Originally Posted by
L8APEXN
It's not about how I feel. It's about fact.
The fact is that if you've ridden for a while you understand that the innovation ("a new method, idea, product, etc.") happened many years ago.
I was kind of late to the dropper party (notwithstanding my Hite Rite way back when) but still started riding with one in 2005.
That's why your "the best innovation in recent years for mountain biking" bit made me chuckle.
If you started riding a GD in 2005 you were most definitely NOT “late to the dropper party”. You were on the bleeding leading edge.
GD had been in business for maybe 2 years (tops) but had sold very few. The Maverick Speedball came out in 2004 but was not a remote operated dropper (and also sold very few) The GD was the only remote operated dropper even available until 2007 when CB released the Joplin.
I remember this well this because I bought a GD in 2005, and despite riding and living in CA where everyone is buying the newest everything, I had seen exactly ONE out in the wild before that. In fact, other than mine, I saw only that one other from 2004-2006. When I moved back east in 2006 to a town with a fairly thriving mtb scene, it would be another year before I saw another dropper (2007). And another year or before I saw a handful.
Droppers did not start to catch on much until the late 2000s. Up until then, the pervasive view was that they were ridiculous gimmicks. It was well after 2010 that the majority of people were using them.
So perhaps “recent innovation” was the wrong phrase, but “recent adoption” would be fairly spot on. They were not widely adopted until well into the 2010s, and it has only been in the last 4 years that droppers became so ubiquitous that mtb geo has begun to take droppers into account.
BTW, the GD I bought in 2005 has been in constant use ever since on my main ride.
EDIT: Shoot, just realized this all has zero to do with the OP’s question. Sorry.