Thinking of trying a 26″ rear wheel in my Scandal 29er to improve the clearance around the seat tube and drop a bit of weight. Will it work or just make it a complete dog?

Complete dog, will slacken things out far too much. Smaller rear tyre?

hmm I thought so… I realised it would slacken it off but with the carbon rigid forks the head angle seems fairly steep so I thought it maybe ok.

Easy to try though if you have a 26er wheel on another bike/lying around

I tried sticking a 29er front wheel in my carbon rigid forks on my 853 SS, and it worked quite well, just slowed up the steering very slightly. When I’ve got some cash I’ll get a Bonty front wheel for £100 and stick it on the bike.

i’ve thought about it but if it rides anything like when i did the reverse to my 26er inbred it’ll be shite.

Cost you nout to try it, you must have a pal to borrow a 26″ wheel off…

thomthumb was thinking about putting a big wheel on the front of my inbred, was it really bad??? Would it work with a scandal frame?

i thought it rode awful – admitidly i rode around the block a couple of times – but it suffered from ‘chopper flop’ badly.

i also ran it with pikes (140mm) for a while and it didn’t have chopper flop but was slack.

others have done it and liked it- i didn’t.

I would have though 26 scandal would be exactly the same as the inbred – they have the same angles iirc.

I know its a different beast to the Inbred but wasn’t the Ti 456 given to a magazine to test with 440mm rigid forks (not 29niner specific) and a 29″ front wheel to rave reviews?

So going on that it would change the head angle by about 1.5 deg, or more to the point, put it to the sagged height of a set of 125mm forks, or have I got my math and facts all messed up?

[edit] for the original post wouldnt those figures be the same/similar dropping the rear wheel size of a 29’r? [edit]

The back wheel won’t touch the ground.

I know its a different beast to the Inbred but wasn’t the Ti 456 given to a magazine to test with 440mm rigid forks (not 29niner specific) and a 29″ front wheel to rave reviews?

yep, well steel, but we’ll let you off that 😉

http://www.on-one-shop.co.uk/?p=753

Putting a 26″ wheel in the back of a 29er is very different from putting a 29″ wheel in the front of a 26er.

The latter works because the overal fork length can be shorter to compensate for the larger wheel. In fact a good 69er conversion (from 26″) will actually steepen the head angle a little.

The former doesn’t because you just drop the back end by around 30mm, the chainstays will still be 29er length, the bb will be very low, pedals will hit the ground very often, everything slackens out a lot and you get teh ‘dog’ referred to in the original post. My advice would be don’t even bother trying.

I’m currently doing this on my Ti 29er with the wheel right forward in the slots.
Thought I’d try it just out of interest a couple of weeks ago and haven’t changed back. Makes for a real hooligan bike, yes it’s slack, but point it downhill and it is so much more fun now, wheelies and manuals really easily.
I thought pedal strike would ruin it but the BB has only dropped 15mm and striking hasn’t been an issue. The lower C of G has made it really stable in turns but especially good in really low speed(walking pace!) techy sections.
You do need to be more conscious of getting your weight forward on the bike in turns on flatter ground or the front will tend to want to wash out. This shouldn’t be a problem unless you like sitting on your bike like a sack of spuds.

If you have a little wheel handy then give it a bash, it’d be daft not to.

I’d agree with Sam that in theory it will be a dog. The reality is that it is actually very good fun though.

Oh, and there is clearance for HUGE tyres too. Ive been using a High roller 2.5 DH with a good 8mm clear on each side. Scandal may be different depending on the curve of the stays, the steel 29er curves in and out and gives worse tyre clearance for a 26 tyre.

Worked for me….

See what I mean? That 26″ wheel is not big enough and its sitting 3″ off the ground.