I’ve put ~200 miles on the new firmware so far. Our terrain is extremely undulating so while I never minded the slower shifts, people have always complained about it in this area.
It is noticeably faster when you click multiple times. Holding down the shifter for multi-shift is maybeeee slightly quicker. You definitely get a decent clunk when you quick shift in a bad situation like a normal derailleur. Didn’t miss a beat, just let you know that was a bit much.
I guess I would just say you need to measure power and time to know what is faster because the sensations can make you really, really believe something that isn’t true. And I’m not discounting the emotional feel of a bike either…..late in a hard ride if you feel the bike is working with you then it really helps, even if the stopwatch says no difference. The classic example is the 19mm time trial tires of the 90’s inflated to 130psi but there are lots of examples. Everybody knew they were faster, if you had shown up with a 28mm tire inflated to 60psi you would have looked like a really weird dude. 4” of travel used to be downhill bike territory but now 5” is almost the standard in XC racing, can’t help but imagine that at some point we’ll have 6” XC bikes. We’re only 30mm away.
Joe
Except in this case, bikes and bike setup are routinely tested to see what’s faster for a given terrain. By pros and amateurs alike even if you don’t have a whitepaper that meets your standards. You’re just choosing to not believe it and you’re basically throwing shade without providing any data whatsoever that would remotely support your point.
You’re not comparing 90’s bikes to current tech, you’re comparing 2025 XC Race Bikes to 2025 Long Travel Trail / Enduro on XC Terrain here.
Here lies the problem for us mortals: very few here, if any, have a SC Blur and Highball (for example) set up exactly the same for comparison on a lap. Yes, the pro’s sometimes do and is why the world best cyclist won Olympic Gold on a hardtail bc they could choose what they wanted.
My experience indicates that sponsors drive much of the equipment choices for many athletes, so being able to select what they want is even limited.
I am jumping in without having read all of the discussion, but will present the following bikes and info for my baseline.
Current FS - 2025 Scalpel 1
Last FS - 2019 Orbea OIZ M Team
Current Hardtail - BMC TwoStroke (currently Single Speed)
Ride and race in Minnesota in the MN MTB Series.
The courses where a hardtail would be faster for me, fast hardpack with limited bumpy pedally sections, do not have enough climbing where the weight savings of the hardtail come into play
The courses with a lot of climbing, tend to have a lot of rough pedaling sections (cuyuna/red head, MT Kato). I am faster over the course of the race (not one lap) on the new full sus, I can hammer through rougher more direct lines than I could on my hardtail.
For the average rider 150 to 180 pounds the system weight savings of 4 pounds (being generous) between the hardtail and full sus just isn’t enough. In the world cup side, it is mostly the women that break out the hard tail, because that system weight is a lot less so 4 pounds is a much bigger % of system weight. And it still isn’t much 3% system savings for a 100 pound rider vs 2% for a 150 pound rider.
The average amateur race will be faster on an FS and they are a fork ton more fun to train on than a hardtail. I only get the SS hardtail out when I want to just hammer flat fast single track.
The obvious solution is to have both an XC race FS and HT (at a minimum, not including all the other needed bikes 
).
I’ll add to the discussion, although I lack the data-based research that @Greenswim asked for. I was a bike mechanic for 26 years, and competed in several 100 mile and 24 hour solo races up until 205, on rigid and hardtail singlespeeds and fixed MTBs.
For me, the benefit of full suspension is grip and control. Grip climbing tech features, grip (and available speed) in corners, and braking grip and control on descents. The energy savings from bump absorption is, for me, far less of a benefit.
I take some issue with the idea that the difference from the manufacturer margins: “So $3000 extra for FS vs HT how much would Specialized pay for SID Lux Ultimate and bearings” is a silly oversimplification. R & D is part of the cost, but it’s also far more costly to manufacture a far more complex structure, including things like linkages, flex stays, etc., and testing the designs for function and durability.
Are manufacturers making greater profits from selling fs over hardtails? Almost assuredly. But this idea that there’s some sort of conspiracy to ram suspension down our throats with little to no benefit seems ridiculous.
If you are enjoying riding/racing a hardtail, you most certainly should continue- you can definitely save some money and weight by doing so.
+1. I now need to go buy a hardtail so I can directly compare the two. 
Highly recommend the BMC TwoStroke.
Finally found a decent solution to the bottle positioning on the Yeti ASR. The seatube mount bottle has limited clearance to the shock and somewhat hard to reach.
The Epic 8 and the Scalpel have a kink the down tube to roll the seatube mount forward to create more room and an easier to grab bottle.
The wedges are from the Triathlon / Ironman / TT world for aero bar bottles. Each wedge is only 13g so minimal weight cost.
I did have to modify the bottle cage by extending the mounting slots so it could sit lower.
I played with it a bit and I guess it’s marginally better, but I still don’t understand why it works the way it works. The weird part is that if you try to go from the big end of the cassette to the little end, it goes much slower if you press the button really fast to queue up all the shifts. With all the shifts in the queue, the RD has a noticeable pause for each shift. If you want to shift much faster, you have to hit the shift button slower (and the RD will shift once ever time you hit the button). So, to dump the cassette the fastest way possible, you want to hit the downshift button fairly fast, but not too fast. If you hit it too fast, it goes into the pause mode and it takes over 2x the time to dump the cassette.
Had my first ever software weirdness with a SRAM AXS product. Updated the firmware on a bunch of stuff yesterday. Fork, shock, derailleur, controller. App said everything was up to date.
Went out for a ride today and everything was working fine until 10 minutes into the ride the derailleur stopped shifting. Thought the battery in the controller died, since I had just charged all the batteries before the firmware update yesterday.
When I had a chance to pull over, pressing the AXS button on the derailleur flashed yellow and didn’t move the cage. Pulled out the AXS app and connected it, it said the firmware on the derailleur needed to be recovered. Let the app do that, and everything started working fine.
Weird failure mode where the firmware update can somehow fail 24 hours later, AFTER using it for 10 minutes.
Anyone got the new Norco Revolver yet??
Seems a GREAT deal. Live to hear what people are thinking.
Yes - and I LOVE it. But I might not be the best person to ask as it’s my first XC-ish bike in decades, so I have no frame of reference to other XC bikes out there. Have been on trail or enduro bikes for a long time, so this feels like a rocket to me.
It’s taken me a few weeks to get used to the lower travel (I got the 130/120 version) and the faster tires (forecaster/recons) but I’m now feeling confident on spicy and fast DH sections of trail again. Sooooo fun.
My self justification to buy it was BC Bike race next year. I think it will be perfect for that race.
The 130/120 would be the one I’d go with i believe
That never happens with my XT mechanical 
I hope you get things sorted out! 
It is on my shortlist. Unfortunately in the UK we only have one model at the moment - XT. I want SRAM.
Take it for what it’s worth. This weekend I had a race at a course I also raced at last year. Last year I had a EE7 with no lockouts and 2.4 Rick XC tires. This year I had a E8 with flight attendant and 2.4 dubs. Course conditions and weather seemed to be very similar and my fitness is about the same. Only difference is I’m racing cat 1 this year which is 4 laps opposed to 3 laps as a cat 2. Also, I got second yesterday and first last year.
Best time last year: 26:45
3 lap Avg time: 27.16
Best time this year: 27:14
4 lap Avg time: 27.65
