I recently had a go on a plus size and found the steering imprecise, the wheels heavy, grip lacking in wetter areas and overall found the ride ‘ muted’ in some way. This leads me to believe that they are purely designed for those that ride slowly in the dry and don’t have the confidence to push the tyre. In other words, they seem to be designed for those new to our sport which is fair enough but why do the rest of us have to be inflicted with them on such a wholesale level?

Well, you know what they say – “if you’ve ridden one Plus bike, you’ve ridden them all“.

Oh no, they don’t…

Nobody has inflicted one on me so far.

I bought one blind (fully rigid) having only ever ridden a plus sized ebike for 5 minutes. Personally I love it. It feels really alive and is very fun to ride. It’s more physical to ride fast over rough ground which has meant adapting my riding. Those adaptions have translated to my full suspension bike and improved flow on that bike as well. The steering on my particular bike is precise and while the wheels are heavy it is surprisingly spritley, much more than I thought it would be.

Designed for newbies, no I’d say not. They are just different.

Whats this sport that we’re all in to then ? 😉

It’s just bikes.
It’s got two wheels, matters not if they’re thick, thin, big or small.
Ride on.

I have an Orbea Loki plus bike, I’ve been riding for over twenty years. Maybe I’m just shit at riding!

There’s nothing wrong with a bike that has a bit of extra grip, fantastic predictable
braking and muting minor trail buzz. Braking in deep mud is slightly different but you
just learn to trust the grip and roll through. It has Chronicles fitted and I specifically sought out
the worst muddiest, steepest, most off camber trails I could find just for giggles. It’s been
totally fine and awesome on most places I’ve ridden.

I’ve only had my for just over a month but it gets used all round Scotland. Seemed fine
round Dunkeld, Innerleithen (both sides), Aviemore, Aberfoyle, Ae, Crieff etc..

For the record I’ve had no issues with punctures either. 🙂

I’m just waiting for one of my tyres to arrive, looking forward to it. I don’t expect it to be better than my 29er wheels/tyres, or faster, but it’ll definitely be different, so if I can get a bit of different fun out of my bike why not?

I don’t “have the confidence to push the tyre” particularly, but I can’t say a plus bike has helped with that when I’ve tried them.

🙂

Its awful that those nasty scheming bike industry bullies have forced you to experience an alternative, the absolute cheek of them giving you choice. How dare they!

Its awful that those nasty scheming bike industry bullies have forced you to experience an alternative, the absolute cheek of them giving you choice. How dare they!

It is strange though, (and needs facts to back it up) but some of the people embracing the new chub seem to be some of the louder 650/hub size/tapered steerer critics of the past – we want choice (that we like)

D+ troll………

Plus size etc. Is it the bike industry taking advantage of people who are never happy?

They are awful…that’s why I only own two 29+ bikes 😉

Plus size etc. Is it the bike industry taking advantage of people who are never happy?

Western society is pretty much based on the fact that people are never happy and consumerism is a big part of that.

I wont be responding any further as I will be in my Buddhist retreat from now on having found the path to true enlightenment.

I wont be responding any further as I will be in my Buddhist retreat from now on having found the path to true enlightenment.

If that’s true, you’ll be riding there on your plus bike.

I just want to stop parts of my breaking grrr. I don’t care for the next best thing. I’m still on keeping the thing rolling!

Whats this sport that we’re all in to then ?

It’s just bikes.
It’s got two wheels, matters not if they’re thick, thin, big or small.
Ride on.

😀

Whats this sport that we’re all in to then?
It’s just money.
It’s got two wheels, matters not what pointless toss we come up with next.
These idiots will buy anything.

🙂

why do the rest of us have to be inflicted with them on such a wholesale level?

Try washing the sand out your vag. You might be a little less irritable.

GW? Is that you?

Perhaps it’s not about the bike 😉

Try washing the sand out your vag. You might be a little less irritable.

Apologies just logged on, different time zone. Thank you for the best insult I’ve heard all week and spookily I’m now somewhere very sandy.

Gunz – Member
I recently had a go on a plus size and found the steering imprecise, the wheels heavy, grip lacking in wetter areas and overall found the ride ‘ muted’ in some way.

Keep at it, I think you will improve. Maybe get some coaching too

I dare say hora 3″ tyres might help your stuff stop breaking, it has certainly reduced my puncture levels.

I think we need a strava off. OP please post some impressive times for us to coo over.

I would go for racing but work saturdays so that’s unfair :p

Although in your defence, I rode WTB bridger and trailboss combo and came away very unimpressed. Chronicles much better, everywhere. Weird because they look like a semi slick..

I’m about to pop out for the third ride on my plus bike – the first two were very enjoyable

I think the problem with early ones was pretty poor tyres being run an too high pressure, now some decent tyres are out its all good. Spesh 3″ tyres are nice and I’m awaiting the glut of semi plus tyres for some experimentation.

@pigyn Done the Strava thing. I’ve a set of Plus wheels for my Solaris so rode the same loop up here in the Dales on 29er and 650b+ wheels. The loop was about 24Km long and a variety of surfaces from trail centre like path to grass fields. Everything else was as equal as I could make it: clothes; the amount of water in my Camelbak; equal effort and rest in the days beforehand. I also waited a month or so after getting the wheels so I didn’t get the new gear, halo effect. I knew the ride pretty well as we do those trails several times a year.

The result (from a single run on each): the Plus tyres were about 7% faster. I knew some segments would be as they were stony, slightly loose, steady climbs but was surprised that others were. Most segments I got PBs on with the rest being second fastest. Some of the time differences (both better and worse) were minimal and well within error margins but others like those I knew would be faster were quite significant, 2mins down to 1min40, that sort of improvement.

All of which was quite a surprise as the wheels and tyres (Alpkit Rumpus and WTB Bridger and Trailblazer) are 1.5Kg heavier than the 29er kit (Hope wheels with Bontrager XR4/3 tyres)

There’s one area where they really don’t shine: tarmac. Normally I have to coast or even brake to let my wife keep up, with the Plus tyres it was the other way round. This has a knock-on effect in that long distance rides like the various ITTs become quite hard work.

The Solaris now has rigid forks and having a Plus tyre on the front makes a big difference to the comfort though I’m getting more used to riding rigid so it’s not so much a benefit now.

My initial thoughts were that the Plus tyres turn a hooligan of a bike into Begbie!

Had my Plus Hardtail for 3 or 4 months.

Just brought a Santacruz Hightower Plus..

Liking the fatter tyres

I’ve been riding for over twenty years. Maybe I’m just shit at riding!

Don’t worry old chap, it’s perfectly natural as you get older for your reactions to slow right down and to need the assistance of physical aids such as bath grab rails, walking frames and 29’ers or plus sized wheels.
Luckily for you the bike industry has in recent years recognised this issue of an aging MTB population and designed a range of aids depending on your level of debilitation. No full guide has been published so as not to embarrass anyone but I heard from an insider that it goes –
26’er
29’er
plus size bike
fat bike
e- fat bike

Hope that helps and gives you comfort that you can keep riding for as long as your wallet allows!

Running 4″ tyres on my bike so slightly bigger than plus.

Acceleration from slow corners can be an issue sometimes but otherwise it’s a bike.

Whitestone – if you can run the 3″ WTBS try switching to Chronicles, they really are better all round! Even on wet stuff :p Much faster on the road as well.

To the people saying they are rubbish in deep mud, why not try changing your riding to suit the conditions.. you know, like we used to do before new trails got ruined at the first sign of rain 😀

@pigyn – it’s the Mk1 Solaris so the Trailblazer is about as big as I can get in the back (it’s quoted as being 2.8″ but is closer to 2.5″). The Bridger is genuine 3″, it just fitted in my X-Fusion Slide forks when they were on the bike, currently got Travers Prongs and I could probably fit a 3.5″ tyre!

I’ve not tried +size tyres yet, but do fancy it, having got everything from 2.1″ 29ers to big 2.3″ 26″ tyred bikes currently.

Perhaps not so keen on 29+ but B+ for sure, on something like a Stooge they look ideal, for me I’d like to try them for wheels on the ground type riding, bike packing maybe, just bombing around the woods. I like quite light bikes, having those huge tyres, then suspension, then a dropper etc etc all seems to make for something a bit dead feeling to me.

I like the 26+ wheels I built and I call them my ‘cheater’ wheels because it makes difficult stuff loads easier 😀 They’re not properly plus plus but they’re great as the tiger used to say. I don’t use them all the time because I’m tight and I don’t want to wear the tyres out on the tarmac linky bits around here 😆 They get dusted off for local DH races though.

@core – they make more sense on a rigid bike IMO, think of them as simple undamped suspension. I don’t think they are suitable for hammering down technical rocky trails, to keep the weight reasonable they don’t have heavy duty sidewalls though that may change. They are ideal for ground like rough fire-roads as they take away that high frequency buzz. If your 29er frame can take + wheels then get a set of the Alpkit Rumpus and you can swap them in and out as you wish.

hora – Member
Plus size etc. Is it the bike industry taking advantage of people who are never happy?

You owe me a new keyboard, this one seems to be full of tea.

You owe me tea as well.

I’m just building up a fortitude frameset (which I nearly sold) that will share wheels with my Scandal for now. So I’ll be trying rigid and 1x for a simpler winter and training rides, if I like it I might be tempted to get something nicer along similar lines (did I say Stooge…..).

I think the fortitude fork will take B+, but not the back end, and sure my Scandal won’t, especially with a reba up front. Still, if I can find some wheels locally to try it wouldn’t hurt.

I’ve had 29+ Chronicle on the front of my rigid for a year or so now and its great most of the time. I very briefly tried a B+ Hightower on Reckons and felt it was slightly unwilling to change direction, and the lack of edge bite a little un-nerving. It also felt a bit disconnected to the trail (you couldn’t feel exactly what the grip was doing). I’m sure they are all things you can learn to adapt to, however following someone else riding it (who loved it) the plus bike was surprisingly sliding and moving around a lot more than I was on regular tyres.

Maybe they just feel faster?

Riding my hardtail with both 29er and 650b+ depending on how wet it is.

It’s fun, and to me that’s what it’s all about.

I’ve been MTBing for over 20 years too, so don’t consider myself a newb.