{Photos are from VitalMTB & by Rick Schubert unless noted.}

Radial Mounting, Optional

From Vital MTB to Pinkbike.com and beyond, every round of World Cup racing, and especially DH WC racing yields a nerdtastic collection of galleries documenting nifty custom mods, small-batch micro-second savers, and to-be-released future tech.

One of the ongoing themes of this year has been the ongoing evolution of Shimano’s first real Saint update since 2012. The Whistler DH World Cup was no exception, with the canisters’ worth of captures, Vital’s coverage for example, showing pieces looking to be near production.

And for me, potentially, the most interesting* gear shot since January 8th, 2025 did come out of Vital’s Whistler coverage. Not their coverage from the mountain mind you, but rather their Rick Schubert shot photo journal of Chromag’s prototype DH/FR rig. And then, not even the admittedly “drool level” steel & aluminum mountain bicycle itself, but the disc-side dropout.

Bear with me, if you will, I know the promise of SRAM’s UBM patent** is one of radial brake mounting that vastly improves setup tolerances by orienting the brake caliper to the rear hub assembly {the rotor} as opposed to the frame. Whereas, this Chromag clearly has brake adapter bolted to a dropout, bolted to the frame.

But, especially seeing how the upper attachment of Chromag’s braking mount is horizontal, it’s very easy to imagine a swap-out that integrates with a brake mount identical to SRAM’s patents. I don’t think it’s a crazy stretch, but you be the judge: I’ve included the pertinent picture evidence below along with links to sources for the photographs for more information.

Coming to next year’s bikes?

*{“Interesting” is not intended as a positive or negative judgement. I’d be quite happy if frames and forks used IS mounting with adapters to PM calipers for the rest of time. But this is interesting all the same.}
**{Universal Brake Mount/UBM coined by Jesse-May Morgan.}

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