This is what's wrong with The Industry™
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Could de-logo the black ones with acetone I think? It worked on some other bars for me in the past.
I agree with everything you said except I think I ride 3 up, 8 back*. Once rolled into place this is probably the same amount of sweep.
*Whatever Raceface and Santa Cruz are doing with their carbon bars.
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Though it doesn't include Fox Factory, the suspension end, it still sucks that these companies lose their identities when they're acquired by conglomerate companies. They become just a logo worth a lot of money.
Edit: I'm not sure if this is new or old news. It says it's a new article, but that the acquisition happened on May 7th.
gearjunkie.com
Edit: I'm not sure if this is new or old news. It says it's a new article, but that the acquisition happened on May 7th.
Fox Racing Sells for $540 Million
Vista Outdoor Inc. announced the acquisition Wednesday. Fox Racing joins Giro, Bell, and CamelBak under the group's expanding brand umbrella.
gearjunkie.com
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whatever do you mean? Easton is still totally an aluminum alloys company that makes innovative and strong components, and not just spray painted raceface stuff
Honestly I've had trouble separating FOX racing from Troy lee for the past 5 years
Honestly I've had trouble separating FOX racing from Troy lee for the past 5 years
Isn't Fox Racing the clothing company and has nothing to do with Fox suspension (who own Raceface, Easton, Marzocchi, and maybe something else)?Though it doesn't include Fox Factory, the suspension end, it still sucks that these companies lose their identities when they're acquired by conglomerate companies. They become just a logo worth a lot of money.
Edit: I'm not sure if this is new or old news. It says it's a new article, but that the acquisition happened on May 7th.
Fox Racing Sells for $540 Million
Vista Outdoor Inc. announced the acquisition Wednesday. Fox Racing joins Giro, Bell, and CamelBak under the group's expanding brand umbrella.
Fox Racing is Fox Head Inc dba Fox Racing
Fox Factory makes suspension
Wouldn't it be strange include Fox Factory?
1977 was a few years ago...
Fox Factory makes suspension
Wouldn't it be strange include Fox Factory?
1977 was a few years ago...
Though it doesn't include Fox Factory, the suspension end, it still sucks that these companies lose their identities when they're acquired by conglomerate companies. They become just a logo worth a lot of money.
Edit: I'm not sure if this is new or old news. It says it's a new article, but that the acquisition happened on May 7th.
Fox Racing Sells for $540 Million
Vista Outdoor Inc. announced the acquisition Wednesday. Fox Racing joins Giro, Bell, and CamelBak under the group's expanding brand umbrella.
Yes. It started as the same company till the brand split apart after a few years
. Why it's still important though is it'll include the helmets and gloves that still play a role in mountain biking gear. I just bought a Smith helmet and liked it. But I threw on a $100 Fox helmet at the shop and realized that the Fox just fits (me personally) a lot better. So I bought the Fox.
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Fabric spokes that lose 30% of their tension over 6 months, need to buy a special deburring and lacing kit, cost $8 each, need 2 separate special tools to build/true a wheel, and need special pins to hold the knot from slipping thru.
berdspokes.com
Accessories
Welcome to the future of cycling. At Berd, we have engineered an innovative bicycle spoke which is lighter, stronger, more durable, and more fun to ride than steel.
berdspokes.com
The last carbon ones I had rode like they should be on a monster truck, or trash truck....
Modding and bleeding Super Deluxe: It was basically made to be home-bled, with two ports to ensure you can get all the air bubbles out, etc. Even manitou has a pretty good system for this for the McCloud.
Modding and bleeding Monarch RT (and I assume regular Deluxe is the same): There's a fukin fox-ball INSIDE the damper cap that you have to punch out from the piston-side. What the fuk is this for? It seems to serve the same purpose as the plastic Fox ball on their IFP port, which is just to screw with people and be a pain in the ass. This time, punching the damn ball out, I punched right through it. So now there's remnants stuck in there. Whatever, I ain't putting another one down there.
Modding and bleeding Monarch RT (and I assume regular Deluxe is the same): There's a fukin fox-ball INSIDE the damper cap that you have to punch out from the piston-side. What the fuk is this for? It seems to serve the same purpose as the plastic Fox ball on their IFP port, which is just to screw with people and be a pain in the ass. This time, punching the damn ball out, I punched right through it. So now there's remnants stuck in there. Whatever, I ain't putting another one down there.
So much this. It looks like a logo for people who wear those no fear caps and think guy fieris general vibe is the definition of cool
It's for bleeding the shock, all Fox and RS single tube shocks have them. Fox just uses a steel ball instead of a plastic one.
How would you bleed it otherwise? Answer; you wouldn't.
Set IFP height, put damper tube vertically in vice and fill with oil, install seal head and the excess oil/air comes out of the bleed port as you tighten seal head, reinstall ball and set screw, charge IFP.
I still don't see how it is for bleeding the shock. I did all of those steps, except reinstall ball. What does the ball do exactly? Yea, that fox metal one is a b*tch.
It's for bleeding the shock, all Fox and RS single tube shocks have them. Fox just uses a steel ball instead of a plastic one.
How would you bleed it otherwise? Answer; you wouldn't.
Set IFP height, put damper tube vertically in vice and fill with oil, install seal head and the excess oil/air comes out of the bleed port as you tighten seal head, reinstall ball and set screw, charge IFP.
Great, the steel one falls out and you lose it and the nylon one is jammed in there and doesn’t come out. Perfect. Somehow the external res shocks don’t need this.
I used to scour the floor of my workshop with a magnet attached to a screwdriver to find those loose balls... and in return fund ancient lost treasure.
I found the nylon balls quite easy to tap out, provided you have the right kind of tool to hit it with through the tiny bleed port.
I agree that a nice small setscrew with tiny o-ring might do the job better, but it think the sealhead is a part of the (inline) shock that is always short on realestate.
I always found the 10x the technology claim a bit weird. A new MX bike on Ohlins or Showa with top of the line carbon bits, everything CNC'd to hell is sub 7500$?
This has been brought up a few hundred thousand times since the nineties, it’s the economies of scale.
The out-of-the-box KYB/Showa/WP components (with the exception of the XCW/TE/FE lines) are worlds behind anything in the MTB industry as far as fit and finish and durability go. It's not even close.
Mtb's can barely get chains to stay on. A dirt bike has a timing chain spinning at 10k RPM, a constant mesh transmission that you can stomp from one gear to another without the clutch, a wet clutch that can take an insane amount of slipping and heat, and an external chain drive that deals with speeds and loads that are almost an order of magnitude greater than what a mtb sees, to the point where chain heat is a serious issue.
Now add in the electrical components and controls systems for the whole thing, that are generally reliable for 100's of hours or thrashing. So yes, 10x (as an approximation) of the technology and the development effort is very reasonable.
You are saying reliability somehow proves moto offers better products but you ommit the fact that reliability stems from WEIGHT. Those things are more reliable because 1. They have to be. MX bikes are used for longer period of time than DH or even Enduro bike 2. They are heavier.
Our bikes are a compromise between durability and weight. They always were.
Also yes it has an MX bike has MORE tech but why do you only compare MTB to MX bikes? Compared to Car parts MTB's are cheap as fuck. Hell carbon on bikes is relatively cheap to carbon nearly anywhere else. So are CNC machined parts. People are comparing it to moto only because that's the only example that serves the theory.
I mean don't get me wrong. MTB's got waaaay too fucking expensive. Especially with everyone now focusing on the high end more than the low end vs 5 years ago when D2C entered the market but let's also be realistic and compare apples to apples here. Going "This thing that weighs 6-8x as much is more durable how come?" is a bit silly. We should be pushing back on price inflation but comparisons to MX wont do it especially when we go "oh but those 100kg bikes are more durable".Well duuuuh.
And it's not 10x the technology. It's a focus on different thing. Again I agree that MTB's are too expensive but I really dislike the surface level comparison of "MX bike has more things therefore it's more advanced". We are getting some bike components that don't hit cars below $200k if not more. There are no clutches in bikes or engines on bikes so engineers focus on different stuff. A deraileur is an amazing invention and it works even if yeah we do sometime drop a chain (though how often?).
The whole stick of pretending like MTB's are somehow in the stone age compared to MX bikes is seriously disrespectful to the people that made our bikes much better over the past 30 years.
Also seriously if you are going to complain about expensive bikes - have you seen road bikes and their prices? Also golf clubs? Bows? Hell do you know a high quality electric coffee grinder costs 3000$? A la marzocco espresso maker with 4 ports is $15000-20000?
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It's 10x the technology maturity in a much, much shorter period of time. It speaks to more deliberate and meaningful testing/design cycles and data acquisition and getting small iterative changes out of the way faster and earlier....you know, BEFORE having the customer beta-testing your shit. You don't see the moto industry "re-inventing" itself every few years or so with a complete change in geometry convention or fitment standards or anything like that.
Mass only accounts for a small part of the durability differences you see. That only matters for major structural components which would be essentially monolithic in nature. Manufacturing consistency is grossly off in mountain bikes compared to the key interfaces on motorcycles.
Want a great example? Look at fork bushings and see how far we've come despite many, MANY rounds of manufacturers "re-inventing" their bushing system, and still producing shitty fitments and telling the customers "it's fine". Nailing these clearances was one-and-done in the powersports world I think about 25 years ago now. No amount of structural weight optimization is accounting for process control that is THAT shitty.
Want a second example? Look at Trunnion mounts and what a disaster that is for frame manufacturers and shock manufacturers alike. That one alone can put to bed any argument about technological maturity in the mtb world. On top of that, it is heavier than standard eyelets.
The technological maturity in that field is fairly high which is why you now see reaaallly minor iterations and fine tuning (like wheel spacer thicknesses changing from year to year), and it's window-licker status in mtb, with more anodized parts and a lot more marketing lingo being dreamed up.
that plus there are many fewer models offered (generally speaking).
Great, now I want a chi-chi espresso.
$50 - $80K for a pro's bike.
Anytime someone compares the cost on an entry level beginners MX bike to the race ready MTBs they're cherry-picking to make a point.
You could race MTB on a $1500 bike just as well as you could race MX on a $5000 bike. They'd last about the same amount of time as well.
Shit's expensive yo. And people are overlooking the fact the 90% of the time its only as expensive as it is because we want the shiny XTR not the functional Deore option
Lulz, no.
If you're talking a "pros" bike for a mtb, you're also talking about access to suspension development teams that nobody else has access to, tires that nobody else has access to, etc.
For moto suspension, you can get those suspension customization services for $400-1000 that will suit personalized amateur needs. You also don't NEED factory components to race at a competently high level. There are plenty of examples of SX/MX pros riding on modified stock suspension. The modern 450's make plenty of power. You can get one of these bikes and be competitive in a local series with $1-2k of personalization services/components on top of the cost of the bike. You'll spend more in tires than the rest of the upgrades over the course of a single season.
So for a consumer who wants a decent mtb or a decent dirt bike, apples to apples is not a $50k-80k pros bike with $10k of engine hop-ups and a $20k suspension development budget.
A mtb equivalent to a stock dirt bike would be something with competent tires, brakes and suspension on it and is mostly ready to go. Still talking $5.5-6k USD for that mtb.
A consumer looking at only 50% increase for a motorcycle that is mostly ready to go ($9-10k) and everything that comes with it is still unacceptable. Hardly cherry-picking.
Comparing a wanky mountain bike to a SX race bike that will only last for 45 minutes before throwing a valve and costs $80k and has multiple replacement engines on the shelf ready to throw in....now THAT'S cherry-picking.
Oh and that doesn't exist at all in MX
As there is in MTB
For $10,000 if you had the skills to back yourself you'd be racing WC DH from scratch. Try getting to the FIM with that and call me back. Fucking dreaming.
There are many examples of precisely that. Mid-pack riders and privateers aren't running high-compression pistons (especially on the newer YZF's and CRF's) because they can't afford to keep swapping out engines like crazy. Usually they don't have a mechanic and they're wrenching on shit themselves out of a van in the parking lot. More stock or nearly-stock stuff floating around in those fields than you'd assume.
Again, tire budgets for those racers would dwarf any of the other foofy shit you'd put on a modern 450.