In the short term it'll be carbon...everyone sees to be using it at the mo. Even Shimano are putting carbon blades on next years XTR discs. Looking through pics of stuff from Eurobike everything is carbon so I guess that'll start to filter down to lower price points soon.
The wider rims thing is good if you run larger tyres.
Aluminium frames are going nowhere in the short term because they're cheap and easy to mass produce and hydro forming has allowed the designers to get more creative with frame shapes.
Geometry has come on leas and bounds. My Rune is long, low and slack but has a steeper seat angle to aid climbing. It also has a long top tube to be run with a short stem (Mr Fisher really was ahead if the game with his Genesis geometry). The wheelbase and head angle on the Rune wouldn't have looked out of place on a DH bike from a few years ago.
The wheel size thing infuriates me so I'm just ignoring it at the mo. Even Steve Jones is banging on about it relentlessly in Dirt although after going on about how behind the big DH teams are for not using 650b it was interesting to see that the top three at the World Champs were on 26inch bikes despite it being a course where the big wheels should have dominated.
The wider rims thing is good if you run larger tyres.
Aluminium frames are going nowhere in the short term because they're cheap and easy to mass produce and hydro forming has allowed the designers to get more creative with frame shapes.
Geometry has come on leas and bounds. My Rune is long, low and slack but has a steeper seat angle to aid climbing. It also has a long top tube to be run with a short stem (Mr Fisher really was ahead if the game with his Genesis geometry). The wheelbase and head angle on the Rune wouldn't have looked out of place on a DH bike from a few years ago.
The wheel size thing infuriates me so I'm just ignoring it at the mo. Even Steve Jones is banging on about it relentlessly in Dirt although after going on about how behind the big DH teams are for not using 650b it was interesting to see that the top three at the World Champs were on 26inch bikes despite it being a course where the big wheels should have dominated.