what would cause buckling. This is easy to visualize: place a wheel flat on a table, hub end cap down. Press down on the outsides of the rim as you would to seat spoke heads and pre-stress a wheel you're building. You can visualize that the spokes on the top side of the wheel get put in more tension as the rim flexes toward the table. You will notice that the spokes remain perfectly straight. The lower spokes get detensioned the same amount, but not so much that they buckle - they also remain perfectly straight. This is the lateral give of the wheel as a whole you describe above and does not require any spokes to bend. The amount of flex is 100% a function of spoke count, and spoke gauge/cross sectional area.

No it doesn't. Most of the bladed spokes are smaller effective gauge (total area of cross section) than a typical 14/15/14 double butted spoke, so will be more compliant. But the compliance is 100% a function of the cross sectional area of the spoke center, and 0% to do with the geometry of that cross section. Lots of misunderstanding and misinformation in this comments section...