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| A Patenet Application Image seen on Pink Bike |
As seen in this article from "Pink Bike", a new design has been submitted for patent by Yeti. The design, a rotary type, centers around the axle and frame attachment, which is very different than traditional through axle drop outs you may be familiar with.
Of course, as with any non-traditional idea, this may never see the light of day. So, any speculation further than the mere existence of the idea is quite possibly unnecessary.
But the article linked above did mention this was an idea which could be made to work for a gravel bike. This is my only reason for even bringing this up here today. See, a mountain bike company is proposing something to radically change what really is a type of road bike.
Now, mountain bikes have typically been the realm of the weird, wonderfully over-engineered, and sometimes game-changing ideas which have left this category of bicycle with no archetype. At least not from a mass-produced, large scale mountain biking company. The original "all-terrain bike" is somewhat preserved in some company's bike packing bikes, but even then, the MTB hardtail is so far removed from the roots of mountain biking it is not comparable.
Radical suspension designs for front and rear sent our minds on a wild fantasy ride back in the early 1990's (See this example ) Meanwhile, road bikes kept to a fairly distilled design language which had been proven over decades and was simple, elegant, and lightweight. There was not much to improve on the road biking side.
See, the thing is, this entire "gravel bike" thing is being co-opted by mountain bikers because the bikes are fast, light, and pseudo-capable MTB/single track machines which brings the lightweight, simple design language back to off-road which has been missing. Now these off-roaders are applying their creativity to make something more MTB-like, and retain the things road bikes have, if this idea is truly going to end up on a gravel bike. Maybe it will, but probably? It won't and all this is but hot air.
But I'll sum up by saying this idea is stupid because it makes a frame propriety and useless if the suspension fails. Keep gravel bike simple. They are, after all, really road bikes anyway.
Riki Don't Lose That (LT Pro) Number:
Life Time Events has mandated a new qualifying system to enter in any Life Time Pro event for the off-road and gravel events it holds. The move should distill the field down to the most elite level athletes in the gravel and MTB disciplines.
Life Time reviews applicants and/or considers top results in their events or outside events as factors which will allow an athlete to obtain a "LT Pro Number", as Life Time is calling it. These LT Pro Numbers expire at the end of the 2027 calendar year and then the application process opens up again for the following year.
Past champions and series winners are automatically entered in the LT Pro Number ranks. There are more details to this idea, but this is the gist of the thing.
Hmm.... Let's make gravel more exclusive! That's the idea, guys! Nicely done. They say they are making things "more professional", and I say, "Well, it's BS like this which provoked us to create our gravel events in the first place." So, perhaps this will eventually be the spur to the loins to get some more grassroots action happening. Who knows?
Next thing I think of is how this language Life Time is using avoids the term "License" and at the same time the idea will kind of force top athletes to commit to Life Time or forsake Life Time and head on over to the UCI. In my mind, this is really what is going on here. Life Time wants to grab the top athlete pool for themselves and push the UCI out of North American gravel.
I could be wrong, but this is how I see it now.
