> And they have disc brakes, which was the whole reason the department chose a local company – back in 2005, when they were shopping for the bikes, the big companies such as Kona couldn’t provide them.

I seriously doubt "the whole reason" they went local was because they couldn't find disc brakes in 2005. This is trivial to fact check, just look at Kona's catalog from 2004: http://www.konabikeworld.com/tech/catalog/catalog_2k4.htm Every mountain bike that's not a BMX or DJ has disk brakes.