The Big S

http://reviews.mtbr.com/innovate-or-die-inside-specialized-world-hq

I've always felt that The big S was the most innovative company and this article seems to show why. Pretty impressive!! I don't own one but maybe in the future.

 

It’s odd how we always root for the underdog and bash the successful. Specialized has developed huge leaps and bounds of technology for the cycling world. In effort to protect everything they do they patent it and then protect at all cost. I suppose I would do the same thing.
Hats off to the Big S for constantly developing great products!

 

They make good products......just not a fan of how they treat everyone else.

 

Nope...

 

Hmm...they have certainly been near the front of the pack on some things, relative to the other megabrands. But I don’t think they’ve been proactive so much as rapidly responsive, with respect to geometry, wheel size, etc. The one thing their suspension patent did was to send the rest of the industry off to find better ways. Their proprietary parts are uniformly substandard for their intended price range.

And they aren’t good neighbors.

Edit: I went back and actually read the article...meh...they excel in what’s called “industrial design.” They are exactly analogous to General Motors in 1959: look! Bigger tailfins! How innovative! Nobody has bigger tailfins than us!

If you are hyping up your ability to prototype chain guides in-house, you don’t have much to hype imo.

 

Hmm.. they must have some great e-bike legal trails around this shop, cuz they been pushing them for awhile now.

 

From the article:

(It was truly eye opening to walk the halls and see a 3D printing lab, a CT scanning lab, a massive CNC mill, and a complete composites facility where an entire frame can be laid up and ready to ride.

Having the Innovation Lab in the same building as the design and testing team is essential. The composites team can pass the laid up frame to the testing team for both lab and trail testing, collect data and feedback, and pass it right back to the composites team for further stiffness and compliance tweaking.)

I think they will do alot more than just chain guides. I wonder if the other major companies have this much invested in R+D?

 

Keep in mind that as a company they will step on anybody else's throat to get ahead. They sued a tiny coffee shop in Canada over the name Cafe Roubaix as if anybody would confuse Specialized's road bike with a coffee shop. Idiots!!

Secondly, Specialized is so popular because in many small towns and far reaches of the country, they are the only game in town. They force the bike shop that wants to sell their bikes to carry Specialized shoes, helmets, gloves, socks and everything else with a big S on it rather the items are big sellers or not. If the shop wants to sell other brands, Specialized tells the shop what percentage of floor space their bikes must get. We're completely spoiled in SoCal with all the choices we have. Many parts of the country don't have those options.

 

I think we are spoiled. I have 5 bike shops within just a few miles of me.
The Path, Bike Co, Rock and Road, Performance, and I think the other is 2 wheels one planet.
Probably missing some too....

 

Pontification warning...

All of Specialized's R and D is simply aimed at finding the next dollar. That's OK I guess. They are in business to sell stuff, so creating markets then filling the market with products is what they do. Then they fiercely protect their products with heavy-handed leverage over their retailers and lawsuits for everybody who uses one of the words on their products. They would sue the local Butcher if they could.

Compare to Yeti who puts most of its scarce dollars into developing grass-roots racers as a way of doing product R and D. When a company is motivated to design the best products that they themselves want to use, and they are designing products for their family of racers it just seems far more genuine than simply trying to find the next gimmick to make a buck. The result has been not only some of the best racers ever known, but establishment of geometry and design that allows that excellence. I suppose my investment dollar would earn more money with Specialized stock than Yeti stock, so there's that. The big Red S reminds me of a major pharmaceutical company. They aren't trying to cure disease, they are trying to sell drugs.

Yes, Specialized makes some great bikes. The formula is pretty easy right now. Just about anyone can make great bikes. Not seeing their bikes very often on the podium in EWS or DH though. Spoiler Alert: today's podium: YT, Santa Cruz, Intense, Norco, DeVinci.

 

Theres a little truth to this, but it’s stretched too far. A “complete composites lab” is a freezer, a table, some scissors, a big roll of what looks like plastic wrap, and an oven. I’m sure Spesh has a CNC cutting table too, but really, that’s it. Now it’s true that most US based companies won’t even have that, but that doesn’t bug me because most of the industry’s manufacturing know how resides in Taiwan anyway. So if you care about having R&D near the shop floor, buy Giant.

 

Speci is built on stealing the designs of others, and mass-producing them for cheaper. That's not evil or unethical, just their business model.

I'm probably going to get hit with a libel suit now...

 

I love what Intense did last year on the World Cup DH. They have a tall, talented rider in Jack Moir. Jeff Steber fabricated a few "frankenbike" 29er DH prototypes in the Temecula shop that Jack repeatedly rode to podium finishes. As in - Jeff welded them together himself, and Jack rode them to top 5 finishes - ahead of virtually all of the Specialized bikes. Oh and Dean Lucas was also doing well on the freshly-welded contraptions.



This year, they went to press and have their carbon version in production. And on the podium. Again.
(3rd place today under Dean Lucas, and 6th under Jack Moir).
There's your R and D folks.

 

Don't hate me 'cuz I'm beautiful....

 

We are beautiful! 4 of um in my garage.

 

And 2 in our garage. Both with skinny tires.

 

I have a Carve QR frame in storage that needs to find a home.

And, I am wearing a Spesh hat that this very moment and both of my mtn bikes are wearing Shesh tires.

 

They’re a big company, they do things in a big company way. I’ve got a 2009 roubaix that’s served me just fine, and I still keep my 2006 stumpy built up, mostly because all it’s parts are obsolete. The plan is to retire to a mountain cabin in 15 years, and that bike should serve well as a townie.

The bikes are fine, mostly. Again, their proprietary stuff is poor but it helps them hit price points.

I don’t want to pile on them for being popular. Let’s face it, they aren’t nearly as overexposed in OC these days as Santa Cruz. Geez people, there are other brands...it’s not like the Santiago Oaks ranger is checking for SC head badges on the trail.

 

[/QUOTE]Let’s face it, they aren’t nearly as overexposed in OC these days as Santa Cruz. Geez people, there are other brands...it’s not like the Santiago Oaks ranger is checking for SC head badges on the trail.[/QUOTE]


So true

 

Specialized is pretty much the Apple of the bike world...it has its fanatics who will never see anything wrong with them. It also has its detractors who figure they won't buy proprietary stuff that isn't any better, but just more expensive.

 

I'm guessing Giant is Microsoft.....

Who's android/google?

Linux?

 

Just curious what huge leaps and bounds we can attribute to Specialized since about 1988. In-frame storage compartments?

 

Huffy rules all!

Now back to:

 

I was just trying to be nice.

 

At the risk of being a fanboi... Prob not huge enough ...

155mm rear travel 29er with steep STA since 2013, 160/165mm since 2015.

 

I just got six new Specialized devotees to join the cult today. They drank that koolaid and gave me money.
Get any new haters?

 

I gave them props for this:
http://www.imtbtrails.com/forum/threads/best-bike-in-the-universe.4941/

All in on the Enduro 29er. However, this particular steed did not prove to be the dominant world beater on the EWS circuit that I (hyperbolically) claimed it could be. Still, quite a monster truck.

 

Hater here...

YT Capra 29er with 170mm rear travel for almost half the price, ok not half but not much more than half

 

Time to ask for a raise...

 

Actually, I'm thinking that they do. It's one way to explain why there are so many SCs in da OC.