There are several threads about 650b+ and other plus size tyres/wheels and I thought it’d be useful to bring them together in one place so that people who fancy giving it a go on an existing (eg not specifically designed for b+) frame can get an idea whether it’ll work.
I’ll start then.
Singular Swift, original blue model with straight stays – the one with the least clearance as current models have more – but with the latest model of fork that will take pretty much anything up to 3.5″ comfortably.
The tyres are 63.5mm at their widest point which easily fits my frame/fork combination. The pic is of the front wheel in the back of the frame but it’s enough to show that it’ll work (I haven’t built the back wheel yet).
The Banshee Prime and Phantom (FS 29ers) have enough room to run 27.5+ with the standard dropouts (and you can adjust the BB height to bring it up to 29 level) and if you put the 27.5 dropouts from the 26 frames (Spitfire/Rune/Darkside) on them you can run 29+.
Unless it was to narrow the tyre down to enable it to fit a particular frame, I would be going for around 45mm rims. The more volume you can get, the better the ride.
On 52mm Hugos, the 2.8″ TB measures 72.2mm at the widest part of the casing. The tread does not project past the casing, so I’d prefer a narrower rim to enable it to wrap around more.
Bikes that fit a 52mm Hugo with a 2.8″ TB tyre:
Ragley TD-1 with reasonable clearance.
Don’t fit:
On-One Scandal
Kona SS
Avanti KISS 29er
Maybe fit:
Surly 1×1, but have to deflate to get past canti mounts (later versions may be ok)
While I don’t fundamentally disagree, epicyclo, at least one person on here has swapped from wide to narrow rims and said it didn’t make any significant difference. I figure that I’ll try it out with 30mm rims and change to a wider front if I like it as 30mm rims are available fairly cheaply.
Older gen Niner SIR.9
Cheap 30mm rims from a Orange Crush with WTB Trailblaster.
63mm (Ruler, not with a caliper).
Plenty of room. 70mm(ish).
Ran ok on mates Santa Cruz 29er HT.
(Hi-Ball ??)
Doesn’t look massively bigger than a 2.35 Dampf.
Waiting for Blunts to land again. Reckon that will be best combo, & at £65, more affordable.
Running 29+ Knard on rigid Niner front & that’s brill.
If anyone local to Staffs wants to try the 650+ your more than welcome.
I have a 27.5 wtb on a Sun Mulefut in the back of my Gryphon, loads of clearance to the frame but only about 1 or 2mm clearance to the chain in bottom gear on a 2 x 10 set up. Might patent it as a in built chain cleaning system.
Quick edit – Knard on one of those Pacenti rims in the front that fits easily in the stock forks.
Jossie, is that the mulefut 50? Looks like a good value option. One question on rims with holes like that – how do you tubeless them? Special rim tape?
Yes, Mulefut 50 don’t think the 80mm would fit (and they only do a 26″ version I think?).
I’ve got a tube in mine with a Surly 26″ rim tape that was left in hot water to expand a bit. Not entirely sure how you would go tubeless but it is possible, I think it’s a case of Surly rim tape next to the rim then tubeless tape over that.
Hugo with a trailblazer, like Epicyclo says is up at 72mm so it looks like it would even have enough room going by some of the pics above. The hugo/trailblazer doesn’t fit a Kinesis FF29. It is pretty much jammed in there once dropped into the dropouts so it’s 100% a no goer. Obviously it rolls with scraper rims as Kinesis sell them (and have a full page ad showing the bike with them fitted)
2015 Trance 3 works too. I’ll get some pics up soon.
Update on the Reba, yes, it’s fine. By my reckoning (because it’s hard to judge from the pics (the top pic is particularly misleading), there’s at least 7mm at each side of the tyre at the narrowest point but plenty more elsewhere. I’d happily ride it. Note though that as above, I’m using a relatively narrow rim for b+ resulting in ‘only’ 64mm width of the tyre which means if you used a fatter rim/tyre you may well struggle.
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Oh and a couple more pics of the full 650b+ build
It rides nicely – I reckon I could go lower on the pressure though but it was quite noticeable over rocky trails that it rolls over them very well and the grip on steeper climbs is fantastic (and something of a weakness for me so quite welcome)
The chap on this site said “On the front, though the Scraper /Trailblazer combo was no issue. I have tried every 29er fork within my reach (FOX 32 and 34, ROCK SHOX Pike and MAGURA TS8R) and there was no problem with either of them”
1999 Generation. And though I said the rear is maxed out with 2.4 conti’s, it’s nowhere near as tight as the Thunder Burt in the front of the Peregrine. That’s bordering on the inadvisable.
All the bits are in. Wheels are going to look good I think.
I have rebuilt my old Turner Sultan in anticipation. A little nervous the tyres will fit…
From what I can see the important measurement is 71-72mm for a WTB Trailblazer on a scraper rim. Will get the gauges out tonight. So hope it fits, because of it does the Turner is going to be a monster. I can even overcome the small drop in BB height by deploying the CCDB- previously this raised the BB too much.
If not, the Solaris will be seeing the wheels. Hopefully they will fit both.
My wheels above are almost identical in diameter to the 29er ones I had on the bike previously – admittedly that’s with fairly skinny 2″ 29er tyres but then the 650b tyres I have aren’t massive either.
But it’s not about the width of the tyre surely. The volume comes from the depth. Running wide rims can’t alter cushioning type volume much, does it?
Volume’s volume, though. If there’s more of it, there’s more cushioning. Area of the cross section times the diameter (pretty much). If you let the tyre spread out more by holding the beads an inch further apart (45mm internal width rather than 20mm i.w.) you’re increasing the amount of air in it,.
Doesn’t really matter what shape the cross section is, if it’s 20% bigger, that’s 20% more volume.
Interestingly, the Hugo doesn’t optimise volume, as the rim profile intrudes into the cross section, rather than adding to it.
I wonder what the internal width of the dually would need to be to equal the volume of the hugo for a given tyre.
+1 on ned – by my reckoning it’s mostly about volume. Having said that, the depth of the tyre must have some effect though since effectively it’s the travel of the tyre – if you ran a massively wide tyre that was only 1cm deep, it wouldn’t ride the same (over bumps, let’s ignore trying to go round a corner…) as a more conventional fat tyre, would it?
podge – possibly and that’s the point of this thread to list out combinations that do and don’t work. You do need relatively wide rims (25mm internal width which is usually around 30mm external width seems about as low as will work well) though for it to work properly or the tyre will just roll around the rim.
al – I get the logic but I’m not sure it’s really as simple as that.
a wider tyre (due to wider rim) will have a wider contact and therefore, shorter (front to back) which in turn means the tyre compresses less for a given load. That’s why you can then run a lower pressure without grounding out the rim by my reckoning though you’re also right in that if the tyre is taller, being narrower can allow a longer contact patch without risk of hitting the rim.
I suppose it comes down to the factors of tyre roll and bottoming out – depending on what/how you ride, one may be more important than the other.