Does anyone know if it’s fine to use a 27.5 Pike on a 26″ frame with a 26″ wheel (assuming the axle-to-crown is fine and doesn’t mess the angles too much). I’m tempted to stick a 27.5 on my 2013 Five – don’t want to buy a 26″ Pike as I reckon I’ll upgrade to a 27.5 frame in a year or so. Any reason why my plan won’t work? Also, does anyone happen to know the axle-to-crown height of the 27.5 150mm Pike? Lastly, what’s the deal with increasing or decreasing the travel on RCT3 Pikes – you can run them at 140mm and 160mm too can’t you, albeit with some internal tweaking? Ta for any help.

Yup, go right ahead.
I have the 27.5″ Pikes on my 26″ Mega with 26″ wheels and I’m not dead or owt.
Didn’t notice any difference in geometry to be honest from my old Lyriks.

Guy I know did it for a while on his Banshee before he decided to make the trails come to life. He never complained (unlike now when he can’t feel any difference with 650b’s).

10mm more A-C length than the 26″ equivalent and 2mm more offset – should steer pretty much the same as one roughly cancels the other but the front will be taller and your angles a bit slacker. Changing the travel requires buying a new air spring assembly or getting the existing one machined down.

I recon you’ll end up dead in a ditch after being bummed to death by satan’s own heard of goats just because you called it 27.5 not 650B.
Other than that carry on as normal.

Nice one, thanks for this info everyone. Dumb question perhaps, but does running them at different travels also reduce/increase the a-to-c height, or is only the travel affected? And how much does the mod cost, and where to get it done? Loco?

singlespeedstu – had no idea there was an issue with winding up pedants. Now I know, I’ll defo stick to 27.5.
Hope all’s well. Still planning on a Lakes trip sometime this summer – I’ll let you know if/when.

Coolio.
I’ll bring a tape measure and we can pass away a few hours measuring wheel of different sizes. 🙂

Sss – aye, sounds good. I’ll be running 26 front 29 rear.

AWSUMZ on steep climbs.
It’ll be like pedlin on the flat.

Yup, that’s what I’m running. I look on it as future proofing. As above, all it means is the axle to crown is 10mm longer, so 160mm 650b Pikes are no different than running 26″ Fox 36s, which can take 650b anyway.

Works for me, and gives a nice bit of mud clearance. At some point I may get some bigger wheels, but I’m happy for now.

So, last question – anyone know for sure what the a-to-c height of a 27.5 150mm Pike is? Haven’t managed to track down an official figure online.

sss – ha, or like wearing heels up the 25% hill I live on (Daisy, not me).

mmel – cheers for that. So that is indeed a 27.5 fork with a 26″ wheel in it? Looks fine.

Looks fine.

Indeed, I was surprised how little it looks like the wheel is too small for the fork on mine.

Exactly – just plenty of useful mud clearance.

I’ve always been confused why we don’t call 26″ wheels 22 inch (which is what the rim is I gather).

Yes, 26 has a 22″ rim, 27.5 has a 23″ rim, 29 has a 24.5″ rim – weird…

160mm 27.5 Pike is 552mm A-C, 150mm therefore 542, 140 532, etc.

My bike is designed for a 160mm 26 or 150mm 27.5 so ~545mm A-C. I’m running a 160mm 27.5 but at 30% sag which makes it the same length when you’re on the bike as a 150mm 27.5 at 25% sag. The Pike is so tuneable you can make it work very well anywhere from 20-30% sag.

Yup, go right ahead.
I have the 27.5″ Pikes on my 26″ Mega with 26″ wheels and I’m not dead or owt.

Likewise. I have a 160mm 27.5 Pike on my 26″ 2012 Mega, so that I can switch the fork onto a future 27.5 build if/when the time comes, and also to slacken out the bike a little. In theory the extra 2mm offset makes the steering marginally more twitchy but it rides fine and offsets aren’t standard across brands anyway.

160 vs 150mm = +10mm axle to crown
27.5 vs 26 = +10mm axle to crown

You will be fine with all of the above 🙂 there is a chart on the net with all the axle to crown heights of the pike, I’ve saved it to the pooter but it’ll be easy to find.

My 26″ bike currently runs a 140 Rev, I’m eventually going to get a 27.5 Pike and lower it to 130 (frame has 130mm travel anyway) as the 27.5 has a 10mm longer a-2-c over the 26″ version. Then when I upgrade to a 27.5 frame just pop the original air shaft back in or buy another one if the travel doesn’t suit.

I quite fancy a pike and was wondering the same thing. Question answered.

Stevelol, pretty sure I have the same bike and your plan sounds spot on, think I might do the same in the nearish future.

Oh and mmel, your bike looks ace 😀

Cheers all – sounds like it’s not such a daft plan after all. Time to get it sorted…

27.5″ pike popped through my door this morning, destined for my resolutely 26″ Zesty!