skierman"Yeah bro, I just like made a .5 degree change to the head angle and like uh it made me rip shit so much harder bro"
"Oh that's cool because people have been ripping this trail harder on bikes designed 15 years ago"
With the recent insane advancements in everything MTB-related, if you feel changing a slight degree in the geometry of the bike will make such a noticeable difference that's its worth the time, that's some princess feeling the pea through 50 mattresses bullshit. Its no different than the assholes who purchase the Schizo binding because they feel a 2mm difference in mount completely changes the feel of the skis, or some dickhead gaper that needs to know the weight of the Rossi Pure Pro heated boots because they're concerned about weight compared to their rental boots. Let me know what's more pretentious than that.
I feel the same way about suspension flipchips that only change change things by less than 5mm or single degrees, and then the the marketing copy touts it as the ability to change your bike from an agile xc bike to a downhill brawler or some shit.
Remember when 11 speed cassettes with a 42t big ring were the great new thing and made climbing so much easier? And now SRAM acts like adding 2 extra teeth to the big ring on the updated Eagle is some fucking big deal and everyone should upgrade immediately.
I bought into the same shit when RockShox came out with the new debonair spring that was supposed to be such a huge improvement over the current design, and would let you use so much more of your travel! I got it, installed it, even did a back to back comparison ride on ta familiar trail two days in a row with the old one the first day and the new one the next day. And ya know what? The difference was barely even noticeable, and I even went from a 140mm to 150mm air spring, and fuck anything about sitting higher in the travel or using more effective travel. Maybe if I was a super intense rider or cared about how fast I was going, but it really did nothing to improve my experience I was still having just as much fun on my bike just playin in the dirt and cruisin through the mountains.
The thing I hate hearing the most on the trail is "Oh, I totally would have rode that better if by bike was newer" or "I don't think I have enough travel for that trail". Not gonna lie, I've gotten pretty soft and I love my fancy new trail bike with its new drivetrain, powerful brakes, forgiving suspension, and massive dropper seatpost but I was having just as much fun on the same trails when I was on a 100mm entry level hardtail trying to keep up with my friends on their much nicer bikes.
Reading this over I realize that I sound pretentiously anti-pretentious.
