[Closed] is the 29er the Betamax of the mtb world?

[i]with 650b offering the best of all worlds[/i]
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650b is more like one of those odd Sony formats that only works on one £1000 player and you can only get three movies for.

650b - Laser Disc

I don't see that 26 or 29 offer any real advantages over each other, just different and theres nowt wrong with that.
All these things are subject to marketing hype, but both 26 and 29 existed anyway. I'm not sure about 650, yes i know it was used on kids road bikes but that seems like a pile of hyperbole to me 😀

I've got 26's and 700's might try a 29 er for a laugh, why not its all good

650b is more like one of those odd Sony formats that only works on one £1000 player and you can only get three movies for.

You mean philips (HD DVD's anyone?), blu-rays seem to be doing quite well!

I don't think the OP's analogy is valid either, 29'ers aren't 'better' than 26", they're just different. Different in a good way, but they've hardly made 26"ers redundant like DVD did VHS or Blu-ray did DVD's.

29er [i]is[/i] 700c, with fat tyres 🙂

Don't you love bike standards?
29" = 28"
27" > 28"

26er - [s]VHS[/s] [b]vinyl[/b] old school but will still be around for a long time
29er - Betamax
650b - DVD

FTFY

betamax was technically superior to VHS but the US porn producers went with VHS and beta died.

26=DVD
29er = blu-ray, marketed as being superior, getting a bit of a foothold, likely to be overtaken by another niche or fashion development before it captures the market completely.

650B - Video 2000.
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29ers aren't going anywhere. How else will people watch all those inner-tubes they've amassed over the years?

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I think you've got your history muddled. VHS won because it was a larger format and therefore less likely to fall into holes on the trail.

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VHS won because it was a larger format and therefore less likely to fall into holes on the trail.

It was a different kind of hole that made it win.

The bike trade is key here;

For the distributor/manufacturer - More stuff to sell! New stuff to sell! Lower volumes, driven by the different standards, means higher prices for them as they don't have to offer such tasty volume breaks to retailers ordering lower volumes! Woo!

For the retailer, especially the IBDs and smaller outfits - Having to stock multiple sizes etc means more storage, more stock, and with lower margins due to having to order several different sizes of everything. Boo!

It was a different kind of hole that made it win.

"The bike trade is key here;"

I'm left speechless at insight so profound! 🙂

I thought it was more to do with VHS's two-hour recording time as opposed to Betamax's one-hour? Even Sting doesn't take that long to bash one out.

I thought it was more to do with VHS's two-hour recording time as opposed to Betamax's one-hour? Even Sting doesn't take that long to bash one out.

I reckon 29 will be standard for hardtails and some XL size FS frames and 650b will be the standard for non-freakish FS frames. 26 will continue but gradually become more for niche/budget stuff.

The fact you can package a 650b wheel in most 26 FS designs whilst still touting big-wheel benefits in the marketing spiel seems a no-brainer that the industry will move that way. I like the Scott guy's take on it to (after their 650b bike won a World Cup...) that rather than 650b being a compromise it's taking the best of both worlds - not saying I entirely agree with that but I do think it's more than just a half-way house with 29ers being the right solution - clearly they're not for a lot of FS implementations.

What about MiniDisc ?

Dave - 🙂

I just think people sometimes forget the boring commercial side of the argument while getting all tied up in the "my choice of size is betterer than yours so ner!" side of things!

[b]Analogy theft![/b]

And we both know it!

78s :roll:...Span like hell and were over and done with in no time.
Along came the 45 and they sold in their millions.

All this talk of new fangled vhs, betamax etc.

Not sure where I'm going with this now............................ 😳

If you want a better metaphor for the development of wagon wheels, how about the Internet?

Small, often one-man, enterprises do the R&D, driven by enthusiasm rather than £££. Then when your Willits, Surlys, Singulars, et al have established the standard and ironed out any kinks with the design, the big boys swoop in, make it a bit more complicated, and try to convince us we should all be using it.

cant see 650 offering any advantages other than allowing the bike manufacturers to shoehorn in more unnecessary/ value added technology such as overcomplicated and inefficient suspension designs. 29ers will always be faster/ more traction etc.

peoples aversion to large wheel bikes seems to be borne out of misplaced aesthetic preconceptions or maybe they realise (subconsciously) that they have been riding the wrong kind of bike all these years but dont want to admit it!

the car makers have no problems selling us the idea of large wheel vehicles as sales of evoques/ hilux's will testify.

large wheels are a prerequisite off-road. simple as. something the engineering types were all to quick to point out when mtb's started to gain popularity in the early 1990's.

26 wheels on mtbs were a mistake but will be around like 24" wheels etc for the forseeable future.

snipswhispers- 6/10, not bad.