Grant has a dream and decides to do an entire wireless Silver group with thumb shifters, but everything uses AA batteries and some weird AM radio frequency.
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They figured out how to do good long travel all mountain 29ers like Ibis Ripmo, SC Megatower, Giant Reign etc. So they’re in the process of selling a LT fs to everybody who had bought a LT 27.5 fs. Not sure what’s after that.
Plus is basically dead, where everybody thinks over 2.6 is too bouncy and too much slower, except for some weirdo holdouts.
Ah, interesting. So basically 29 is the standard, and 27.5 was an experiment, and by similar token tires are now mostly 2.1-2.5, with the big plus setups kinda falling by the wayside?
What’s up with suspension? Are hardtails on their way out? I keep hearing about rear suspension getting better and lighter, seems like it’s on a trajectory
This should probably be in the mtb thread but this is tarck so whatever:
Tires widths are more 2.25-2.6. Hardtails will always be around.
Rear suspension is getting better but not significantly lighter. Carbon frames and such are shedding a little weight, but then that opens up use of a beefier (possibly coil) shock that performs better. Also 29er wheels vs. 27.5 wheels - 29er is bigger, slightly heavier, but benefit outweighs penalty. Beefier shocks and bigger wheels plus lighter frames nets to zero or thereabouts. Or basically, the bike’s gonna weigh what it’s gonna weigh, and no one is giving up droppers or suspension or anything else that works well.
so suspension for mountain bikes is like aero frames for road bikes - now that lightness is trivially easy to nail down, you can start focusing on other things.
I really like the aesthetics of hardtails, but that’s mostly because fs bikes have mostly been really really ugly.
29 is faster, but I think there’s still a case for 27.5. I think my process 134 was more fun than my current 111
Though the current stuff is getting very slack in the head, so I’d probably have to ride something new new to see if that’s no longer the case
i am too short for 29ers but i’d ride new reign 29
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I have two words for you:
Isabeu Cordurier.
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But the shifting when you ride under a bridge is amazing! (And tandem setups only work reliably on clear nights)
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The only shifter that stops working during a solar storm, so you have to use a stick.
The old Mavic wireless used to shift for you when you rode by major powerlines.
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aaaaaand your cassette is dumped
Will this be the year of Linux on the desktop droppers on the road?
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hard pass!
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For aero? They were talking about it on a GCN video a few months ago.
Specialized has been making utterly useless road dropper posts for years (35mm of drop 
)
They were XC posts, I believe. Had them in 50mm drop, too. Carbon coz xc weenies gonna weenie. And just happen to fit most road/cross seatpost size of 27.2.
They were blowing them out a while back, but I had no real use for it since my cross and gravel bikes used the front shifter lever. Did have one friend set up his cross bike operated by the sram left shifter.
also no real use because whether 35 or 50, that’s not really enough to make an appreciable difference.
Maybe it is, if you’re just trying to get the saddle just low enough so you can slide backwards to lay flat (applicable only to people who don’t have that much saddle to bar drop)?