What’s everyone’s latest experiences of riding a mullet bike?

Who’s had a go then, what did you think?

Caveat is I only want to hear experiences on bikes where the geometry didnt get totally screwed up.

Cheers.

I rode mine up to the top of my local hill, got about 50m into the first trail did a small jump, and managed to split myrear tyre and had to phone for a lift home.

In those 50m the geometry was fine, and in the 10cm above ground level it felt steady and unremarkable.

Hope that helps?

I’m testing my stumpy (29er version) with mullet a little right now. Since I bought it, I’ve been running it as a 27.5 wheeled bike, which rides great.

But seeing as I have the carbon Roval wheels that came with it sitting unused in a corner, I thought I’d try.

After a few rides, I think I’d struggle to notice a big difference if I was able to ride blindfolded. The slight slackening of head angle is noticeable, but not any better TBH.

Maybe rolls and grips around corners a little better, but again, not a huge difference.

All in all- I’ll stick riding the 2.4 Wide Trail 27.5’s and leave the strange frankenbike thingy to someone else.

Stumpy Evo 27.5 S3 that’s been long shocked and mulleted with a 29×2.5 up front and 27.5×2.6 rear.

Faster everywhere, definitely turns better but I’ve found you have to apply more effort to initiate the turn at first.

Because the Evo has such a comically low BB as standard, lifting the front and running long shock helps geo wise too. Saddle is slammed forward to offset the slightly slackened SA, and with 490mm reach, the bike is still plenty long.

My riding buddy mulleted his 29er hardtail over the weekend and didn’t notice any real difference on his ride

Mulleted my G170 with new forks and a 29 front wheel, and tbh it feels great, really floats over stuff. I dropped the fork travel to 160, in order to maintain some semblance of sensible geometry. As stock it is 170, but I had been running it at 180. I also have a Radon Slide which is a straight 29er but have never felt the need to mullet that – not yet anyway…

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You mean riding a converted mullet bike.

My 3 year old bike was designed as a mullet so it made no difference.

Must say I love it its a priority for my next bike.

Rode my Liteville 301 with 26 rear 27.5 front for a couple of years. But then again it was designed that way! Now run 27.5 both ends and apart from higher BB not a big difference. My Scott Spark 710 came with 27.5+ 2.8 tyres but I now run with a 29″ 2.3 on the front. Has raised BB a few mm which is no bad thing. Rides absolutely fine.

Ran my Liteville as a 27.5/26 for ages and really liked it.
Only really changed as it was a pain sourcing the 26″ tyres I liked and got a great deal on a pair of 27.5’s.

Ran my plus bike mulletted over the winter. Narrower (2.3 Magic Mary vs 2.8 DHR) front tyre had more bite in mud and more positive on turn in and much better over roots. Slackened off front end and raised bars a bit but not noticeable after 15 minutes riding after each change.
Not so good in dry loose stuff, so changed back now.
DHR 2.8 is pretty aggressive, so think it’s just as much about tyre width and design as much as rolling diameter.
Would recommend on front of plus bike for winter though. Switching to a smaller 27.5 would reduce the front too much.

definitely turns better but I’ve found you have to apply more effort to initiate the turn at first.

Whereas going from 29er to mullet, I found it was the opposite.

Really liked it for winch-and-plummet kind of riding on twisty, loamy, natural trails. Now full 29er on all my MTBs though.

“Whereas going from 29er to mullet, I found it was the opposite.”

Yes but that was 29 to mullet, not 27.5 to mullet! Or were you already agreeing?

Yes I was agreeing.

I’ve had two mullet bikes and both have cornered better and more intuitively than in full 29er set-up.

But I also preferred the mullet set-up to full B-plus on my SolarisMAX.

Have my trek slash in mullet about 60% of the time. 27,5 2.4 tyre in back. Longer Rides use it in low setting as 29er. Shorter mucking about rides – practicing jumps, drops etc or dh type trails use it in high setting as mullet. As mullet, Bb dropped by about 10mm so need to be a bit more careful with pedal strikes and I notice the small wheel doesn’t climb as efficiently. But for shits and giggles the mullet is great.

Also a Liteville 301 here. I’ve just gone back to 27.5 front/26 rear after a while on 27.5 and being completely honest I don’t really notice much of a difference. I’m not a bike tester though. It’s already got a slackset type headset and offset bushings so maybe they mask any difference.

Right – i’m back from the wilderness of not reading bike magazines or forums for a couple of years

I’ve just been riding my bike

However, after reading a few STW articles and a recent MBUK, the mullet is everywhere

This really is a full on marketing campaign from the manufacturers to get us all to ride a mullet

They done a hell of a job to convince us all that we needed a 29er, which we obviously complied with

We even got a little excited about fat bike wheels and then semi-fat bike wheels – but that was short lived…

Then we then got very excited about 650B, because they were obviously better than a 26″ wheel, but a little bit more responsive than a 29er

But now – if i’m getting this straight, they now want us to mix a 29er wheel with our 650B wheel??

Which way round should i mount my mixed up wheels???

Are we, the MTB buying public, actually falling for this??

I might just be a bit of a cynic – if so, please feel free to shoot me down!

https://www.starlingcycles.com/introducing-the-starling-tellum-a-mullet-bike-with-a-twist/

I’m very interested. Enjoyed modern 29ers I have ridden but I’m short and don’t have big long levers to move a bigger bike around.

If I could mullet my 27 Jeffsy without ballsing up the geo…offset bushes to simulate a slightly shorter e2e shock perhaps…

Caveat is I only want to hear experiences on bikes where the geometry didnt get totally screwed up.

What’s totally screwed up mean?
Was it less pleasant to ride up a steep hill or did the BB height screw stuff up ??
Small frame with 27.5 front and 26 rear…. on a frame designed for 27.5
Pedalling up was more challenging … but static HA was 62.1 deg and seatpost was much slacker especially sagged.
As a everyday permanent mod probably not but messing about the kid liked it.

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I really liked my Big Hit. It was heavy, but fast and playful. And rode much better as a 24/26 than when it was converted to 26/24.

You did ask for most recent mullet experience (although that would have been early 2000s)

Tom KP

It’s 27.5 nowadays darling, no one who’s anyone calls them 650b. 😜

But you’re spot on with the marketing. A cheap way to sell you something ‘new’ without having to make a new frame.

I’ve not really seen the marketing… apart from Mark’s excellent social media posts for the Specialized… but both my hardtail and full suss bikes are still mullets… big fan of the big front wheel… not had any ride in the last two years where I felt the set up was wrong.

I tried it….

Definitely something in the way it tips into turns, that was about it for me.

Another liteville301 here, I had a 26” and a 650b wheel on my previous 301 and would swap between them, had faster rolling tyre on the 650b with something burlier on 26, as others have said, I struggled to notice any difference, obviously with faster tyres there was difference in turn of speed. The bike and spare wheel got nicked unfortunately!

Are we, the MTB buying public, actually falling for this??

I might just be a bit of a cynic – if so, please feel free to shoot me down!

I think that this particular ‘development’ for once, wasn’t dreamt up in the marketing department.

It came from the downhill world cup. Manufacturers are pushing 29″ DH bikes as the solution you’ve been waiting for ever since you switched to 27.5. Even though most of the fastest racers are 5’10” or under and can’t physically manage them or just blatantly dislike them. Minnaar loves it, Danny and Laurie, not so much.

There was lots of off season testing on all combinations of wheel sizes and then the UCI changed the rules to allow mixed wheel sizes in racing for the first time. Now the worlds fastest riders can huck their meat without getting an Assegai up the chuff.

If you can’t see what wheel size someone is riding you can just listen for the amount of saddle buzzers in this video…

Obviously now that it’s chic on the race scene, manufacturers are getting on a bandwagon which they didn’t start but are happy to grab a seat. This comes with all the usual ‘best of all possible worlds’ sales copy.

I’ve been riding a Specialized Status for about 6 weeks which has replaced a 27.5 Radon Swoop 170 10.
The big difference that I’ve noticed is the huge amount of confidence I have in the front end. Flat out fast sections don’t feel as wild and on the steeper stuff the front hasn’t felt like it is going to tuck under on me. The bike is also more manoeuvrable than the previous one, easier to manual, jump (I am crap at both though) and push into a corner.
The Specialized is nowhere near as good a climber as the Radon. I know that some of the techy climbs I like are just not going to be doable on the Specialized.

I’ve only had a go on one 29” bike, a demo of a Deviate Highlander, and it definitely felt more awkward to ride than the Specialized. The Deviate felt like it came into its own when the trails opened up and the speed increased.
I’m 5’9”. The Radon was a medium, the Specialized is a medium and the Deviate was a large.

Seems to me that people mulletting up from 27.5 mostly think its good, and people mulletting down from 29 are a bit ‘meh’.

I’ve been doing some back to back testing. 29” to 275” at the back. Geometry unchanged. I liked it a lot but it was subtle. Pumps better and exits tight corners better. Suspension action was changed, that is bike specific though and depends where the specific bike sits in its suspension curve. Best thing for me was on sudden changes in gradient because you don’t get bummed by your 29” tyre, something that is more common now with short seat tubes and long droppers. I liked it and would choose mullet but the numbers show it’s slightly slower on fast, rough sections. So, mullet was more fun but less fast… all very slightly.

I’ve tried it, plus at the back and 29 at the front on my Middlechild.

Having ridden the bike in 27.5+ and 29, the mullet just feels like a mix of both.

There’s Confidence from the 29er front
and the rear Is more nimble from the 27.5+

Downhill is brilliant. However on flatter Highspeed corners you can feel the back wheel turning faster so the grip and balance feels weird until you get used to it.

I can’t see myself swapping the 29er wheel out of the back of my Banshee Paradox very often, but I might put a 29 in the front of the Middlechild if I was going to do some downhill.

I have an Evil Calling set up as a mullet. It’s not pushed by the manufacturer at all, I’m only aware of one other set up that way. It’s lots of fun. The front has all the grip and rollover of a 29er and the back just gets on with it. It’s a very playful bike but also very fast.

I also run my Trek Stache hardtail as a sort of super mullet in the winter but I’ve been doing that for a while- 29×3″ front, 29×2.4 rear. The rear was too slidey with a plus tyre in winter slop but now it’s just an absolute unit. I love it.

To be honest, I think what the back wheel of your bike is doing matters so much less than the front that it’s a good way to keep an old frame going.

As a shortarse I find the concept very interesting but have been disappointed how few brands offer a mullet, so for now I don’t believe they are pushing it at all. The Staus might change that but it looked too extreme for me.

I’ve just passed up the chance of mulleting my Edit as I ordered a new set of forks and could have chosen 29 but bottled it.

I did this – https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/i-mulletted-a-specialized-enduro/

As it was based on an Enduro 29 that are renowned for being tall and steep, it worked really well. I didn’t appreciate the ease of tipping into a turn until I’d bought a new bike that was a full 29er again. Slacker seat tube just meant i stuffed the saddle as far forward as it would go on the rails which was fine for me as I’ve a short body and long legs so I never felt cramped anyway.

I’d defo look for mullet as an option on my next bike.

I have put a 27.5 wheel in the back of my Ripley V4 was good fun on woods but more prone to pedal strikes. Have also put a 29er fork on front of my e-Sommet was 170 fork now running 160mm 29er fork & do enjoy riding the bike like this

I’m thinking of going 29″ wheel on the front and 26″ on the rear for a bit of a laugh. The front tyre being 3″ wide and the rear 4.4″.

I’ve just passed up the chance of mulleting my Edit as I ordered a new set of forks and could have chosen 29 but bottled it.

This. I considered ordering 29/27.5+ forks too but figured I’d stick with what works for me.