Anyone have anything they'd like to rant about?

[smmokan]

I wish some of these bike companies would take a cue from Ibis and offer non-Transmission mechanical builds with XT and XTR. They're missing an opportunity for higher-end build options for people who don't want batteries on their bikes.

[VTskibum]

There are a shit-ton of good bike companies out there that do the same without being the skid-mark of the industry.
I get a noob buying one but people that know better should just say no.
My .02 (and rant)

Hear all of this and don't disagree, but think that's a bit too far. I own two specialized currently and definitely wouldn't consider myself a noob.

Santa Cruz - massively overpriced IMO, though they do ride pretty well.
Giant - owned a few, definitely good bikes at good price.
Pivot - 100% out purely b/c of super-boost. Don't give a shit, not interested. Used to own one pre super-boost, loved it, won't buy again.
Trek - Meh, up until maybe the latest Fuel EX totally boring and locally, they're actually way worse than big S buying up shops.
Cannondale - XC bikes are fine, trail bikes uninspired by any of them.
Rocky Mtn - Would definitely buy one, but hard to pay the significant premium over big S for really similar performance IMO. Was pretty close to getting an Instinct, would definitely consider in future.
Yeti - I'm not a dentist, but would ride one.
Ibis - Similar to above, would ride one though.
Commencal/YT/Canyon - see plenty and wouldn't say not specifically to any of them, but no test ride ability at all.
Kona, Transition, Norco, Orbea, Scott pretty rare around me, same as above for test ride ability.

So given the above, have a long-time relationship w/ shop that carries Big S, Giant, Rocky I went Specialized bc I like how they rode. Years ago when they were all proprietary nonsense avoided them.

So maybe regional, but love or not their bikes are pretty nice.

On plus side riding is pretty great around me right now! Spring popped trails are rolling great and most of the deadfall has been cleared. Also got my pump track up and running for evening laps last few nights.

My 0.02 and counter-rant.

[Roxtar]

I wish some of these bike companies would take a cue from Ibis and offer non-Transmission mechanical builds with XT and XTR. They're missing an opportunity for higher-end build options for people who don't want batteries on their bikes.

FTW!!!
I get it. Sram offers killer deals with brands to be the OEM king but give us the option, even at a higher cost, to do a top level Shimano build.
That's one (of many) reason I do frame up builds.

Pivot is the big exception as they offer both XX and XTR level builds.

[skaredshtles]

PREACH, my brotatos.

FUCK SPECIALIZED.

[zion zig zag]

Checking in as a first time Specialized owner. I’m going to try and work through the guilt.


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[Roxtar]

Santa Cruz - massively overpriced IMO, though they do ride pretty well.
Pivot - 100% out purely b/c of super-boost. Don't give a shit, not interested. Used to own one pre super-boost, loved it, won't buy again.
Yeti - I'm not a dentist, but would ride one.
Ibis - Similar to above, would ride one though.

I'd take a used model of any of these (add Evil to the mix) over a new S-brand and feel I'd done the bike world a solid.

My 0.02 and counter-rant.

Respect

[Roxtar]

Checking in as a first time Specialized owner. I’m going to try and work through the guilt.

As a penance you must ride the shitty dirt road slog up to Trail 401.
And then turn around and ride it back.
Go with God, my son.

[toast2266]

Specialized as a company is fairly terrible.

But regardless of what you think of the company, their bikes are probably the best designed things on the market. Aside from being the ones to pioneer in frame storage, lots of little details on specialized frames beat out most of the competition. Pivots, hardware, cable routing, etc. - all really well done. And they do all of that at very competitive prices.

(I say that as the owner of a transition and a norco)

[Abies]

Those raw and brownish gold evo alloys are nice looking bikes. The fact that they didn’t sell as well as any of the carbon iterations is an indictment of specialized’s customer base imo.


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[El Chupacabra]

Specialized as a company is fairly terrible.

But regardless of what you think of the company, their bikes are probably the best designed things on the market. Aside from being the ones to pioneer in frame storage, lots of little details on specialized frames beat out most of the competition. Pivots, hardware, cable routing, etc. - all really well done. And they do all of that at very competitive prices.

(I say that as the owner of a transition and a norco)

Even setting aside my hatred for Specialized as a company, I'm gonna disagree. Specialized has used proprietary bullshit on their bikes for a long time. Custom shocks have got to be one of the worst ideas for a mountain bike.

That, and their bikes are covered in generic specialized branded parts, top to bottom.

If you're focusing solely on pivot longevity or serviceability, I have no idea.

[singlesline]

I have a soft spot for specialized because of the two I owned when I was a little kid...a hardrock and a rockhopper (to go with my dad's stumpjumper). Haven't actually owned one since other than the weirdo road bike I inherited in college (carbon tubes glued to aluminum lugs).

I know they are just a big corporate giant now, doing corporate giant things like suing people over names that use common words, but I still am more interested in their bikes than Trek.

Santa Cruz - massively overpriced IMO, though they do ride pretty well.
Yeti - I'm not a dentist, but would ride one.
Ibis - Similar to above, would ride one though.

The heavy post-covid discounting has been a game changer here.

I went from a diamondback and a costco bike to a yeti and an ibis!

[toast2266]

Even setting aside my hatred for Specialized as a company, I'm gonna disagree. Specialized has used proprietary bullshit on their bikes for a long time. Custom shocks have got to be one of the worst ideas for a mountain bike.

That, and their bikes are covered in generic specialized branded parts, top to bottom.

If you're focusing solely on pivot longevity or serviceability, I have no idea.

What modern era specialized uses proprietary parts? As best I can remember, the only proprietary thing on a specialized in the last decade was the brain shock in the epic (which, I agree, is dumb). And even that's gone now.

And pretty much every major bike brand covers the bike in house brand parts. Even mid sized companies like transition do that. In the case of specialized, some of their house brand parts are actually better than most of the other options on the market (see, for example, a bunch of the roval wheels).

[El Chupacabra]

I haven't paid any attention to modern Specialized. If they've stopped the stupid shocks, then good. IIRC it wasn't just the brain shocks - didn't they have custom mounts integrated into rear shocks?

Specialized and Trek are the worst offenders in house brand stuff all over the bike. Nobody comes close. Literally everything that can hold a sticker, outside of brake and drivetrain parts.

[One (+) Sentence]

Specialized and Trek are the worst offenders in house brand stuff all over the bike. Nobody comes close. Literally everything that can hold a sticker, outside of brake and drivetrain parts.

More in-house than Ai rear hub spacing and Lefty's?

[toast2266]

Specialized and Trek are the worst offenders in house brand stuff all over the bike. Nobody comes close. Literally everything that can hold a sticker, outside of brake and drivetrain parts.

I would take a lot of the bontrager and specialized branded parts over various other "name brand" offerings. There was a time, many years ago, when the house brand stuff was pretty much universally bad, but that's not the case at all these days. I know plenty of people with specialized parts hung on their non-specialized bike because the specialized parts are legitimately good. Ditto for a bunch of the bontrager stuff.

[El Chupacabra]

This is the rant thread - quit trying to de-rant my rant!

I don't know what an Ai rear hub is. Is it something Cannondale, to go with the lefty?

[skaredshtles]

None of this changes anything. Specialized can fuck right off. Fuck 'em.

[jackstraw]

None of this changes anything. Specialized can fuck right off. Fuck 'em.

Hahaha!

[XXX-er]

It sounded to me like spesh wants the independant dealers to build a shop, stock it full of spesh products and run it for them, so why would they do that ?

[One (+) Sentence]

It sounded to me like spesh wants the independant dealers to pay for a shop full of spesh products and run it for them, so why would they do that

Maybe because the alternative is Specialized opening their own store across the street?

[VTskibum]

This is the rant thread - quit trying to de-rant my rant!

I don't know what an Ai rear hub is. Is it something Cannondale, to go with the lefty?

AI hub was an old 142mm hub w offset dish. Is/was Cannondale both trying not to jump to new standard (boost 148), while simultaneously doing (sorta) proprietary Cannondale things.

Also continuing the rant thread: return to office (RTO) is definitely f'ing up my many year long lunch ride campaign! Now have to time my days not just around kids/wife schedule, but also picking which days are better for weather and work calendar. Too many damn variables and impacting my weekly riding! At least yesterday had a work call canceled enabling a quick exit out the door.


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[Roxtar]

Yeah, I can't agree with the whole Spesh-quality stuff.
The reason they created the weird shock thing was they couldn't get their Horst Link to pedal decently.
More recently, they jumped on the integrated headset. Unfortunately, their carbon layups couldn't handle them and a lot of frames came in with wallowed out headset pockets. I encountered several.
The best part...
Spec's response was (I kid you not) to recommend shops loading the headset pocket with grease before dropping the bearing in to mute the squeaking.

[XXX-er]

here in small town the larger LBS where the brands wana have their product was carrying 6 brands, so they didnt actualy drop Spesh they just didnt order any bikes, so spesh goes to the other very small independant where a fair amount of bikes did get sold but Spesh had no leverage in making it into a spesh store , when that store went under that was the end of them around here

[sfotex]

I don't know what an Ai rear hub is. Is it something Cannondale, to go with the lefty?

I ranted about this a few pages back.... What am I doing , ranting at the clouds if no one is paying attention?

[XXX-er]

Its not unusual for someone to ask the same question that was asked even 5 posts previous, I don't worry about it I just answer the question if i can