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what they are talking about or do they just remember marketing spiel (for and against) and role it out when necessary? At the end of the day a bike is a bike is a bike. We are not driving F1 cars!
Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. Gather evidence opions and make your own mind up. Some folk on here appear to have a lot of good tech knowledge - some just spout marketing bollox
That is one of the most sensable things you have ever said, this industry is getting as bad as the hifi industry and full of pretensious hype
When a manifacturer says this years model is far better than last years model, are they realy saying there last years model was a pile of crap???
yes they are only bikes
"We are not driving F1 cars"
there is a lot of F1 in modern cars ...
Knottie - take things out of context and make it mean what you want!!
At the end of the day a bike is a bike is a bike. We are not driving F1 cars!
Mr K
What F1 technology is im my Picasso???????????????
What TJ said. TBH its mostly the suspension aspect were I think the most confusing/bollox/techincal stuff is spouted.
talking about knowing what your talking about/doing.
can someone tell me how to shorten brake hoses and bleed brakes.
It depends, I tend to believe posts more if it's worded from an ownership perspective, especially if they're stating flaws of a product. Too many people will claim what they own is the best.
Sometimes you need to step back and appreciate all most riders need is something that is reliable and confident inspiring as they're never going to use the full potential of their equipment. Always trying to get the 'best' is pointless if you're not concentrating on the weakest component, the rider.
you only have to look at turner bikes releasing the best suspension system ever every 2 years even though they borrow the design from somebody else.
plenty of people on here buy the bullcrap sprouted from the likes of turner, ellsworth, ventana etc and are happy to pay over the odds for them.
they don't do it for the ride quality but how they feel inside when seen at trail center car parks or posting pics on here.
can someone tell me how to shorten brake hoses and bleed brakes.
http://www.hopegb.com/page_mep_force_33.html
Lots more here
http://www.hopegb.com/page_mep_force_4.html
Bet ur Picasso has Traction control of some sort and crumple zones?
Both of those are derived from F1 and high end motorsport.
Manufacturer's website for detailed tech info
Park Tools/Sheldon for 'how to do'
Bike forums for tales of woe/conspiracy theories/octopus adventures with rocks
😉
ABS and stability control both derive from motorsport too.
here we go again people talking with authority - what does the original question ask fellas?
I wrote my Thesis on bike suspension systems, but that was nearly ten years ago, so I just attempt to filter all the marketing bull, try stuff out practically and take as much stuff apart as possible.
Actually designing a bike (even a hardtail; ask brant) is really hard in reality if you're doing it from the ground up, so I think all the cpmponent, frame and suspension designers out there are doing an amazing job.
I really believe we are involved in one of the most tech savvy sports though; besides all that stuff is nearly as fun as actually riding the things!
The problem with forums is people tend to make stuff snowball and rumors soon become 'known facts'
plenty of people on here buy the bullcrap sprouted from the likes of turner, ellsworth, ventana etc and are happy to pay over the odds for them.
mr smith, what would you prescribe we buy then, that is just has good but cheaper.
I think all the cpmponent, frame and suspension designers out there are doing an amazing job.
...apart from hope who are unable to design a brake lever that sits in a good position next any of the current (or past) gear shiters.
ABS and stability control both derive from motorsport too.
it's development possibly but it was the aviation industry that used it first.
There are subtle changes to products from year to year, be it damping on a fork or s slightly different bead on a tyre this doesn't mean that manufactures will make a new casting or pattern on a tyre. It's like your car, the shape may not have changed but the bits inside have been improved...
mr smith, what would you prescribe we buy then, that is just has good but cheaper.
buy whatever makes you happy, it's your money (or the banks if you are one of those people who lives on credit)
any of the numerous £1k frames (or cheaper if you buy a whole bike) that use the same suspension. like a giant/maestro, commencal, kona etc or any of the european brands that use a true 4-bar, or a whole pitch pro for not much over 1k.
often the warranty is better than many of the bullcrap brands, though i suppose a marin doesn't get the same appreciation from your peers.
So true Stato. So true. Somebody certainly caught napping on that one.
At the end of the day it's easy enough to spot marketing bollox (the companies with the biggest budgets, funnily enough are more guilty of it than the smaller operators). How many times have Trek / Specialized / Gary Fisher 'revolutionised' the Mountain Bike in the past 10 years by giving us new look or a pivot in a new position that makes no difference whatsoever?
Then you get people like Turner who use the FSR design for 10 years until the license got too restrictive, tweaks it for a couple of years then lands on the DW link. Oh yes, it's all marketing bollox from Dave, the man doesn't actually care how his bikes ride... 🙄
If you want to point a finger at a company that places Marketeering over Engineering you've got to look no further than Marzocchi. Can you imagine the design meetings? Boss: "How can we make our new line of forks (the same as last years but with more 'street' graphics) appeal to the buyers?", Lackey: "We show the forks with scantily clad 'Ladies', Sir!"
Ummm... time for my tablet methinks.
/edit/ I don't ride a Turner, for the record.
It's all BS imo.......
The view from inside....
It's a companies job to part you from your cash as regularly as possible. To do this they need to make you think you are upgrading for positive reasons, ie. "i'm buying this because it is so much better", rather than ' last years never worked".
The easiest way to do this is to sell you on the differences. They might not be huge differences, so the marketers art is pitching these in the correct way to stimulate maximum interest.
Though they might be true the following marketing campaigns aren't likely to help increase sales.
Fox forks: Largely unchanged since 2002.
Boxer World Cup Solo Air 2009: Long legged Totems for ridiculous money.
Marzocchi 2009 forks: Bigger breasts in the adverts to blind you to continuing bearing slop.
Trust me on this, marketing guys would love to write things just like they are, as above, but we'd be out of a job pretty damn sharp. Flowery marketing prose helps sell gear. None technical users lap it up and replay it verbatim, as if it's fact. Replay it often enough and it is fact.
[i]Sometimes you need to step back and appreciate all most riders need is something that is reliable and confident inspiring as they're never going to use the full potential of their equipment. Always trying to get the 'best' is pointless if you're not concentrating on the weakest component, the rider. [/i]
Well said solamanda and so true. I've seen SO many people (not just in MTB) who will buy something because it's the latest 'must-have' or because it's what they *want* (cf *need*) often without realising that actually that money would have been better spent on a Skills Day for them to improve their riding.
I don't really have a problem with AGNI types (after all, the industry thrives on them), it's when they believe that they can buy their way to being a better rider that problems start.
If you want to point a finger at a company that places Marketeering over Engineering you've got to look no further than Marzocchi. Can you imagine the design meetings? Boss: "How can we make our new line of forks (the same as last years but with more 'street' graphics) appeal to the buyers?", Lackey: "We show the forks with scantily clad 'Ladies', Sir!"
I don't know about Marzocchi putting marketing over engineering tbh, round the time the original Bomber range came out they gave the bike suspension market a good kick up the backside. Rockshox were still playing with elastomers and coils that felt like a pogo stick, the fact they upped their game to where they are now is because Marzocchi pushed the market forwards.
Having said that, the current Rockshox range is back on top imo.
The 'tech' stuff that irritates me though is the attitude of 'you can't put those forks on that frame' and 'you can't ride that with that bike'. Half the developments that led to each bike becoming built for specific purpose was users mixing things up for the variety of stuff they ride, before long travel HT frames, people just stuck long travel forks on HT frames. Sure the geometry wasn't 'designed' for it, but thats what people did and the design followed later.
We are not driving F1 cars!
Have you not seen the Scott Genius?
some know, some dont, i do, i dont
depends on the question.
charlierevell - Member
Bet ur Picasso has Traction control of some sort and crumple zones?
Traction control with 90bhp FFS
it's got a digital dash if that counts
You only have to look at the combination of people using the line "I'm an engineer" to support their incorrect ideas and the fact that when you do try and explain things in real engineering terms you get shouted down by those who've been taken in by all the marketing spiel. My favourite bugbear is the idea that a "flexy" steel or ti frame with less than 1mm of vertical travel is somehow significantly more comfy than a stiff alu frame when both are fitted with 50mm of air suspension where a few psi difference make more difference in softness of the ride compared to the difference in the frames.
The majority of us have neither the time, money nor inclination to be constantly trying out the various designs and materials (be that frames, forks, clothing, tyres). So, the opinions of journalists and other users becomes very important. If the journalists decide to look after their careers by maintaining the facade of constant improvement, it leaves us with nowhere to get independent advice. "Try everything out before you buy"? Not really an option for the majority is it?
So - we're left with picking up the scraps of information available and using these to formulate our own opinions. No wonder then that you'll hear the same stuff repeated.
Personally, I never comment on anything I have no experience of. So, if someone asks about FS frames, I'm happy to compare my Spesh FSR and my Meta 5. Then it stops. If someone asks about Ti as a frame material, I'm happy to compare it with my steel Inbred. But don't ask me [i]why[/i] things are different - I can only report how it feels to me.
As for suspension settings etc. I usually just set everything in the "middle" and go ride it.
We are not driving F1 cars!
Gordon Murray said of F1 "..they're almost built to the standards of modern mountain bike components.."
sq225917:
Fox forks: Largely unchanged since 2002.
I wouldn't be buying some TALAS 36RCs this weekend if they still had a bolt on axle.
As I said before, half the fun is reading mags, getting involved in forums, doing the research and buying new stuff!
mr smith, what would you prescribe we buy then, that is just has good but cheaper.
Specilalized, Trek, GT, Diamond Back, Commencal, Giant, Scott....... add any other decent, large, mainstream manufacturer of your choice.
Probably not as 'nice' or won't make you feel as 'good' but just as good. Better in some cases.... much better....
mr smith, what would you prescribe we buy then, that is just has good but cheaper.
Than a ventana or a turner well a kona indeed...
I did fall in the "niche" trap. My two first FS were rocky mountains. A fanatic (like a element race) and the first switch.
Was there a difference between the switch and a stinky in terms of riding, well very little. To be honest I have tried plenty of kona at this time and couldn't really find any of them being very different than the switch. They were just cheaper than the RM. Then you could argue the attention to detail, and quality of build are better on the RM. But that is hardly going to change the quality of the ride.
MTB industrie is like japanses motorbikes industrie. Each year the new gsxrbusa-x9-r1 is much better than the previous year model that already was the best bike in the world...
However if you buy a bike without trying it you are an idiot...
I ride a bike like Swiss Tony rides a lady, long smooth and alot of attention.
he doesn't mince tho hora
What F1 technology is im my Picasso???????????????
Cigarette lighter.
Certainly there is a lot of hype and most of it should be ignored. A lot of detail of suspension design is actually pretty complex and not so easy to understand without drawing up a full set of models etc, so hard to prove or disprove at initial inspection, which is why its not as easy to sort the wheat from the chaff. Certainly bikes with the same type of suspension but slightly tweaked geometry can handle differently, but it's unlikely to be very much differently. As with the comment above regarding frame materials - I too see no reason why steel or ti should be noticably different in handling, but I suspect this is not what people are "noticing" - they're noticing the reduction in things like trail-buzz and other low amplitude but higher frequency noise which isnt ironed out by forks very well and acn be amplified by the tyres airspace in a resonant sort of fashion. Having never conducted experiments in controlled conditions with identical-geometry frames of different materials its difficult to tell, which is why people go by general opinion. As for frame design being very complex etc - to some extent, yes, but I think you'll find that what happens is the guys that come up with a truly innovative design do some impressive work, but the rest of the time it's just slight drawing adjustments to existing designs churned out in china, and the innovative designs are fairly quickly copied more often than not. Certainly when I worked in "the industry" as a lowly mechanic/webby and looked at importing some frames, talking with the manufacturer you could basically ask/see what large manufacturer was buying which models from their catalogue and then ask for say...an extra gusset there, or move the cable lugs from there to there and make them this style instead, or change this style of chainstay for the ones that are on such and such a persons frame design etc.
As in every other area of life, its full of opinion, people who know a lot, people who think they know a lot and people who know nothing but claim to know a lot and people who have no idea and just wait to be handed info.
What F1 technology is im my Picasso???????????????
Disc brakes. Fuel injsection.
I think some companies trade on that kind of marketing - their stuff is the best thing ever each year - but not all. Ellsworth spring to mind - how can they justify making their frames so expensive when they are functionally the same as say Specialized?
Other companies like say, Orange, seem to just make frames and tell you why they like them that way, and bring something new out every so often. Their new bikes are just a tweaking of their old ones - like the Alpine 5. It reflects the changing way people ride.
The best example of exploiting this techno babble are the 'suspension' experts that will happily take £100 odd quid of your money to service and 'tune' your forks/shock... FFS Its a bicycle. It tops out, if you're lucky at about 40mph on an Alpine descent. My motorbike on a track gets about 180 and even i can set up the suspension on that with the manual and a bit of playing about and patience.
Its not that these experts know what they are talking about, they rely on willy waving ('mine has been set up for my riding style'... so why i have i just overtaken you on this desent on a hardtail? Oh your riding style is 'cautious chicken') or laziness of the consumer to send their parts off to be 'tuned' rather than spend an hour in the woods fiddling with settings until you're happy and it feels the way you want it. As was said above, most people wont know the difference and will never wring 100% of the bikes capabilty out of it purely due to ther own limitations.
I've had mates buy brand new frames and send the shocks away to be tuned to their riding style before they have ridden them - so we live in the Northwest and a bloke you have never met before in the Southwest knows how you ride and the terrain you encounter 90% of the time?... Or are those 2 dials just too confusing for you?
Mate had his forks and shock set up by Mojo - fair enough his choice... and then when he spoke to someone at TF who insisted Mojo internals were crap he sent them to TF. Saw him coming? I think so.
I have some old rope if anyone would like to buy it....£150 serviced and set up for you. 🙂
the hype keeps the industry alive
we buy it be it mainstream or niche
the thing that gets me tho is that 90% of folk wouldnt be able tom tell the
differance between acera and xtr blind ,they both work
i quite like the techie stuff "as i'm an engineer" but do ride rigid cantibraked s/s a lot
Just a couple of things mccett...
Can you point out how a race track is in any way the same as an Alpine descent..
Secondly, at what point on your motorcycle do you have to set up the suspension for peddle input?
I'd say that mountain bike suspension is probably a long way in advance of motorbike suspension in terms of technology, just because of the demands placed upon it. As such, it makes it a lot harder to tune properly, and to service.
MTBs are getting to be a mature technology. Look at all the crazy ideas for suspension around in the 90s - most have been filtered out and rejected.
I think the internet has made the marketing worse, in that you can chase being the "lightest stem" etc. winning by perhaps 1g, which is truly bugger all to most people but will be seen as 'best' by someone sat at a PC with a debit card to hand.
Ooop, that's me :/
"...higher frequency noise which isnt ironed out by forks very well and acn be amplified by the tyres airspace in a resonant sort of fashion"
Yup, some folk think they know alot and talk utter poop!
Having your shocks tuned can make the bike feel nicer. So why shouldn't we be doing it, if we have the money? It's not neccessarily all about speed, is it? I don't know why people have this obession with telling you you aren't fast. Who cares? We don't ride for speed (mostly) we ride for enjoyment, and if your kit's set up better, you tend to enjoy the ride more. How many motorcyclists actually race their crotch rockets?
I haven't had shocks tuned by the way, but I did have TFT service and upgrade my forks once. Changed my 2004 SPV minutes to work the same way that 2005 ones did ie with progressive SPV valve opening. Cheaper than buying new forks, and it made them better. Faster? No idea, never raced the bike. But it felt nicer.
Surprise, surprise marketing men stretch the truth! But how many of us actually ride well enough to be able to prove or disprove their claims? Like with most advertising I treat the claims made by the bike companies with a degree of caution. But would you really want to go back to elastomer forks, canti brakes and URT suspension??
I don't think marketing stretches the truth, just makes it as appealing as possible... 😉
Yup, some folk think they know alot and talk utter poop!
Hmmm and that's coming from a lawyer.... 😉
But how many of us actually ride well enough to be able to prove or disprove their claims?
I do. I could tell the difference between a Horst and a single pivot, for sure. And I could definitely tell between a 'Freeride lite' machine and a 'trail' one. What're you getting at?
Just a couple of things mccett...Can you point out how a race track is in any way the same as an Alpine descent..
Secondly, at what point on your motorcycle do you have to set up the suspension for peddle input?
I'd say that mountain bike suspension is probably a long way in advance of motorbike suspension in terms of technology, just because of the demands placed upon it. As such, it makes it a lot harder to tune properly, and to service.
bollocks mtb suspension is now way near good bike stuff
maybee the percieved complication is but in practice a single pivot is still
the best set up for most applications
as for servicing , fox ,every 3 months for a rebuild come on
Same in other sports. I play golf and there's new technology every year but I can summarise it as follows...
"If you can't hit a ball it doesn't matter what club/technology you use. If you can hit a ball it doesn't matter what club/technology you use."
To go faster on a bike press harder on the pedals, to go even faster learn how to ride a bike.
Roger
single pivot is still
the best set up for most applications
Not entirely sure that's true. Regardless of complication you can definitely feel the difference between two FS frames with different suspension technologies. Granted some of that will be down to geometry etc but the ride and handling is notably different from a single piv to a 4 bar design, and that's just to a general user. My old single piv is great for going down but a nightmare going up, pedal feedback kills its climbing which doesnt happen with my NRS etc etc. I'd say any system can be set up to work well in any occasion, but there's no saying "single piv is best for most". As for servicing - well personally I should service things more often, but my rear hasnt seen a service in 2 years and my fronts havent seen a service in ooooohhhh maybe 5. I'll strip them tonight I think, thanks for reminding me!
Speaking as a luddite who only got a full sus 20 months ago, things have definitely moved on ....I know the push pedals harder arguement rings true on the climbs but downhill give me discs and 5" travel over my old steel hardtail please. I went thru rigid forks, elastomers, early Rc36's etc and am glad to be on newer stuff TBH
MTB tech isn't as good as motorbike tech I feel....look how Honda with little backround or experience could produce an ace DH bike....imagine where the sport would be at if they had got in with Shimano back in the day!...we'd all be riding 15lb 8" travel beasts that climbed like a hardtail I'm sure!
Exactly RR, that's why my bike toolbox still has a hammer in it.
whytetrash ,
i think you've shot yourself in the foot there, honda would like you to think they pushed the boundaries, and you only have marketing and hearsay to go on.
in reality they stuck a derrelieur in a box as they couldnt build anything lighter or more efficient.
the suspension had a lockout lever, bear in mind how bad a DH bike would have to pedal to make a 40lb hardtail the prefered choice.
the custom make brakes lasted a year before they picked some off the shelf formula ones.
and none of the parts have yet to show up on production bikes.
remember, if it 26.8% better than last year, its 26.8% less likely to be verifiable by any valid and relavent test.
Its much easier to believe that all technical stuff is hype isn't it? A bit less challenging...
I'm still amazed the electronic damping control didn't stay on, rather than complex valving etc. I suspect it is due to needing to integrate readings from a few areas of the bike which couldnt be prescribed. I know they had issues with vibration and muck, but thats really just requiring concentration on packaging.
To go faster on a bike press harder on the pedals, to go even faster learn how to ride a bike.
Since WHEN is it all about going as fast as possible?
Since WHEN is it all about going as fast as possible?
Sorry, racing background kicking in. Perhaps it should say "personal skills" now have the greatest effect on your riding experience.
Of course there is a load of marketing bollocks surrounding bikes, especially suspension. It's hardly surprising though - it's expensive and most people don't understand it, so how else will you sell more than your competitors?
By the way, for those debating the difference between mountain bike/motorbike/car suspension above, mountain bikes are one of, if not the most, difficult suspension applications anywhere. This is for several reasons:
Poor sprung to unsprung mass ratio.
Very wide variety of impact sizes.
Wide variety of rider weights to cater for.
Sprung mass constantly changes position (+ varying chain forces for rear).
Must be very lightweight but also durable.
For these reasons, mountain bike suspension is a)difficult to design, b) difficult to tune.
Perhaps it should say "personal skills" now have the greatest effect on your riding experience.
Quite possibly. But almost anyone can appreciate a really nice bike if they're sat on one. You'd have to be a determined luddite to argue that bikes have got no better over the last 15 years. And as for riding enjoyment - well I'd have to say that's also improved. 15 years ago I used to pick my way down the Gap at 15mph on a fully rigid bike with cantis, and a 130mm stem, clinging on for dear life as I shoved my arse over the back on the steep section at the top.
Now the Gap's too boring so I take my bike to say Cwmcarn and let rip on the DH section or the XC, moving at three times the speed I used to. And it's much more exhilerating. The bike's moved on to allow me to do this, but my expectations have moved on too. I do different rides to what I used to.
I think that if you have the skills, you get to appreciate different bikes. After all, you wouldn't be doing extreme freeride, dirt jumps, North Shore or any of that stuff on a fully rigid mid 90s bike, would you? It might be possible, sure, but the fact is that mountain biking as a sport has developed massively and diversely, and I think that's largely due to technological development - including innovation by both top riders and designers.
to say honda have little experience of of building off road singletrack vehicles is a bit nieve (?)
they have won countless championships in various disciplines over the
years
thing is they tried sucsessfully to compete at top level
they will have learned (and patented) loads
remember the ill fated nr500 they built ,waste of time ?
i very much doubt it
same with the d/h stuff ,think fuel cell lightweight motorcycles in various
guises
and designing suspension for mtbs can be as complicated as you want to make it , the point is that a well designed single pivot (dale/orange)with a good shock is still a faster bike than i am a rider
the point is that a well designed single pivot (dale/orange)with a good shock is still a faster bike than i am a rider
Bit of a nonsense point. Bikes don't have a maximum speed. A good bike will make the average rider faster on a given trail - a suspension one markedly so if it's a rocky trail - but as previously stated, speed just isn't the point. So why does it come up all the time?
beacuse bikes like most sporting equipment are derrived form models developed for competition, even ones like the trance and propet that would never be raced normaly are still reliant on technology developed for the companies other bikes.
Personaly i like speed, and i suspect most people here do, otherwise you'd be walking round the trail centers 🙂
But speed isn't the ultimate aim, is it? It's riding enjoyment - which involves speed, but varying amounts of it. The feel of the ride is more important.
I don't think an Orange 5 has any racing in its pedigree. Their "race" bikes are hardtails, just like Specialized etc.
Forums are full of people who have strong opinions on subjects they actually have very little knowledge of. That is what makes so many threads so much fun to read.
I think to many readers take opinions as fact.
Ajr, I thought this was a reasonable and respectful discussion of opinions, as one might have in a pub between friends... I am not pushing my opinion as fact, just expressing it 🙂
What don't I have knowledge of?
Molgrips, I would not want to hurt your feelings, but I had not read any of your threads when I posted. I answered the original question with what is my opinion.
Fair enough, no offence taken 🙂
With regards to the question of whether most people get the most out of their kit - it occurs to me that a great many don't have it set up properly....
I don't think an Orange 5 has any racing in its pedigree. Their "race" bikes are hardtails, just like Specialized etc.
Eeeh? What about all the 4X and DH prototypes? I visited the factory during the Global era and there was a LOT of development going on there from those team bikes, a lot of which made it onto production bikes.
Far more money's made from selling trail bikes to weekenders than is made racing tho.
Tricky one- it's true that there is often appears to be very little difference between this year's model and last and improvements tend to be incremental. OTOH, if you look at where mountain bikes were 15 years ago then there's obviously more going on than marketing boys polishing turds. But it's still more like a curve than a series of steps, and if you jumped on a bike at any point on that curve you'd likely be hard pushed to tell the difference from one just upstream or downstream.
Just take it all with a pinch of salt and buy a new bike when you need to, not when you're told it's been made obsolete. And like someone said earlier, just pick one from any of the big boys and they'll all be (technologically speaking) the same.
In my uninformed opinion that is.
I wonder what would happen if this thread and [url= http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/rivendell-big-dummy-review#post-130281 ]THIS ONE[/url] ever met?
Something terrible or we might just go out and ride for a change 🙂
SSP
There are big innovations tho. Like the "invention" of riser bars (yes I knwo they were around before), or Marz Bombers, or the first platform shocks, the first disc brakes etc. Each one of those really pushed the whole thing forward. I'd say some years had much more innovation than others.
not when you're told it's been made obsolete
Is that not blindingly obvious? In any case, no-one's ever told me that about any of my bikes!
Agreed that some years will have seen bigger steps than others.
Is that not blindingly obvious? In any case, no-one's ever told me that about any of my bikes!
Well, obviously I don't mean people marching up to you in the car park and declaring your bike's past it 🙂
But a quick trawl of magazines or forums suggests (to me anyway) that it's not blindingly obvious. Granted there's always the desire for newer shiny bits but a lot of people seem to be get through a lot of high-spec bikes in a short space of time, far too quickly to really see much difference I'd have thought.
how many of us buy a new bike every year ?
just a question
well me i bought 2 in the last year
think its like most stuff it has to be facelifted relaunched updated
whatever to keep us buying
remember when cars never changed for years then all the sudden new model every 2 years ,not better just different
same with bikes (a bit) my 10 yr old dale m900 still rides as well as any
newer similar bike, might be a bit cheaper these days (or not) for comparable spec
genuine improvements are few but tend to be revolutionary ,SIS suspension vee brakes 8 speed/9speed discs big travel etc these tend to be engineer
driven initially then the ad men get in
at the end of the day we just get on and go ooh thats better and spend the cash
mikee
how many of us buy a new bike every year ?
Only when the technology/price ratio levels out 😉
For instance: XTR filters down to XT and LX... that takes a couple of years and you get essentially the same kit!
I did design/build myself a 'future proof' bike:
[img] 
[/img]
Flamejob, I reckon that'll look well dated in 5 years time 🙂
lot of people seem to be get through a lot of high-spec bikes in a short space of time, far too quickly to really see much difference I'd have thought
Yes they do, although I think that's just because they like buying new shiny stuff rather than because they think it'll make them a better rider. Do people buy loads of new clothes because they think they'll get more sex? Do people buy new cars because they think they'll get to work faster?
And, ironically, old-skool fixie/steel brazed/curly bared/brooks saddled etc etc bikes are being bought as shiny and new, cos they're in fashion!
You all must've seen the film with Dudley Moor about the advertising exec who sees the light - "Jaguars (the car that is) for men who like handjobs off beautiful women"