I’ve had three 29ers and I’m never going back. Pretty much everything I ride is rooty, muddy, loose, tight and twisty woody singletrack and none have them are slow through this stuff. If you’re chasing someone on a 26er it feels like you’re cheating.

If you want to try one try and demo it for a few days, you need to adjust your riding style to get the best out of them otherwise they can seem a bit sluggish and less manoeuvrable.

Pray tell what riding style you have to employ to get over the ‘seeming a bit sluggish and less manoeverable’? I tried all sorts of things and strangely they all still seemed to handle just like that 🙂

clubber – you’ve convinced yourself you find them sluggish.

Which frames/forks did you try out of interest?

I would call my Ti29 sure footed, but not sluggish.

I don’t feel that my 29er is any slower on my normal trails which are anything from open downland to tight technical woodland singletrack than any of my previous bikes which where both 26er’s (hardtail and full susser) and those that i ride with say, and i feel, that i ride faster on the 29er.

I guess it just suits me better but then i ride with someone who is the same height as me who prefers his 26er hardtail.

Its horses for courses and unless you try it you will never know if its right for you or not 😐

I’ve tried a Ti Inbred 29er, GF rig and Niner SIR now. I have to say that the Ti Inbred felt ‘best’ to me but I just can’t escape the feeling of trundling along.

It’s quite reasonable to say that I do now expect them to feel sluggish but that is based on experience just as I expect crashes to hurt because experience suggests they do. That doesn’t mean that I can’t be objective and that they aren’t sluggish in comparison. Not to mention that a 29er actually cures one of the biggest issues I have with 26″ bikes namely that in my size, they tend to wheelie on steep climbs because the chainstays are too short (typically the same across the sizes). I’ve found 29ers don’t do that (bad at wheelieing as above!). If I could find a 29er that I enjoyed as much as a 26″ bike then I’d be really keen to get one so I’m definitely not anti-29er per se.

Besides, I certainly didn’t expect them to feel sluggish on the first few times I tried them when I figured that all the owners couldn’t be so evangelical as to not be willing to admit it at all. My bad 😉

Thanks for all your views

Try a Singular

I recently purchased a Singular swift, it is the best bike I have ever ridden, love it.

i want a singular peregrine for my next bike….. 😉