Something else to sell to the willing…..

they are still specialized tho

status-new bighit is still 26″ so 29ers just for canal towpaths then

i used to have a dcd back in the day!

CaptainFlashheart i remember seeing that pace at a bike expo in earls court back in 1992 😀

DCD by rOcKeTdOgUk, on Flickr

29er is just another bike, its not something magical. Just a bike with 2 inch bigger wheels. Makes a small difference. Nothing to wet your pants over though. (yes I have both)Good way to sell more kit to the needy.

28er oh no! A new niche standard!

If 29ers do become the norm, will all of the nichewhores go back to 26ers, or find a new way to try and prove how different and superior they think they are?

The way forward = the next marketing opportunity.

Now that specialized are fully committed can we expect to see mbr extolling the virtues of 29ers uber alles?

29er aren’t for everyone, but don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, tried it properly mind, not just a few minutes around the block

All those with closed minds have tried it haven’t you?

Fair point, although I knew it. I was just trying to be witty. Foiled again.

And use an algorithm to calculate who had the most fun 😉

Specialized etc are reacting to market demand, not necessarily what’s ‘better’. ‘Popular’ would be the right term.

If we all asked for 24×1.5″ next year cos it accelerated fastest and 4X was the new big influence, they’d follow that too if the trend stuck around for a couple of years. When demand hits a certain level (largely trend-based rather than based on ‘better’, look at historic demand for e-stays, 6″ travel XC bikes, levels of fixie use etc) it means big companies have to react to maintain market share and small companies who weren’t doing it at the start find sufficient demand to make it viable. Some read that as ‘it must be better then’ .. not really. Maybe for some riders though, I appreciate them for some of my riding.

.. you’ll find there is no definate answer and the wider the test sample the wider the result range.

Mountain biking is far too variable to be able to say that a bigger wheel = faster. In some cases yes, but not all. I’ve not seen a convincing study done yet, they all have too many ‘constants’ attempting to be good test method that in fact constantly skew the results.

The one thing I have read into the tests is that 29ers can have less variance in speed, ie a more constant rolling / average speed. That can ‘feel’ faster to some. But, that average speed is only higher than a 26″ on certain courses. We ride for fun though mainly, so whatever you like the feel of, ride it.

Anyway, back to big companies 29/26 product mix, not what’s ‘better’ –

Thats it!You’ve gone done it now ,I told you not to…..but you would’nt listen 😈

they’re just hybrids

that’s a bit silly too cfh.

Typical stw argument… your missing the obvious & that is 29ers are ugly & look silly.

Are they actually going to bring them over here? not just one or two models like in the past,
the carbon camber 29r looks nice, if you like that sort of thing….