This is probably a really stupid question. I have a Trek Stache and if I fancied giving 27+ wheels a go would I need a new fork or is it just a case of wheel swapping? Feel free to laugh at my idiocy.

Whilst I’m here, out of curiosity, has anybody tried a Stache with normal 29er wheels and if so how was it?

Nope…if it’s the bowie carbon ridged fork on the stache 5 you will need a standard hub spacing. If the stache 7/9 you will need boost spacing (assuming stock manitou fork).

You will just have more mud clearance.

I have run 29er skinny wheels (2.3″) in my stache 5…. Not really much faster and to be honest no real point as you don’t get the benefits the plus platform brings. Also I love having a high bottom bracket (this is lower with skinnies and 650b).

I am not sold at all on 650b + and prefer the bigger wheels. I ride mainly xc / swinley / surrey Hills so I guess if you are more gravity orientated the smaller wheels may work for you.

Thanks Don, good to know. I have the 7, only been out on it twice and still messing with tyre pressures, cockpit etc. It’s a brilliant bike and great fun to ride. I mainly ride the peaks and Macc Forest. Biggest shock is that I’ve not used all the travel on the forks yet after two Macc Forest runs.

Yeah full travel is hard to get on the manitous magnums with correct sag. They are great forks but do need a little tweaking to run well. I have a stache 5 but have fitted some 120 mm magnum pro forks. The damping is as good if not better than current gen pikes (which are my usual bench mark).

The 7 (I think) was fitted with the comp forks which are still pretty good but don’t have all the bells and whistles of the pro (also 32 mm vs 34 mm stanchions on the 2016 versions).

The last 10 mm of travel is really hard to get into and only do I manage it on the hardest of landings.

Tyre pressure is the biggest thing to get sorted – 2 psi out of the sweet spot can turn a perfect setup to crap. Even more important to get front tyre pressure correct and work with the damping of the fork. I find around 14 to 16psi ish up front works well with fairly heavy compression damping and fast rebound.

I had to flip the stem on mine as I found the front end too high and now just about perfect.