While I’m personally a bit annoyed by the “Industry push” towards 650b (I really don’t remember ever hearing anything that you could call consumer demand) and really just see it as a marketing tool to try and bump flagging sales, and repeat the “29er trick” I’m not sure it’s worth getting too worked up over…
Most of us will more than likely going to be riding our 26″ wheels into the ground and we’ll be able to replace them for at least the next decade and a half I reckon…
I don’t think the higher end MTB market will support three wheel standards for long, so the major manufacturers will be rationalizing down to two once they see what consumers reaction looks like in terms of actual sales in the shops.
I can see the UK with our “oddball” love for harder riding Slack angled steel hardtails being a bit of a holdout area for 26″ wheels anyway.
And while newer Trail / Enduro and XC bikes might be the places where these products find a market and have some technical merit, I’m still not sure that the DH / FR / Dirt jumping / Street end of the MTBing scale will be such quick and easy adopters.
There are a lot of Niches that fall the “MTB” banner, for which a marginally bigger wheel brings no obvious benefits; The only 650b wheeled bike being raced at Fort William this Weekend managed 22nd, not a bad result, but not exactly proof of technical superiority either.
But don’t lose any sleep, it’s only a wheel…