Welcome to Henry’s Waffle House. Here, we serve only absolute waffle, each and every one doused in a hubristic sauce and washed down by an accompanying pint of inane babble. Bon appetite.

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I am cursed by an affliction. It might sound like an over-exaggeration, but I’m being very serious. Much like Midas’ touch or a money-printing machine in the Weimar Republic, things aren’t always as good as they first appear. For I am cursed with the affliction of always being right. The catch is that when you see the world with such clean-cut clarity, you also see all the unjust and illogical wrongs in the world.

Let’s take this opportunity to clear things up – the Harry Potter books are derivative waffle, but that’s okay; they’re meant for children, only the myopic or insecure would be dull enough to take them seriously; small dogs aren’t always yappy, but yappy dogs are always small, humanity’s relationship with handheld technology peaked with the Blackberry, and every improvement since has been to the enrichment of Silicon Valley, but the detriment of mankind, mayonnaise is a pasta sauce, the Hobbit film franchise is the greatest damage to literary legacy since the burning of the library of Alexandria, anyone that prefaces or curtails a complaint with the phrase “these days” is an idiot. You could have been conscripted to war to fight for a feudal king you’ve never even heard of, caught in a cholera pandemic or died in childbirth. These days really aren’t that bad. Quit your moaning.

Now that we’ve got through that ugly business let’s get to bikes. There is a conspiracy afoot and hypocrisy that extends right through the industry. It’s not too salacious, and that preamble is probably nauseating enough to turn you off your quite delicious mayonnaise-y pasta.

Product managers in every field usually ride what they sell. They believe in it, they love it, and they’re usually very happy to be very even-handed when it comes to discussing the benefits and drawbacks of their products. There are some that are blind to criticism, of course, or the inherent compromise of any piece, but more often than not, the bike industry is full of passionate people who genuinely want to improve their offerings over time and also make them as good as they possibly can be.

Some brands are very happy for you not to like their product, which is always refreshing. The “We make cheese sandwiches, if you don’t like cheese sandwiches then you probably won’t like our cheese sandwich-centric approach, but, to be honest, we are particularly fond of cheese sandwiches ourselves,” philosophy is my personal favourite. They make what they want to ride, and they believe that there are enough people who ride bikes in the way that they do to make a venture profitable or at least self-sustaining.

Bikes like the Trance are the perfect home for the 900-1000g EXO casing, but even then, you can make them scream.

When you get bigger brands or people within companies that have to wear more than one hat, sometimes this irreverence can be watered down slightly. However, much like at Pinkbike, most of the time, contradictions and preferences aren’t seen as a weakness but rather an opportunity to understand their products better, as well as inform the next. The key is, I suppose, to acknowledge the subjective nature of experience. I believe this is called a “growth mindset,” which was largely considered a good thing until it was co-opted by alpha males that have the critical capacity of Bart Simpson featuring on big-budget podcasts.
The one area where there is a massive discrepancy is the way we spec bikes. The only time I ever really level the accusation of disingenuity at brands is in this instance. Nearly every enduro bike I review has gushing, flowing written copy about how this is the most capable bike they’ve ever made, better than the old one, offering a different flavour of ‘wow’ than anything you’ve ever ridden. Here lies the problem. What did we know the last generation of supposedly less capable bikes needed? That’s it, grippy tires, longer droppers and powerful brakes. So why on earth do we end up with bikes specced so very badly?
Dear Product Managers.

When you spec a bike for $8,000 and put cheap, crap plastic tires on, you are, if you can excuse my English, taking the absolute bloody piss. You may well be congratulating yourself for scoring a bargain order on too-short outdated droppers, but all you’re really doing is passing the expense onto the customer. When they get their new bike, they’re going to feasibly have to spend several hundred dollars more to make the bike truly be able to do what you sold it to do. It’s absolute nonsense.

And the kicker? No product manager rides their size large enduro bike with a 180mm rotor, 170mm dropper or tires with a compound harder, shinier and altogether more plasticy than Simon Cowell’s new face. However, you’re very happy to sell it to the customer that way. It’s not right. Let the enduro bikes be great at what you made them to do – descending.

If you’re going to make the superest-duperest shred-tastic buzzword-shitstorm of a bike you’ve ever invented, please get with the times and please don’t be willfully ignorant of how they’re actually ridden because you can save a few quid. I would rather you sell the bike with no tires and dropper post than something that is going to sit on the buy-sell for a pittance as somebody tries to recoup a slim slice of the massive costs associated with making the bike fit for the thing you told them it was for.