Thwarted in my efforts to get a 29er, I’m thinking about attempting to convert my Ti456 into a 96er but have no idea whether it’d work or ride properly.

So, apart from bashing a 29er fork & front wheel on, what other considerations are there? Any specifics for the fork, like loads of trail or none? Would the wheel catch the pedals?

rigid right?

think the standard advice is to run a 26er fork; you’ll have enough clearance on a rigid.

i tried it on my inbred and it suffered from chopper flop

Didn’t Brant send Dirt magazine a steel 456 test bike fitted with a 29″ fork and front wheel ?
IIRC they liked the way it rode.
So you’re idea might just work.

Hve a read of this.

Thanks for that, Simon – might just work! I can try it out with the RC31s I’ve got anyway – just need a wheel now.

With rigid = ok
With FS = badtimes.

ok, so whats the difference between 96er and 69er? I was very confused with the article in last month’s mag because they all had big wheel front, small wheel back. That is what i’d call a 69er, a 96er being big wheel back, small wheel front…

am I wrong?

I think they’re the same thing – big at front, small at back.

Thanks Brant – this is about making it my winter bike, so rigids it is. Best with 26er rigids or 29er rigids?

Farticus – bit at the bottom of this tells you how to get the right A-C in a rigid fork

http://www.dirtrag.com/print/article.php?ID=860&category=stuff_reviews

3x fork lengths available here
http://discobrakes.com/?s=0&t=4&c=43&

or if you find it will work the O-O 26″ rigid fork is a great bit of kit.

Thanks for that, Stoner. Interesting.

So, it seems that running my Pace RC31s (440mm) with a 29er front wheel should work.

What I don’t understand is all the geometry stuff that says it wouldn’t work with a shorter travel 29er suspension fork. Being a simple soul, let’s say I measure the ground to fork race height & axle – race length using my Pikes at 125mm, and assume 30mm sag. If I can sort things out such that a 29er set up has the same (sagged) ground-to-race height why won’t that work?

I’ve tried MTBR but you have to know the answer to your question to work out who’s talking sense & who isn’t. Clearly Brant knows something & has given me the answer, but now I want to understand why it won’t work.

If I can sort things out such that a 29er set up has the same (sagged) ground-to-race height why won’t that work?

it would be fine but i doubt youll get that to work as the a-c (axle to crown length) of the pike is around 525mm?, the reba 29er is 515mm? so take into account the extra 30-40mm of height casued by the bigger 29er wheel and the 10-20mm of extra sag on the pike and your front end would be around 30-40mm higher leading to a fairly slack head angle all the time. (those are rough figures btw, i dont know the exact figures)

the new rebas are much lower A-C 486mm @ 80mm and 506mm @ 100mm before sag.

Let’s assume ~30mm difference in tyre radius. That means I’d want ~30mm less fork length (post sag). Pikes are ~520mm (full lenght, so need to measure mine when I get chance), so Rebas at 80mm would be about the same length pre-sag. Post sag (40mm on Pikes @140mm, 20 – 25mm on Rebas @ 80mm) probably leaves the Rebas 15 – 20mm taller than the Pikes.

Doesn’t sound too promising now. Maybe Minutes at 80mm are a bit shorter?