Will trail centres just increase the size of the features they have (rock gardens etc) to make the trails ride as they previously did when people had 26″ bikes…

Hmmmmmm!

Interesting question. I’ve still not seen one out on the Surrey Hills trails.

You’re not looking hard enough. We had one (of 3) with us on Sunday, and there were a couple of others at Peaslake that I noticed.

Liam Killen seems to have switched according to the article on his third place at the Sunshine Cup on the BC website. http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/mtb/article/mtb20120221-Road-To-2012–Liam-Killeen-Finds-Form-At-Sunshine-Cup-0

Rubbish. Willow Koerber and Emily Batty both chose were paid to ride them this year at 5’2″ at 5’3″ respectively.

FTFY

I’ve a 26″ Camber that never gets taken out to Glentress now that I’ve got 10.5kg 29er HT. The world has gone weird – my touring bike with drop bars has 26″ wheels while my MTB has 700c rims! I didn’t see that coming 5 years ago.

FuzzyWuzzy – Member

weeksy – Member
Depends… for XC as said above… Yep.

for Trailcentres etc… Nope.

My 26″ Bionicon wipes the floor with my 29er when it gets bumpy/rocky.

But what 29er do you have? You can’t really make a worthwhile comparison about rocky terrain between a long-travel 26″ bike and presumably a hardtail 29er

Exactly.. .and that’s my exact point.

the new santa cruz nomad 9 / tallboy lt will be the game changer and may set the tone for the next few years trends….

I’ll be looking into the 29er string when I’m in the market for a hardtail later this year but it will still suffer from the same faults compared to a 26″ hardtail in that it will be uncomfortable over rocky/rooty terrain so I’ll keep the stumpy for that 🙂

Schmiken – Trek make a decent range of 26″ bikes, including the Top Fuel as ridden by the Flueckiger brothers, they have riders on both wheel sizes.

Plenty of pro riders are particular about their grips or their seatpost – you’re unlikely to get one on 29″ wheels unless they want to be. It’s why things like FS/discs took so long to infiltrate. Arguably 29ers have been adopted more quickly – first victory last year, I reckon we’ll see more than half the field on 29ers for 2012, that’s quite a turn around!

FWIW I still ride a 26″ bike, but would definitely consider a 29er.

Are 29ers really the future?

They are the past revisited.

what’s the best way to sell new bikes when everyone is inclined to buy them 2nd hand – market ones that you can’t get 2nd hand. 29ers.
Mugs.

magazines was negative. fast forward to now and they are loving them. i don’t think the bikes have all miraculously improved, so there is a lot of media hype going on at the moment.

To be fair the magazines a while ago had decided unequivocally that a trail bike had to have 5.265″ travel front and back, 723mm riser bars, their favourite saddle and be in blue. Anything that remotely veered from this view was derided.

Maybe they just started riding again without prejudice. Though as they probably only get 29ers to ride these days that might help too…..

Or the bikes could have evolved?

5 years ago 6″ travel bikes were heavy and slow in comparison to those of today. Doesn’t necessarily mean that attitudes have changed, just that bikes have.

I don’t really get all the “they’re everywhere, OMG, WTF!!!!!111one!!!!!eleven1111!!!” attitudes – someone said that on BikeRadar last week. Of the last 10 MTBs they’d reviewed (then) 3 were 29ers: one racey hardtail, one racey FS and one trail FS, so pretty diverse.

Of the remaining seven 2 were steel bikes with Alfines. So actually there’s more reviews of steel Alfine equipped bikes than 29ers. I’d say that’s a smaller market segment too.

I’m not sure why people struggle with the concept that there is a diverse range of 29ers (increasingly so) – just as with 26″ wheeled bikes there will be some better than others. Because you’ve tried one bike doesn’t mean you can say that no 29er is any good for you. A bit liking riding a TT bike once and then saying that road, CX and tri bikes are terrible.

I’d love to try it, but I also really want to know – are they really quicker over the ground for the same enegy input.

On certain very specific ground then yes.(Straight stuff with a poor surface). Mostly, no. I have 5 MTB’s, Stumpy FSR, Epic, Stumpy Hardtail and Soul are 26″, GF Paragon is 29″. For most stuff the Epic is by far the quickest, for steeper, rockier stuff the Stumpy FSR is best. For throwing around the woods the Soul and stumpy hardtail are fastest.

The 29er gets taken out for long rides on byways such as the North Downs way. It’s the least used of my bikes, not because it’s bad (it isn’t) but because it’s not got the hooligan character of the Soul, the nimble speed of the Stumpy hardtail or the comfort and “get out of jail free” of the FS bikes.

But most of all I just don’t notice that it’s different enough to get excited about riding it, it just feels like a slower, duller version of my other two hardtails.

Having said that of course all 29ers are not the same just as all 26ers are not the same, but it would be the first bike I’d sell if I needed cash and I wouldn’t be looking to replace any of my other bikes with a 29er. BTW I am 6′ tall so it should work for me.

Need to save some funds as swapping from 26 to 29 seems expensive, new wheels, forks etc…

what’s the best way to sell new bikes when everyone is inclined to buy them 2nd hand – market ones that you can’t get 2nd hand. 29ers.

They are one of the most Obsoletest trends of recent times; great for bike companies; frustrating for the average joe who thought he was up to date.

Still haven’t tried one myself. What works best on the trail is all that should really matter.

what’s the best way to sell new bikes when everyone is inclined to buy them 2nd hand – market ones that you can’t get 2nd hand. 29ers.
Mugs.

I bought mine secondhand, not sure where that leaves me in your tin foil hat obscured world view.

I own a Scandal 29er Hardtail and a Heckler with coil shock and 160mm fork, so two extremes really.

I genuinely believe it is “horses for courses” I find that on the 29er it is not just that big wheels seem to roll faster, but that I can get away with tyres with much less of a pronounced grip pattern and thinner in width for the same level of grip, so that helps them to roll faster. When riding along flat terrain, once up to speed, then i can watch myself clearly putting in less pedal strokes in compared to friends on 26er wheels.

But if the terrain is tight, twisty and technical downhill, then the long fork, smaller wheeled Heckler is a lot quicker in the turn and doesn’t need to be “muscled” round the turn.

I bought mine secondhand, not sure where that leaves me in your tin foil hat obscured world view.

you’ll have wasted less money than others?
at least it’s my obscured view and not one someone else has forced down my throat… 😀

There’s nothing much un-nimble about my 29″ Karate Monkey compared with my 26″ hardtail. With a short stem it just feels like a very decent hardtail. I don’t notice a lot of difference between it and my 26″ hardtail, other than that the latter looks sillier because it’s got small wheels on a huge frame.

If i didn’t already own lots of 26″ tyres and wheels and was starting from scratch in MTB’ing, i’m sure i’d demo a few.

But i do and i’m not so i haven’t.

If you like open riding then 29 makes sense but for twisty, technical rooty stuff the smaller wheel seems to be more nimble.
Waiting to see a 29er fatbike…

I’ve been riding mine since I built it up back in November’ish last year, I have yet to come across any down sides to it.

The bike is a 100mm travel HT BTW.

It rolls quicker than my old 26’er, handles just as well, climbs better, is lighter (arguably it’s alloy and not steel) and it at least as comfortable. It’s superb on twisty rooty single track and handles Peaks descents & climbing just as well, personally I’ve seen it as a bit of a revelation.

It’s got acres of stand over and descends way better than my 120mm travel 26″ bike ever did.

The 29’er is a Chumba HX2 with Reba RL’s and the 26’er was a Cover Handjob with Reba Races.

I think they are on the rise to be honest.

If you like open riding then 29 makes sense but for twisty, technical rooty stuff the smaller wheel seems to be more nimble.

All other things being equal, I guess they would be, but as I said above my 29er runs with a much shorter stem… just feels like there’s more inherent stability in the bigger wheel so I can run a very short stem for nimbleness without it feeling twitchy and uncontrolled. It’s just a stock Karate Monkey but 80% of the off road riding I do is on pretty twisty stuff, and there’s not much to separate it in the singletrack from my IF 26″ wheeler, which I had custom built with the instruction to make it nimble.

schmiken – Member

Rubbish. Willow Koerber and Emily Batty both chose were paid to ride them what ever they though was fastest for them this year at 5’2″ at 5’3″ respectively.

Fixed that For You 🙂

Ride what ever you want though.
I for one coundn’t give two *****.

not read this thread as 29ers have never really done anything for me…until i watched this:

[video]http://vimeo.com/36855647[/video]

650b will be the next wheel size pushed by the industry.

it’s all bikes. That’s all that matters.
Except if it’s a road bike.
That’s wrong. 🙂

You’re all missing one key point- 29ers just look so wrong. They are as ugly as sin. I’d consider getting one to replace my granny’s old shopper, but even then, I’m sure it wouldn’t look as nice.

peachos – what a big shock, an exceptionally talented uk BMX legend shreds a bike he has been given. Another shocker “riding with good style and creativity makes riding look awesome”.

I never get this, is it really what goes through peoples minds, “they can ride like that because of their bike”? Doesn’t it never occur that a good rider is going ride good on whatever bike you stick underneath them?

You can’t buy skills or compensators, to gain anything in terms of riding takes time and hard work.

ade ward proves my point rather well.

GlitterGary – Member
You’re all missing one key point- 29ers just look so wrong…

Always judged my bikes by how they worked for me rather than how they looked.

Probably why I build such ugly bikes 🙂

I think my singular looks lovely.
So there….
( blows a big rasberry)

First Look! Santa Cruz Superlight 29er & Highball Alloy 29er Mountain Bikes

Santa cruz have 2 new 29ers, they are soon going to be impossible to ignore

Oh well you can please all the people all the time , some people have open minds and others are closed,

My two pence, I have a Soul, 3×9 drivetrain and On One carbon rigid forks. I love it – fast, nimble etc.

Just built up an Inbred 29er SS to make my own mind up about it all. SS, Salsa Cromoto forks and mid range kit. Weight is the same as the soul (no gears) and I have to say I love it more than the Soul. NEVER would have expected that in a month of fundays. I really can’t find a downside – apart from the tyres exploding obviously.

apart from the tyres exploding obviously.

It’s the wheels that explode you 29er noob. 😉

Well it was my tyres that went.

I built the wheels, obviously they will be perfect.

8)

deanfbm – Member

You can’t buy skills compensator’s,

FTFY.

er,yes you can,they’re called ‘full suspension mtb’s’…..

😆

love the look of your 29er ade ward 🙂 26 or 29 or 650 still got pedals and youve still got to make them move! come on its all good 😀