[Closed] Toe curling 650b marketing guff.

It's simple really 29" for XC bikes, and 650b for more Enduro stuff, with 26" being binned. I think it's a good thing as ultimately everyone gets better mtb's as a result, and people also make money, it's a win all around.

Just opened this months ST. I've changed my mind the 27.5 marketing guff is actualy noxious.

I still want to try/buy one, as I think my 29er's have been so significantly better than the 26" bikes they replaced, so 650b might have advantages. But the marketing is wayyyyy OTT.

Want's list:

29" 150mm travel bike for 'enduro'
29" 120mm travel bike for 'trail'
(already got a hardtail, but somethign carbon and sily lightweright wouldn't go amiss)

Thankfully being 6ft and able to ride on properly sized bikes this whole debate is below me (litteraly).

It's simple really 29" for XC bikes, and 650b for more Enduro stuff, with 26" being binned. I think it's a good thing as ultimately everyone gets better mtb's as a result, and people also make money, it's a win all around.

define better please?

29 might be better for some XC courses some of the time, nothing is ever cut and dryed. 26 and 27.5 f* all difference.

Except the tyres/wheels/forks/frames etc i have are now obselete and spares will get harder to get quite quickly. Particularly if you want anything half decent.

Leku - Member
Trek employee at 1.45 - 26" wheels are best for up to 140mm / 150mm travel bikes.

So that's most of them then..

That's what I was struggling with trying to understand. I think she means that it's 29", not 26", for up to 140mm. 26" are gone. 27.5" for > 140mm.

But then she was going on about flickability. If you want that, then surely the smallest wheel is best? So who knows what she actually means.

Except the tyres/wheels/forks/frames etc i have are now obselete and spares will get harder to get quite quickly. Particularly if you want anything half decent.

Will they? Plenty of new 26" kit is still getting released. And most peoples arguments against change are "I already have everything and spares in 26".

😆 at hora and dezb. Why is captain Picard in the back of the car?

Imagining some posters walking into their LBS

"I want a really low BB and slack head angle because that will make it more stable, but I want really small wheels to make it less stable"

No doubt in an effort to remain just behind the curve in a few years they'll be demanding steep angles and 29" wheels (not that that's old hat, just the illustrative oppposite).

A slack head angle and low BB enable you to drift your bike around more and have more fun with your smaller wheels. 🙂

Will they? Plenty of new 26" kit is still getting released. And most peoples arguments against change are "I already have everything and spares in 26".

No, the issue is that most people have a fair selection but not many have a full set, so all you do have is scrap. I have spare wheels and tyres, but not forks for instance.

No, you heard it from the Giant bloke in the video 29 wasn't right for some markets - By that what he means is that although it took off in the states, 29 fell flat on its arse in the rest of the world, Europe in particular - 650 came about to force people into change because they wouldn't buy in to 29 by choice.

You seem to think manufacturers care about the high end mountain bike market outside the US... Hell I'm just over the boarder and they won't listen to a word from the reps/dealers. I think people in the UK would eventually started riding a lot more 29". It's just a nation of luddites. All the shall I go tubeless or buy a dropper post posts on here display that perfectly.

That's what I was struggling with trying to understand. I think she means that it's 29", not 26", for up to 140mm. 26" are gone. 27.5" for > 140mm.

But then she was going on about flickability. If you want that, then surely the smallest wheel is best? So who knows what she actually means.

Watch it again. She says 29" for stability and speed and 650bs for when the travel starts to make the wheelsize less relevant. I'd say you could easily have overlap between 650b and 29" upto 160mm but that's the only thing I would really disagree with what she said. Thing is Trek make a sweet 160mm 650b Slash yet Tracey Moseley just won the EWS on a 140mm Remedy 29".

[i]Watch it again[/i]

Now you're [i]really[/i] having a laugh!

Whether people want it or not I think the bit about 26" being dead tells you where they want to go. 26" parts will get harder to get. You can see now on other parts - getting 1 1/8" forks are now harder to come by (ok, Merlin have some but choice is limited compared to a few years ago).

Whilst there are loads of 26" bikes around from the last 20 odd years I bet decent, new model forks etc will be harder to get in the next couple of years

After 5 pages of the usual shit, who has actually ridden a 650b bike and 29" bike?

who has actually ridden a 650b bike and 29" bike?

yes just wish there was some middle ground between the two

#runs away back to workbench 😉

yes just wish there was some middle ground between the two

😉

After 5 pages of the usual shit, who has actually ridden a 650b bike and 29" bike

Me! Currently still have both too 🙂

A Liteville 301 & an Enduro 29.

Can't decide between them to be honest 🙄

Great. First a dogshit video, now I-know-it-all JCL wades in harping bollocks.
Its going nowhere. Bin it.

Increasingly I'm finding that the most important thing about my MTB equipment is warm feet and a comfy arse, wheel sizes are pretty low on my list of things to consider. If 27.5 is what they make then I'll buy that, I'm sure it'll be shitloads better than me.

Kudos for the Castle gif.
Finished seasons 1 &2 on netflix, preordered the 1-5 boxed set. Castle rocks.

27.5 can suck my ry se lls BECAUSE of the way its being marketed like feed is marketed to geese for foie gras

[img] [/img]

I like my giants, but im going to stick with my proper sized wheeled one for as long as possible you shower of *ng *t ******its

The wheel size debate, the gift that just keeps giving.
I recently built up a 2010 orange 5 frame I bought at Xmas last year.

At the time of purchase I was aware it was not the current model (last of the older, smaller seat tube, 1 1/8 head tube.
But that did not bother me in the slightes as I thought I had the makings of a great bike and the differences would make no difference to me.

Then i became aware of the whole wheelsize debate and was originally peed off that my bike no longer would be current and lacking compared to the far superior new 27.5 bikes that seemed to be taking over.

But now after much deliberation I am glad I have the frame I have as I genuinely believe my bike is far more capable than I ever will be.

My objection is to people standing up and saying 26 wheels are finished and not a patch on the very bikes the sold you last year, whilst singing there praises and charging you a few thousand for the pleasure.

Also a bit miffed with orange as read a post sometime ago where someone wanted to buy a replacement swingarm from them only to be told the were keeping the ones they had for any future warranty repairs.

Now surely if you spend thousands of pounds on something that you would hope to get good use of would you not expect said companies to make parts for it for atleast 5 years or so.

Imagine buying a new car and then in three years being told by the manufacturer, sorry we no longer make the parts you need and the few we have you can't have.

My objection is to people standing up and saying 26 wheels are finished and not a patch on the very bikes the sold you last year, whilst singing there praises and charging you a few thousand for the pleasure.

Exactly. F those guys.

Now surely if you spend thousands of pounds on something that you would hope to get good use of would you not expect said companies to make parts for it for atleast 5 years or so.

Imagine buying a new car and then in three years being told by the manufacturer, sorry we no longer make the parts you need and the few we have you can't have.

with cars and stuff I'm sure they have to make spares for a certain timeframe after with bikes not so sure though even if some enterprising company makes a pattern part or copy part to cater for that market a manufacturer can sue your arse

unless you make technical progress (improved product) to replace the OEM part

Also to accommodate these larger wheels,
The frames appear to have strange shaped down tubes, Stems with brewers droop And rubber stops to prevent your bar furniture from damaging your frame .

All goes to make me think they have not really thought this through.

Some suspension systems work well with bigger wheels, some it is a squeeze and the geometry [especially seat tube] gets weird to fit it all in.

Single pivots end up with very long chain stays.

Horst links seems to work pretty well.

Maestro and other twin links seem to have issues, because like single pivots they have a forward arc. Pivot and Niner get around this, because their lower link is more forward.

29er giants didn't look right and the seat angle didn't work.

For me, I think you want a straight seat-post and short chain stays, and this is much easier to achieve on 26 and 650b.

Also a bit miffed with orange as read a post sometime ago where someone wanted to buy a replacement swingarm from them only to be told the were keeping the ones they had for any future warranty repairs.

Now surely if you spend thousands of pounds on something that you would hope to get good use of would you not expect said companies to make parts for it for atleast 5 years or so.

This is one of the things that really annoys me. The whole industry seems to be saying "we were happy to take your money last year, but now you can F++* off as we have found a new set of suckers to fleece"

If that's true about Orange I'm disappointed, I imagined that there was an element of service and backup available.

And given that the stuff is made by being folded and welded it wouldn't kill them to run up a few more when they need to would it?

who has actually ridden a 650b bike and 29" bike?

"all the math, all the science in the world to prove"

OH LAWDY *facepalms keyboard*

It just seems so obvious in a few years 26" bikes are going to be brought back in a big way for their 'flickability', agility, how they're like a jump bike for the trail, how they're so easy to manual, how they accelerate so well, lighter, lower centre of gravity etc. etc.

The only bike i've actually wanted /considered buying is the 26" wheeled stumpy evo and that has already sold out for next year apparently ...I'm sure there will be plenty of 29er ones left though .

who has actually ridden a 650b bike and 29" bike?

We've done all three sizes in Ibis Builds recently....

[img] [/img]
26" 160mm rear travel HD

[img] [/img]
27.5/650b 130mm rear travel HDR

[img] [/img]
29r 120mm rear travel Ripley

The HDR is Marks (shop owner) own bike/shop test bike and from what he's said after riding them round the Dalbeattie 7Stanes trail is...

26" is fast, very fast and rock solid.
27.5" is faster and more stable - a rocketship. 😉
29'r felt slower when riding but was the fastest according to strava, felt a bit cumbersome on tighter sections but the speed it carried through other sections was astounding/made up for slower steering response on tighter sections.

He uses strava and i guess he's got pretty much every section sewn up after riding the ripley (unless it's the climbs)

He's not a slow rider either being ex Scottish DH champ and he's the first to admit he's laughed at the 29r fanatics over the last few years but after riding the ripley he held his hands up and said it is astounding just how fast the 29r is when you get it wound up, he prefers the 650b HDR though as it is just as chuckable as the 26" with the ability to hit stuff faster and harder without any of the wheel flex but a tighter build on the ripley wheels may cure that.

My opinion is mleh 🙄 ............i couldn't care less how fast i ride (non-strava user) or whether i shave another fraction of a second off - when i go out for a ride i go out to bimble and enjoy myself in the countryside well away from trail centres so my own personal opinion on the wheelsize debate is "i couldn't give a flying ****" that's why i'm perfectly happy with my 26" hummer, I'm even getting my soulcraft 26" wheel sized steel frame repaired so i can build it up with rigid 1 x 10 set-up.

I've not rode any of the above as i'm not that interested in them or going faster/harder so i can't offer any personal insight on how they ride apart from i prefer the Blue colour of the Ripley 29'r.

So the Ripley 29'r is obviously the best in my opinion.

And is the "trek" woman in the video Chris, as in ex gf of chipps?.

EDIT....And as for Giant saying 26" is dead?....i think they have managed to kill off the entire bike industry with this abomination, it's even named the "[b][i]REVOLT[/i][/b]

[img] [/img]

A fat bike gave me an idea of how far is too far though.

Oh Lordy! You've really popped your old fella in a hornets nest there. Given how passionate the fatty riders are, you better sleep with one eye open 8)

Hi all, Chris the 'Trek lady' here (Who called me lady!? #insult)

Anyhoo...As there seems to be some confusion, I thought I'd unconfuserize my statements.

Before I do that, let me just point out that there has been a LOT of editing to this video. Tons of stuff that I said was cut, and I suspect that's the case with everyone else.

So, here's the rest:

-Nothing we do shows us that any bike, of any range of travel is faster than a 29" wheel. There are always exceptions, but in a bell curve style, 29ers are faster, and roll over terrain better, in general. I know you are all sick of hearing about research and testing, but that's just how product developments happen. If not, then none of the bikes you are currently enjoying would be here.
-My comments about 27.5 separating itself from 26" when you hit 140mm of travel: For the type of riding that a person would do that means they would choose a 140mm of travel or more, then what we've determined is that 27.5 wheels perform better than a 26" in terms of speed and control, but not as well as a 29er in terms of speed and control. It doesn't mean that 26" doesn't work. It just means that a better small wheel is slightly faster and more stable, but it still closer to a 26" in terms of performance. 29" is still way out there.
-DH bikes are still at 26" wheel sizes because of the difficulty in creating larger rims that are stiff enough to withstand the rigors of DH riding, without a huge weight penalty. Believe me, everybody is probably prototyping DH bikes with bigger wheels.
-The Trek range provides 3 wheel size options based on the type of ride someone wants to experience. Some people want to go as fast as possible. Some people want to stick with what they started on. Some people want a happy medium. Some will never change. Some will experiment. All of that is just fine by us.
-The Fuel EX range comes in 26 and 29. Remedys as 27.5 and 29. Slash will be 27.5 only. Session, still 26.
- Many of our lower price point bikes will be 29ers simply because they are stable bikes for people to learn on. Sure, people can learn on 26" wheels. All of us probably did. It's about enabling people to feel confident, and you've all seen the information that shows that bigger wheels roll over things easier. Just look at fat bikes.
-Developing a new range of bikes, with all of the required tooling just to make them, let alone the R&D before even one of them rolls off a production line, is a massive expense. Then, for a company like us, you have to keep in mind that we have to make all of the associate Bontrager stuff, like tyres and tubes, to be able to accommodate yet another wheel size. The complete package is a very expensive proposition. And to use the dreaded 'D' word again, it takes at least 2-3 years to bring a product to the stage where it can even go into production. There are a ton of resources required to do that.

So there you have it. I'm sure that won't satisfy everything, but I hope it sheds a bit of light on our take in the face of some shonky video editing.

So there you have it. I'm sure that won't satisfy everything, but I hope it sheds a bit of light on our take in the face of some shonky video editing.

So you won't be doing any more interviews with BikeRadar then?

EDIT....And as for Giant saying 26" is dead?....i think they have managed to kill off the entire bike industry with this abomination, it's even named the "REVOLT

True At least the Anyroad is kinda bonkers different, rather than just gash.

My comments about 27.5 separating itself from 26" when you hit 140mm of travel: For the type of riding that a person would do that means they would choose a 140mm of travel or more, then what we've determined is that 27.5 wheels perform better than a 26" in terms of speed and control.

For the love of god give us some real world data to back up your claim.

thisisnotaspoon - Member
Imagining some posters walking into their LBS

"I want a really low BB and slack head angle because that will make it more stable, but I want really small wheels to make it less stable"

Proper demo of 650b - Meh like 26" really slightly more momentum offset by slightly more lag out of slow spots/tech climbs
Roll out on 29" yah roll more oh corner wind it back up again... not really into my XC racing not that bothered.

For the love of god give us some real world data to back up your claim.

Don't you worry your pretty little head about the details. Daddies got you 😈

For the love of god give us some real world data to back up your claim.

In what form or what would that data consist of?

Rene Wildhaber probably did some timed runs and went a bit quicker on the 650b. What more could you expect than something like that?

As the 'Trek Lady' said, 29" is still faster 🙂

Is this the test where they roll the wheels down a ski jump and see which goes furthest

Well ok everything points to 29 being faster for what the majority of riders ride in the UK, but the wheels are not as strong and it dulls the ride. 26" are stronger, more fun to ride etc etc.

27.5 is like 26" but a new way to sell more bikes 🙂

Good on Trek lady for at least coming on to a forum and explaining her point of view to tiny weenie fraction of the population of people who buy mountain bikes.

It still comes down to the industry deciding that all people want to do is cover a distance off-road in the the least possible time, which for many of us is simply not true.

Great. First a dogshit video, now I-know-it-all JCL wades in harping bollocks.
Its going nowhere. Bin it.

Don't be a player hater bro.

Rene Wildhaber probably did some timed runs and went a bit quicker on the 650b. What more could you expect than something like that?

Not just Rene, but also Shandro, Travis Brown, Tracy, and a host of other people in the development group. I'll see if I can dig up the white paper and if it has any data in it on this subject, I'll post it here.

It still comes down to the industry deciding that all people want to do is cover a distance off-road in the the least possible time, which for many of us is simply not true.

Although I do indicate that a lot of what we know about wheel size is about speed, in my defense I've also said loads about how ultimately it's about what type of ride someone wants. That part is even in the video. And to be fair, lots of people do care about speed.

oldnick - Member
If that's true about Orange I'm disappointed, I imagined that there was an element of service and backup available.
And given that the stuff is made by being folded and welded it wouldn't kill them to run up a few more when they need to would it?

It's just economics, everyone is curious about the new wheel size so why make 26" frames that are going to gather dust, if the big wheel bubble bursts (like everyone said 29ers would) they can go backwards to 26"

26" is fast, very fast and rock solid.
27.5" is faster and more stable - a rocketship.
29'r felt slower when riding but was the fastest according to strava, felt a bit cumbersome on tighter sections but the speed it carried through other sections was astounding/made up for slower steering response on tighter sections.

He uses strava and i guess he's got pretty much every section sewn up after riding the ripley (unless it's the climbs)

Could you please post the strava times then we can get a better idea of the difference.
Thanks.