Trek did a couple (including a Fuel) for a while. Very niche.

My friend absolutely loves his hummingbird

Experimenting with a Hummingbird fork on a 26″ Inbred at the moment. I’m assuming that the Inbred and Hummingbird frame geometry is reasonably close as both are happy with 120mm fork.

The std fork with 29er wheel was less harsh than with 26″ wheel, but it didn’t feel right. So far the 29er front definitely feels better with the Hummingbird fork than the Inbred std 440mm fork. How much is down to the offset differences (55mm vs 43mm) and how much is the HB fork being more compliant I’m not sure. The HB fork weighs 150g less than the IB fork.

Next stage is to try it in the twisty woodsy tracks.

I really like it. Had a mkII PA with Revs which I really liked, got a Trance and missed the PA enough to get a mkI.

It’s quite nippy, front wheel (Ardent 2.4) grips pretty well and the thing climbs comfortably but confidently. Rear is wearing a Hutchinson Barracuda now, it’s working well. It’s got Deore 2012 2×10 which I highly recommend. It’s borrowed a lot from 2011 SLX and the brakes feel good, I’ve not thought too much about going up from 160!

A lot of trails around here are a little lumpy but more narrow and winding. I find it’s helping me to develop my riding with/against the subtle shape of the trail rather than just belting through it on the bouncer; which has it’s place of course! I built it to train my technique as I felt the Trance was making me a little lazy.

The front brake on the fatty69er is a little minimal!

It’s like a return to 26/24″ riding! You’re basically getting a 1.5″ longer fork with what you are doing, which changes your geometry somewhat, a lot more than we did with 24″ wheels in the rear (1″ difference) With a short rigid upfront you may be able to get away with it. With a suss fork max length for your front end you have some issues to take into account:

1) You need a longer stem with less rise and saddle moved forwards to get the same riding position
2) Boat like steering and needing larger footprint tyres to get same grip
3) Suspension fork bushings will have greatly reduced life
4) You could rip your headtube off

So, if your frame hasn’t got welded plates on the headtube, you’ve got an expensive problem ahead. In my case a 1″ difference in geometry was enough to almost wipe out the bushings within 6 months in a 5″ Junior T. But then I was riding off things taller than me.

What?

bri-72 is that my old Carver?

Do a search, loads of threads. Trek 69er ss is one of the best bikes I’ve ever ridden.
Cheap Carver frame on the classifieds somewhere IIRC.

I’ll find out at the the weekend, when my drunken Ebay purchase trek 69er is ridden for the first time. 2009 frame and managed to get some Duc 32’s for as they just look wrong with normal forks.

nice to know I’ve stepped away from daft looking bikes 😕

It’ll be excellent and those Mavericks are great forks.

For comparison, two “proper” wheels

Even this rode better than the wheels it came with.

The idea of a 69er for harder riding trail HT has a bit of appeal I reckon if you were to take a long travel 26″ HT and substitute it’s 130/140mm fork and 26″ front wheel for a 100mm 29er fork (Lighter?) and wheel…

I am of course assuming you would want to retain about the same ride height/HA/Wheelbase (gaining ~1.5″ of wheel radius, but loosing the same in fork A-C), and in theory have a better rolling front end hopefully meaning less rider fatigue overall from the mionor trail hits/buzz, and the trade off in travel hopefully meaning a less divey fork for climbs that maybe isn’t so hot on bigger hits, but then you are talking about a pedal up and blat down HT there have to be compromises somewhere…

like I say there is some appeal there, but I think you have to accomodate the change in axle height with a similar reduction in travel, otherwise it would just become a propper chopper…

Think I’ll still be sticking to 26″ for the time being but I can see a 69er conversions appeal from the type of riding I like to do perhaps.

Having said that I’ve had 26F/24R and 24/24 in the past on DJ bikes and much prefered the 24/24 setup for that…

a larger rear wheel on and MTB just looks far too wrong IMO and should not be allowed…

I’m not getting the little front wheel. Seems like the acceleration issues of a big wheel plus the normality of a 26″. I can appreciate the rear may offer more comfort but it seems more like a 29er compensator than the other way around.

Each to their own, if you like it that’s all that matters!

Would like to try this but not going to bother until I find a Hummingbird fork for sale.

Also, the Hummingbird itself is pretty steep head angle so I expect my Cotic Simple will be a bit slack as a 69er. However, a reversed slackset sounds like just the ticket, as long as the significantly higher bottom bracket doesn’t become an issue.

new drunken ebay purchase with some duc 32’s from the classifieds (cheers mark) and some spare toss I had lying around. Not as fast as my selma but a really good laugh

it’s my beard keeper dear boy

Oldgit – no I still have your old Carver, it is in semi retirement in the Peaks