In my thought, freeride means free ride; if you're not competing, if you're chillin, if you're riding a MTB, if you get these these things at the same time, you're freeriding, no matter where and how you ride, i think that's the main point of the sport, it's all about being free and having fun. If someone really found a way to definite what freeride really was and how freeriders should rode their bike, then freeride is dying, cuz it's not free anymore; so it's too hard to say it's growing up or dying, as long as there're someone want to be free and MTBs are still out there, then freeride never dies.

no i don't have a new Dorado, but my buddy works with Hayes group has on on his M6, since he works hard and have no time to ride so i borrow his bike for riding sometimes; yes the new Dorado feels good but not great, it's light and smooth but still flex like old Shivers, do feel comfortable but slows me down on sharp corners and doing tricks like 3s or whips, not to mention flexing will do serious damage to dampers and bushings inside the fork. We're riding mtbs not motocross, the reason why motocrosses using inverted are because they have no bridges, no matter they're right side up or inverted, so making forks inverted can have more overlap between inner and outter leg to make them stronger, also get more travel without showing a dick below axle; but on mtbs the travel is not that long so right side ups are quite enough for overlap, and using right side up can simply keep the bridge and super light mag outters to make forks light and strong WITHOUT flex, since there's no flex and bushings could live way much longer oh and did i mentioned inverted forks have big a*s upper tubes so it's a pain to fit flat bars and low profile stems on them?

not a fan of inverted fork, in fact, it's more like pushing the industry backward, a normal right side up fork will need to cast a magnesium outter leg now days, it's one of the most complex part of a fork, alot of technologies and cauculations are needed to do the magic, but how about inverted fork? nothing!! it's just like a bunch of machined aluminum tubes and put them together, you got light but flexy ones with thinner tubes and strong but heavy ones with thicker tubes, unless fox could make something like carbon inner tubes or plastic outters or some alien technologies stolen from area 51, or there will be no change at all.

sweet