Anyone know if last year’s Alpine will fit a 650b wheel on the back without fouling the seat tube? I’ve been offered the chance to try some out, but not able to get hold of my bike for a while to measure it

Tom KP

Why bother. The Alpine’s ace as it is! 😀

Someone’s tried it…

I run my Alpine with 2.4 Rubber Queens. They’re probably a bit bigger than most 650b tyres 😯

Quite a lot of jiggery pokery there in order to make a tyre not quite fit.

Just wanted to see if they made the massive difference that all the magazine and companies are claiming without having to fork out for a new bike. But if I have to go to all that faff then I’ll prob not bother

I run my Alpine with 2.4 Rubber Queens. They’re probably a bit bigger than most 650b tyres

I wish people would stop saying crap like this. Yes if you put 1.9 inch tyres on a 650b they will be smaller than a 2.4. But if you put a 2.4 on a 650b it WILL be quite a bit bigger than a 2.4 on a 26 inch. 🙄

quite a bit bigger

About 25mm bigger?

Rik – Member

I wish people would stop saying crap like this. Yes if you put 1.9 inch tyres on a 650b they will be smaller than a 2.4. But if you put a 2.4 on a 650b it WILL be quite a bit bigger than a 2.4 on a 26 inch

Weeeelll. Maybe. 2.4 RQ is the tallest 2.4 I’ve come across, you can get 2.4s which are much smaller. No reason to assume tyre companies will stop lying about tyre sizes just because the wheel is slightly bigger. So in reality the difference likely won’t be as big as you’d expect… I reckon if they stay true to form, a 2.4 Mutanoraptor in 650b will probably give a smaller rolling radius than a 2.4 RQ in 26.

(also it seems like 650Bs are defaulting to slightly smaller sizes, though we’ll see how that plays out once there’s a proper range available I guess)

I’m not convinced it’s 650b that is giving the “benefit”.

I do wonder when I see comments of how fantastic 650b is how much of the supposed performance gain people are feeling/reporting are simply the benefits of new wheels and tyres?

If your used to running wheels and tyres which are maybe a few years old and have seen some action and you swap to new lighter wheels with new tyres of course they are going to feel better 🙄

In the AM/Enduro arena a few years ago your choice was XC tyres and rims which shredded and dented at the first sight of rocks, or DH tyres and big wide rims which weighed a ton but hardly broke. Swap them for modern AM/Enduro wheels and tyres of either 650b or 26″ on modern wider rims and you will experience a huge benefit in performance.

I wouldn’t get overly hung up on the wheel size thing; IMHO modern AM/Enduro wheels with wider rims and some of the new 26″ AM/Enduro tyres feel great on this type of bike.

Having said that… if someone gave me some stuff to test I’d be happy to report back my findings; but I’m not buying into it with my own money 😉