having spent only a brief amount of time on 29er’s I was really surprised how much i liked it (SC Tallboy) – it felt like a dh bike for the trails, if you know what I mean, sitting so low relative to the axles and being able to blast through/over stuff like you had waaaay more travel. But without any disadvantage on the way back up.
It made me realise that 29ers aren’t just for tall people, mile munching and ‘wheels on the ground’ riding, but that they make excellent bikes for aggressive trail riding, particularly if they had a bit more travel up front and less xc angles. I think designers have focussed too much on getting them to handle like nimble xc 26ers. As a result they have head angles so steep they look like they’ve been ridden into a wall. The tallboy felt more twitchy and agile than my mega, which was fine until it got steep and techy or when it felt like it wanted to tuck under when cornering hard (perhaps more time on the bike would solve this too though).
I’d defo trade some agility for additional steep tech and high speed ability. I also found coming from fairly slack am bikes that take a bit of extra manhandling on tight stuff that I found it easy to adjust to a 29er. I guess coming from more xc bike it would take more getting used to. Personally I’d love to ride one of the new Transition Bandit 29er or a Norco Shinobi, they do look like dh bikes for the trail 🙂
