If you're trying to grow a brand quickly and break out, this is honestly far too generic. If it were still the early 2020s, it might work, but now I predict these are gonna be written off as just another of dozens of chinese frames. I don't really like the new Incolor SSR, but it's going to do wonders for getting the brand name out into the world. Relying on influencers to praise your manufacturing quality isn't gonna do the trick these days. You need something that makes you stand out at a glance.
If you want to grow and slowly establish yourself as a pillar of the industry like Giant did, it might work, but you'd need a whole lot of patience and resources, which I'm not ssure XMCS have the luxury of.
Your point about differentiation is a good one, and I did post a whole geometry for where I see the fits headed in a few years, with more stack differentiation than you see today with longer fits. Most people react as I saw here, with skepticism and the assumption that it could never work for them. A lot of people who ride my bike are surprised to find how well it does work, as it's closer to an endurance-focused tri bike fit than to a proper UCI TT fit.
I started my learning journey on this type of tri-bike fit geometry in 2022 with both a custom bar and laying out the case to make track-style bars for the road in the HB24. Neither were original ideas, but even after three years have elapsed, I have yet to try to raise the funds to have a frame made for a couple of reasons.
First, because there is still a lot of learning about this concept left to do, and a lot of potential UCI regulations that could reduce your investment to rubble overnight. I look at VB, and I do not see that kind of bike unless you are looking at the larger two sizes. If anything, it's more of a toe dipped into the water to create some differentiation. I DO see it with Ridley, and there is a lot to learn by looking at how people are actually riding the Noah Fast 3.0 in real life, but those bikes are pretty rare outside of situations where you see riders sponsored by Ridley.
But the bigger issue is that even with the Ridley existing, it's still mostly a novel and niche concept. On the average 30-person group ride, 0-1 persons are thinking about this. In my experience, that one person is either a serious crit racer or a high-level triathlete.
XMCS could have been part of creating that conversation, but it would also have been a lot of work and required a significant marketing budget. Probably not the best place to start for a small brand looking to build its rep, but would have been
BOLD AF. Unfortunately, bold doesn't = $$$.
