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![Pinkbike Digest: Dropper Posts Are Out, Dropper Frames Are In, Plus Why Bernard Kerr's Prototype Frame Broke at Crankworx Rotorua - Velo](http://cdn.globalso.com/aluminiumbottlescans/IMG_3242.jpg)
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A catastrophic frame failure in the middle of a race run is a nightmare scenario for any professional athlete, and for the company that manufactured the frame. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened to Bernard Kerr and his prototype Pivot during the Crankworx Rotorua DH race this past weekend. Towards the bottom of his run he pulled up for a triple and came up short, with the front end of his bike separating on impact, as the above video demonstrates. Thankfully, Bernard wasn’t seriously injured, but it’s still the last thing anyone wants to see happen.
The Specialized Epic has a long history of being one of the fastest bikes out there, with a specific bent towards racing, long efforts, and efficient travel over terrain. Looking back at that history can be a good education in the progression of bike design as a whole, as things have changed quite a bit since the model was introduced back in 2002.
Atherton Bikes recently celebrated their fifth anniversary, a notable milestone given the tumultuous state of the mountain bike industry during that time period. Up until today, all of their bikes used carbon tubes bonded to titanium lugs created with additive manufacturing, a process that allowed them to create a vast array of size options even for riders that didn’t go the full-custom route.
It’s been nearly a decade since Yeti stepped away from the XC race world and shifted their focus to the trail / enduro side of things. Sure, they had the SB100, and then the SB115 in their lineup, but neither of those bike were purebred XC race bikes. The use of the Switch Infinity system added weight, and while those models were light, they weren’t that light.
Every once in a while a press release comes through that makes us take a double (or triple) take. That’s the case with this announcement from Black Math Bikes. The Polish company has apparently created a bike with a handlebar mounted remote that turns it from 140mm trail bike into a 170mm descending machine. There’s no traditional dropper post – instead, the top tube moves down to get out of the way for the descent.
The Sedona MTB Festival is back again for 2024, and luckily Mother Nature decided to play nice this time around. Instead of snow and unrideable trails, attendees are being treated to perfect dirt and sunny skies. It feels almost like a mini Sea Otter, with the added bonus of fun, technical riding in nearly every direction. Personally, I’d take pointy desert plants over poison oak any day.
After a long week we are wrapping up the final day of the Taipei Cycle Show. We’ve still got a bunch of stories to publish and a podcast to record before we get on the germ tube home, but in the meantime I’ve pulled together a final Randoms for your entertainment.
We review a lot of kit here at Pinkbike. In fact, sometimes it can feel like a constant merry-go-round of helmets, gloves, tires, or if we’re extra lucky the latest bikes. It often transpires that we spend little time on the things we actually like most and more time trying to understand why things don’t fit, work or feel as good as the manufacturer insists they should.
A red Zeb certainly draws the eye, but it turns out this one contains something we haven’t seen yet. We’ve spotted some red Rockhox Zebs on some World Cup winners’ bikes over the past year, and it looks like that elite paint job is coming down to the layman’s level. Along with the cherry looks, this Zeb was sporting a Charger 3.1 damper, indicating a next-generation damper in the RockShox nomenclature.
Electric bikes continue to evolve relentlessly, and distinct genres are emerging. At one extreme, bikes like the Scott Voltage offer modest assistance and range, but keep the weight and handling similar to conventional mountain bikes. On the other hand, some people just want as much power and range as possible and don’t give a hoot if the handling is different from an old-fashioned bike. Somewhere in between there are bikes like the Cannondale Moterra SL that try to offer the best of both worlds.
Someone on the Rocky Mountain marketing team used the term ‘quiver killer’ in the press release for the 2024 Instinct, a term that I’d thought was banned years ago, right around the time ‘climbs like a goat’ was put out to pasture (pun intended).
The third version of the Raaw Madonna builds on the rock solid foundation established by the previous iterations – the bike already had a well-deserved reputation for being a tough, reliable enduro bike, so there was no need for a complete overhaul. Instead, it was more about refining some of the aluminum frame’s features, as well as increasing the level of adjustability.
Taking the big step from a balance bike to a pedal bike can be a tough thing for young riders. Yes, they might have the balance figured out but pedaling is a whole new motion for them to learn. In this episode, Ben Cathro covers how to get the little ones off balance bikes and onto pedal bikes.
Tara Llanes has been wildly accomplished at the high levels of multiple sports – BMX, MTB, and wheelchair basketball, not to mention wheelchair tennis – and she also has a whole lot more life experience to share. In 2007, in what she thought was her second-to-last race before retiring from her career as a mountain biker, a devastating crash changed things for her.
It’s an Olympic year, which explains why the season is kicking off with a bumper crop of new XC bike releases. Cannondale is joining in with a new version of the venerable Scalpel, a bike that’s been in their lineup since 2002. This time around, all of the models have 120mm of travel, as opposed to the previous iteration, which was split into a 100mm racing-focused version, and an SE model that had 120mm of travel, and slightly more trail-oriented intentions.
![Pinkbike Digest: Dropper Posts Are Out, Dropper Frames Are In, Plus Why Bernard Kerr's Prototype Frame Broke at Crankworx Rotorua - Velo](http://cdn.globalso.com/aluminiumbottlescans/IMG_8732.jpg)
Alu Lotion Pump Bottle What’s it like to be an American cyclist living in France? Watch to get professional road cyclist Joe Dombrowski’s view.