vinay

These are professional race teams and probably constantly change components based on trail conditions as well as what components need to be tested under race conditions. These mechanics may be perfectly capable of performing the required maintenance and modifications, but keeping track of what the whole assembly weights would be much further down their list of priorities. So depending on which wheelset may be installed at the time, which tires, inserts or not and how much sealant they're using they may easily be up or down a few grammes. Do they also cut spikes in XC?

It should be noted these bikes are supplied without battery, motor and cellphone holder. This implies all of these bikes require an actual bike rider to perform the pedaling as well as take care of navigation. Call it "Flintstone tech" or whatever you want, but this is how things were back in the days and for some, still are. Your cat on the other hand is doing all the running, jumping and purring on her or his own. That is, unless these are properly overweight (or you have adopted some friendly cougars) in which case by all means strap some Avinox and some Duracel (Li-ION bad, mkay?) to them and perform a fair comparison right up against some modern day Surron.

@betsie: Oh, I thought you were referring to the (I thought it was) German who went to Utah, bought a bike for 500 dollar and rode (part of) Brendog's Rampage line.

Didn't the tourist actually buy the bike for about 500 dollar or so? It could have been a rental before but unfortunately for every bike I've rented so far, the agreement stipulated that "just riding along" down cliffs and across gaps was strictly prohibited. Now law abiding German tourist would dare to breach that.

@Will-narayan: I don't know the full history but in my mind it was all BTWIN initially (and even the Microshift gearing got branded BTWIN). Then now you have Van Rysel, RockRider, Elops and maybe there are even more brand names for their bicycles. In a way it is impressive they can pull this off but yeah as you say, maybe it works in their favor and some road cycling enthusiast prefer to ride a brand that's being ridden by elite athletes on the telly but not by the little kids as their first bike. This may not be universally true as obviously many of the expensive brands (including even Litespeed) are even releasing run-bikes alongside their elite bikes.

@WhateverBikes: Oh yeah, I don't question Decathlon has some pretty innovative ways of doing things at prices that allow people in sports that otherwise would have been out of reach. The volumes they're shifting surely grants them the freedom to try new things and fail at times. Which is fine as they happily allow you to return a product if it doesn't work for you. I've tried an inflatable boxing pole once where I could weight the foot with sand (or water). No matter how much sand I added, it still tilted upon every hit. Everyone in the house thought I was breaking the place apart. I returned and still got a decent refund, even though it was clearly used. Considering you're a bike mechanic at Decathlon I'm curious, have you seen any issues with these RockRider Feel bikes? If they keep up, these seem like pretty cool bikes to me.

@Muscovir: Personally I'm not really bothered what name Decathlon slaps on their products. Most of the time you can get what you need and it does the job just fine. I think their "Rockrider Feel" mountainbikes look pretty cool and remind me of the original Kona Process bikes. Just a bummer they went with a press-fit bottom bracket. But the "Rockrider Feel" helmet is probably one of the cheapest (in cost) MIPS equipped mountainbike helmets I've seen and it fits just fine. I see no downsides there.

Decathlon has a dazzling number of brand names, probably once laid out by a marketing guru who segmented the sports market and mapped out which brand name goes with which market. But I can't help but think that having the same plain sports T-shirt marketed as Forclaz, Quecha, Kipstra and Kiprun depending on which shelf it is going to end up will eventually backfire. One customer just looking for that shirt for running may assume it to be unavailable (according to the online stock list) even though the "outdoor" marketed shirt will stay behind in the store and won't be sold. So cutting back on the brand names a little should smoothen the inventory a little without any drawbacks for the customer. You'll just find that same product available in more colors. Going with Van Rysel seems like an odd choice though. Seems like a difficult brand name to pronounce in some parts of the world. There is probably a reason Cheng Shin made up this Maxxis brand name for the mountainbike market.

That was a beautiful and kind letter to yourself. There is just nothing I could add.

Designed in Minnesota, USA simply implies these pedals are not being designed by poor underage underfed undereducated overworked kids in some far away country. This is important information as having the design office near the production facilities typically yields better quality products.