As much as I love GT (my first BMX some 20 yrs ago) and the Athertons, that travesty of a seat tube still makes me cringe.

Between this AND UCI dropping freecaster for webcasts I strongly suggest that it is time for MTB to abandon the UCI altogether and form a new league.... FMB+4X+DH, perhaps? Worked for the snowboarders to a cpl of years back, why wouldn't it for MTB? Time to fire these UCI douchebags.

a final thought on the subject: maybe it has to do with moisture? as we all know, sweat has moisture and salt, so it should conduct. maybe if the glove material soaks up a little bit of it, it enhances the response with the gloves.... any shredding Physics major out there who could enlighten us?

@marshall1234: nope Sir. It's an iPhone alright. I actually noticed a while back that the 3rd and 4th gen iPods respond through gloves as well. This is why I'm at a loss with this "conductive" glove thingy....

Dunno what the fuzz is with these gloves... I can use my touchscreen just fine even with protective cover while wearing gloves both by Royal and Fox.... somebody in Specialized's R&D division is bored, it seems....

I really loved that he was fiddling with his broken iPod before every run, dialing the right song, then dialing it! Somebody please give this guy a sponsor deal! Can't wait for next year!

Um well.... Just take a look at how many people said that punk is dead... through the decades, mind you. Now that it is in its n-th rebirth, it might not all be the Sex Pistols anymore, but on the upside there are legions of young people enjoying that sound, possibly more than ever before. Commercial or not, Sell-out or not, that particular style of popular music seems bent on sticking around, whereas the style-specific transformations go back and forth throughout its own history, sometimes more polished, sometimes more lo-fi. Now, if you transfer what I said about punk towards freeride, there are plenty of parallels. Artists (riders) get signed or dropped, are one-hit-wonders or benchmark references, or even both at different times. Sure, there are financial concerns, but the sheer fact that there IS an economic aspect to it speaks for its resilience, imho. Bikes got more specific to their task over the years (slopestyle, AM, DH, FR, whatever), now the manufacturers are back to the "one-for-all" concept, slamming 180-200mm travel on something that would've been called "enduro" just 2-3 years back. As in popular music, the trends repeat themselves, get discarded and reborn to keep the show running, but at the end of the day, it's about the essence that is particular to that kind of music/sport. I wouldn't worry at all about about freeride dying. Next time you see an old dude with a Misfits T-Shirt, think about why he's stubbornly wearing this rag for 20+ years. He's hooked, and so are many of us and they're here to stay.