Charge ditching 29/650B for 2016

Glasgowdan gets it, all these niche bikes, weird tyre sizes etc and yet I never see any out on the trails?!….

….who is buying them and do they only bring them out under cover of darkness?!

Virtually everything I see on rides at trail centres, my local woods, uplift days, local races etc seem to be 26 or 27.5 HT or FS wearing ‘normal’ tyres….I see the odd 29er too but seeing as I spend most of my time at BPW or FoD even they are rare beasts.

Good on you if you ride a rigid with fat tyres but nobody else needs to worry about not being able to get spares, forks, tyres etc for their normal bikes, there are loads of stuff around and market forces dictate that if enough people want something then a company will step in and sell it to them, whether the industry consider it old tech or not.

Now that 27.5 has replaced 26 we get these plus sized tyres to give the same diameter as a 29. So we can all return to one standard wheel size and just use different tyres to suit our needs.

Except this won’t happen as there are geometry compromises in long travel 29ers.

Charge are a small UK company who have little influence on the industry overall; what they do have though is the benefit of being able to change their product design relatively quickly to fill a gap in the market or offer something different if that’s what they feel like. Cotic, Dialled, Singular bikes etc are in a similar position in this respect. I’ve no problem with this and good luck to them, particularly as they’ve had the balls to answer their critics online in this forum.

Personally I like their bikes, i’ve only ridden a Cooker Rigid which I had for 18 months and was the first bike I used for dabbling into 29+ territory. It was a lovely bike to ride and was only replaced to move onto a full 29+ frame which was only available from Surly at the time. If the new Charge 650B+ bikes had been available then i’d definitely have considered one.

Got to say that having gone 29+ recently I can see how 27.5+ is going to be a fun bike to rag around the woods. It won’t have quite the mile munching ability of a bigger 29+ wheel though.

At worst, it’s a regular 650 but with a lot more mud clearance.

As for this ‘the industry’ coming up with devilish ways to **** us over, well that’s just horse shit – if we, the people, didn’t buy stuff, they wouldn’t make it…

a regular 650 but with a lot more mud clearance.

and a lower BB if the OD of the wheel’s reduced?

1.5cm lower for the b+ by my measurements, less difference if you use a bigger 650b tyre than the 2.8″ Trailblazer.

I do think that EBB’s make more and more sense when bikes are being touted as ‘multi-wheel’ size – allows you to tune chainstay length and effective BB height to suit.

flowmtbguy – Member

As for this ‘the industry’ coming up with devilish ways to **** us over, well that’s just horse shit – if we, the people, didn’t buy stuff, they wouldn’t make it…

Look at the evolution of 650b+ though. Started out, the entire point of it was that you could put it in your existing 29er. Then assorted big players looked at it and went ****! We’ve missed a chance to sell new frames and forks here. And so invented new axle standards for b+. I think the only surprising thing is that this time it’s Rockshox taking the piss on fork standards.

I think B+ is really interesting, personally, I’d like to try it but I don’t think it’s cynical to be cynical about the cynical direction some companies have taken 😉

Funnily enough, my Swift has EBB to allow for that…

adsh we will continue sponsoring the Erlestoke 12, we might even do something crazy and race the 27+ bikes! Don’t forget 29″ wheels fit in these 27+ frames and that the outer diametre of the 27+ is very similar to a 29″ standard wheel (all depends on tyre type). All I would say is 27+ is no fat bike.. Rolling resistance is far lower than you might imagine. Everyone who’s actually ridden the bikes have been very surprised.

I have enjoyed reading the comments in this thread.. Those saying how much they liked our 24″ Iron and Blender, Dusters etc.. I would say we had almost exactly the same skepticism when we first launched those bikes, for them now 5 years on to be singled out about what was / is good about our brand. These new 27plus bikes have been researched, ridden and launched in exactly the same way. Time will tell.

Don’t forget 29″ wheels fit in these 27+ frames

Is that true, the article on STW home page said the chainstays had been shortened to fit the smaller 27.5×2.8 tyres. Can you confirm this ‘officially’ or otherwise?

chargebikes – Member

adsh we will continue sponsoring the Erlestoke 12, we might even do something crazy and race the 27+ bikes!

I raced my 29+ Surly Krampus at Bristol OktoberFest and Brighton BigDog last year and had great fun at both. As the guy from Charge said, plus standard bikes are different to Fat Bikes and certainly no slouch on the woodland singletrack.

Stato – yes I can confirm they do fit in the rear. Rear ends on Cooker27+ frames are all 135mm width – not Boost.

Started out, the entire point of it was that you could put it in your existing 29er. Then assorted big players looked at it and went ****! We’ve missed a chance to sell new frames and forks here. And so invented new axle standards for b+.

Boost was made by Trek for 29ers, to help wheel strength and allow a bit more mech/tyre clearance… which is the reason its also been adopted for 27+.

Non-boost 27.5+ bike by British company that’s 29er swappable.. sounds great to me.

Looking forward to some reviews or early feedback

To dig-up this thread, has anyone seen any geometry info?

There is spec on the website but little detail about hte frame. All the bikes come with 27.2mm seatpost which seems like an oddity in these days of dropper posts.

http://cooker27plus.chargebikes.com/