Re: Scott Endorphin mtb.
I lived in Southern California in the 1990s, working as a bikeshop mechanic, one shop was Competition Cycles in Van Nuys, San Fernando Valley, LA, a Scott dealer. Our boss got himself an Endorphin.
We were all quite good riders and used to the local terrain, a range of sandstone hills called the Santa Monica Mountains. We'd often ride up there after work. It is dry dusty near-desert terrain, chaparral covered hillsides, and steep single track trails with a lot of loose dust and gravel.
It was very hard to keep going in the steeper places, keeping the back wheel hooked up on the loose surface.
But our boss on the Endorphin could usually get a full 100 yards further uphill than the rest of us on assorted hardtails, due to the softtail effect of the Scott E-stay design, which gave it nearly a half inch of suspension flex,thus a tenacious grip on the loose ground.
I suspect the designers had this quality very much in mind in producing this bike.
That area has dry sunny weather for 11 months of the year, and so the wet-weather performance of ceramic rims mentioned would seldom be a problem.
It's interesting to consider how some significant mtb designs may have been quite specific to a particular locale, and its surface and typical weather conditions.
North Shore style bikes in Vancouver, BC, might be another example.
A comment on brake booster plates, which I always liked with cantilevers or V-brakes.. It's quite instructive to measure just how much the force reaction to brake pressure, pushes the brake bosses out sideways even on a sturdy looking metal hardtail frame. Easy to measure with the bike up on a workstand, clamping the brake lever hard.
Fitting a booster completely eliminates this flexing of the seatstays (or fork legs), giving a slightly lighter touch to the brake-lever action.
