Is 36 Inches the Measure of Fun?

In the mountain bike world, we’re no stranger to new standards, some things catch on straight away. Other things? Well, they may take some time to war …

By identitizombie

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Would love a go on one, if only to tell myself I didn’t want one. Could go either way…

Why a rigid fork? Because any form of suspension would make the front end high enough to give you vertigo.

Looks like a recipe for horrendous toe overlap!

Looks like muddydwarfs 29er

Would love to try one

keener cycle works had an awesome 36er with custom lefty fork about a decade ago. looked bloomin marvellous. blacksheep 36ers were always a thing of mad titanium joy as well. nice to see the nichce still trundling about in the background

36 is dead. 37.5 is the future.

How long until someone builds a 369er Mullet?

This keeps cropping up every now and again. Remember listening to the Pike Bike podcast and they were talking to a guy who was test riding the concept for on of the big manufacturers IIRC.
would also love to have a crack at one, they look heaps of fun

Looks like a Clown’s Bike.

29 is definitely better than 26 and it’s only an increase of 3. An increase of 7 must be more than twice better than 29 was over 26. The numbers don’t lie, my only question is why they didn’t turn it up to 11 and go for a 40er.

Jebus wept. 29″ to ‘bring the trails back to life (again, cos we didn’t rinse you for enough last time)” in a few years’ time?

Is it April already ?.

Hideous and ridiculous in equal measure.

I once rode a titanium black sheep 36er space frame and truss fork. A bit like a Jones with bigger wheels. It had about an inch of suspension sag, measured at the BB, all achieved via frame flex alone!

Riding down steps was fun. Brrrrrrr brrr brrrr

https://dirtysixer.com/gallery/

Check out dirty sixer bikes for really tall people. I am gutter to be too small for one at 6’3”

it might seem like a joke, but 32″ is coming. I recon xc bikes first, size l and xl.

32 has been around for ages in a similar niche to 36. The main issues are lack of decent tyres and rims. (unicyle rims and rubber for the win) hell even 29+ (about 31″ outside diameter with a duro crux 3,25) is on the way out with manufacturers dropping models and lines and going back to the fluffy conservative world of 2.6 rubber or similar.

Travis Brown of TREK 69er wheel madness fame, has been looking at the R&D an 32 and 36″ wheel bikes for ages.

There’s a GCN documentary (out or imminent) about this, one of their riders is huge and never had a 700c bike fit properly, so goes down the full custom build 36er route with TJD, the only downside was the wheel weight as they had heavy aluminium rims, carbon rims on the build could be a total game changer.

Of course for tall people it’s proportional…The small frames up there
= less sensible!

Only suitable for tall riders.

Well, it might sound terrible, but at least it looks terrible.

Meh, been there and done that

Had a go at this 36″ stuff over 10 years ago when I built this, but I was a bit half-hearted about it because I also thought 20″ might be the way to go.

Note how I was ahead of the trend on modern trail geometry with a very slack HA. 🙂

I bought my 36er from Trubike in October 2021. See my separate thread ’36er’.
Great fun bike to ride generates a lot of interest when I am out cycling, a few other cyclist’s have also had a short test ride on it.
I am 5′ 9” tall, long legs, and find it a very comfortable responsive bike to ride, bought the all road version in XL frame size, ride gravel tracks, forest routes and occasionally road, handles as good as my mountain bike on rough terrain. Total bike weight at 21kg is quite reasonable for a 36er, 40% of the weight is in the wheels.
Out of my four bikes, other’s are normal sized, I am finding in over 50% of my rides now take the 36er as so much fun, hate to think how many miles I have already clocked up on it.
Trubike are located in Slovakia found the ordering process and delivery very straight forward, owner Robert Dilik speaks very good English both on the phone and communication by email.

That Titchmarsh looks nice