[Closed] Spesh 650b prototype

yep looks like a 26" bike

I'd guess that it's closer to production than prototype. Mostly based on the stickers.

And the fact that it's carbon.

Looks like the front end from the 29er Stumpy.

Be interested to see how they market it, considering they always stated it was pointless with 26 & 29 existing, and the the Enduro29 winning pretty much every review it's in.

Be interested to see how they market it, considering they always stated it was pointless with 26 & 29 existing, and the the Enduro29 winning pretty much every review it's in.

Indeed. I suppose the best they could do is, "Well, everyone else was doing it, so it's market demand. We're just making what the market wants", or something!

A little like the poor chaps at Niner, who hitched themselves up to the wrong bandwagon*.

*Yes, I know it's all subjective, but it certainly looks as if the rest of the industry is now backing away from 29ers completely.

And yes, I can hear that kitten screaming in agony as it suffers a painful death.

There were murmurings on MTBR about some news coming from Spesh this spring that would involve 650b bikes, in the form of product launches.

But then, it was MTBR

The all black monarch plus looks so badass with the pike. I'm liking the recent stealth 'colour' schemes popular at the minute 🙂

Depends if they are to replace any 29ers with them or just the 26ers in the range? (Stumpy and Enduro)

They can always claim demand and/or lack of OEM equipment to continue with the 26er versions I guess.

Sea Otter should reveal something I'd imagine.

a guy from france popped up on here a while back and said that spe had ordered a load of 650b wheels from mavic,

bikes in the shops before the summer I reckon

looking at the shimano 11speed xtr embargo and the new Intense reviews appearing simultaneously on Vitalmtb, Bikeradar, Enduro mag, Pinkbike shows how much control bike companies have over the release of info

stevelol agree about the monarch, looks very nice, Im just not convinced about the sealing!

looking at the shimano 11speed xtr embargo and the new Intense reviews appearing simultaneously on Vitalmtb, Bikeradar, Enduro mag, Pinkbike shows how much control bike companies have over the release of info

Indeed. When I spotted the Bikerumor twittering over breakfast and Radio 4 this morning, I clicked on the link to see a 404, and the tweets have since been deleted. I wonder if somewhere in Morgan Hills, a lawyer's firing an angry missive to STW Towers at this very moment! OK, more likely to be from a small light industrial estate just opposite Thorpe Park at this hour of the day, but you get the idea!

Hob Nob - Member

Be interested to see how they market it, considering they always stated it was pointless with 26 & 29 existing, and the the Enduro29 winning pretty much every review it's in.

If they've got any sense they'll do the same thing Rockshox did over 15mm axles- "We still say we're right, but apparently this is what everyone wants us to do so I suppose we've got to do it. So since we've got to do it, we decided to do it better than everyone else"

If they pull away from 29ers they'll have more of a PR problem but they've not tied themselves to a 29-er only agenda so switching to 650b and 29er shouldn't hurt them at all.

Doubt it means pulling away from 29" - just means killing 26"

If they killed the story on bikerumor I suspect it's not got long on here before it's deleted.

[url= http://www.bikerumor.com/2014/03/19/spy-shot-curtis-keenes-prototype-650b-specialized-stumpjumper-and-rockshox-monarch-shock/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter ]Nothing to see here folks! Apart from the URL details......[/url]

I reckon they could ship the lot with 26" wheels and 650b decals and try the biggest bike placebo test going 🙂

That photo is still on Instagram and has been for 3 days!

It was posted by one of their sponsored riders.

Is it Gwins bike for Sea Botter ? (TLD / RedBull helmet)

Curtis Keene's.

Its their enduro racing guy- Curtis Keene

[img] [/img]

Wow it's like a normal Specialized but the wheels are a tiny bit bigger.

it is the beginning of the end for the 29er

When it's just the one bike in the photo, I really can't tell the difference without some 650b/27.5" tyre logos! It's more a hunch thing. Maybe if I still rode my 26" bikes it might be more obvious.

Ooo. Look at those 12.5mm bigger wheels.

londonerinoz - Member

I really can't tell the difference without some 650b/27.5" tyre logos!

There is a reason those tyre logos are so massive 😉 The increase in font size was proportionally much bigger than the increase in tyre size.

It's hardly a surprise that Spesh have jumped on the bandwagon, sales of 26ers must be dwindling pretty fast and the 650/27 and a bit market is taking off big style whether we like it or not so if they can sell large amounts of bikes then from a business point of view they'd be daft not to cash in whether they see the benefit to be negligible or not. Santa Cruz have done pretty much that with some genius marketing.

stevede - Member
It's hardly a surprise that Spesh have jumped on the bandwagon, sales of 26ers must be dwindling pretty fast

Yeti had 12 orders from shops for the SB66 for 2014 for the entire US. Hence them canning it.

it is the beginning of the end for the 29er

Think you might have the 9 upsidedown!!

grum - Member 
Wow it's like a normal Specialized but the wheels are [s]a tiny bit bigger[/s] smaller.

FTFY

To be fair, they've had some practice with humiliating climbdowns recently.

It does look good though.

Given that they are selling well, I guess Spesh can't ignore the adoption of 650b wheels.

chakaping - Member

To be fair, they've had some practice with humiliating climbdowns recently.

See, I really don't understand what is humiliating or a climbdown about this. They've committed to 29ers and still seem committed. They've never committed to 26 though, in fact you could say they were the first of the big players to move away from 26. They're changing their small wheels not their big wheels.

See, I really don't understand what is humiliating or a climbdown about this.

Think about their finance department rather than their marketing department.

it is the beginning of the end for the 29er

Think you might have the 9 upsidedown!!

still not seeing the point Cha****ng, finaince happy to see them selling shit, marketing keeping finance in a job.
Specialneeds Bike Co. is doing fine and will churn stuff out like giant and trek to fill their concept (no comparison) shops full. They will be successful in the mid and top end of the market but dominate the accountant specced end where you slip in a 2te cassette and an XTR shifter to make the forums love you for selling an XTR equipped steed/weapon/cock

is this really news?
I thought it was out there that both spesh and giant are doing 650 & 29 next year.

black monarch looks sweet - wonder if the damper body will fit current 2014.

surely this is th least shocking news in the world? I can see a boutique brand like niner being all about one wheel size but would anyone expect the biggest bike brand in the world to ignore a whole section of the market?

A little like the poor chaps at Niner, who hitched themselves up to the wrong bandwagon*.

*Yes, I know it's all subjective, but it certainly looks as if the rest of the industry is now backing away from 29ers completely.

still not seeing the point Cha****ng, finaince happy to see them selling shit, marketing keeping finance in a job.

The point is simple. They backed the wrong horse.

I'm not trying to be a smartarse about it and I respect that they tried to stick with 26in - but they still made the wrong decision and it will have cost them a lot of sale.

My first post was a reference to the PR disaster they caused over the word Roubaix.

OK about the first point but Specialsed don't back the horse, they make it

I think people are still getting a bit overexcited about the impact of 650b. Yes there's room for short term gains but at the end of the day it's mostly about tail-swallowing. There's a short term increase in bikes sold as people decide to replace 26ers with 650bs, but it won't create a single new customer so in a year, 2 years at most, everything returns to normal. Market shares might shift but market size won't.

To achieve that, every bike company's having to replace basically everything they make, from tyres to whole bikes. So not only taking a loss on existing tooling and R&D, but also having to commit all of the resources which would usually be taking them forward, just to stand still.

So it's not a surprise that it's smaller or less competitive companies- your Santa Cruzes, Schwalbes, etc- that got so enthusiastically into it. It's a rare chance to not have to compete on an even playing field. Those who're already well established- Specialized, Maxxis, etc- don't have as much to gain anyway but would face exactly the same costs of change.

So now, they can launch products on a timescale of their choosing, learning from the mistakes of the early adopters, having run down 26 inch production mostly on their own timing. And when they do launch the 650b Enduro or Butcher or whatever, it'll be news, in a relatively quiet time whereas if they'd done it 6 months ago, it'd be "just another 650b story"

(it is, of course, exactly what Specialized did with 29ers and fat bikes- wait til the market's proven and the demand is well understood then launch a safe product. The circumstances are different but the strategy is the same)

So perhaps they could have done better with an early launch- though remember this is with hindsight, I think very few people expected 650b to go off the way it has. But give it a year or two and I think everything will end up pretty much exactly as it was before in the small wheel market, just that some companies will have put a lot more into selling 650b than others. And Specialized will still own the 29er market.

And they could just have easily done a Giant, who really have come out of this looking like idiots and undermined their trusted brand, and who're going to come out the other end with a troubled small-wheel launch and a knackered bigwheel range.

As the MTB world goes 650, the remaining demand for 29ers is a 'niche' I'd be happy to be a successful player in..

I think 29" is here to stay and I'm sure Niner are not panicking.

All the palaver over 650b made me curious to try 29" in a contrary sort of way, I love it for a lot of my riding and I'm pretty sure 650b wouldn't have the same benefits at all (simple physics rather than personal experience I confess).

I wonder if some people will try 650b and then [i]want more[/i]?

I wonder if some people will try 650b and then want more?

Well, if the market trend is anything to go by, it would appear that many people tried 29 and wanted less! 🙂

Yes, I was guilty of thinking a bit too UK centric then.

Yeti had 12 orders from shops for the SB66 for 2014 for the entire US. Hence them canning it.

And yet "26 ain't dead" according to some