It goes something like this, bike company marketing man sits in an office thinking of ways to push new product because sales have dropped due to bikes not really changing much over the last half a decade or so.

decides to lob some flatbars on a cyclocross bike and the yank fireroad warriors go mad for them.
finance department notices they are selling well so decides to slap the same big wheels on anything they can get them to fit into accompanied buy a few million pounds worth of advertising budget – yanks go even more mad for them. unfortunately there is a point in suspension travel and bike type where they stop working so 650b is adopted – not really big enough change to make any real difference to handling but big enough not to fit into current frames and forks properly the perfect product to sell some more snake oil to the people that must have the latest bit of kit that bike gaydar is advertising.

get a rocket, that way you can have some modern technology on your bike and still be one of the cool kids with a cotic.

with regards to the wheel weight thing, its not so much the weight but where the weight is on the wheel, the bulk of the weight is in the rim and tyre.
the two could weigh exactly the same but the bigger wheel would still have more inertia.

true, by the time the forks are at the correct sag the summum with its mentally slack HA is going to have a shorter wheelbase than a stumpy 29er.

probably to take a drink on the kilometer long fireroad drag some of which is actually uphill apparently, DH race my arse.

bwarrp the sarcasm was strong in mt post, i’ve ridden champery its a proper DH track not a fire road with 100 yards of rocks like that fontana joke.

it happened later in the process for me, i had an email telling me they were processing and shipping my bike then another one about 10 minutes later saying the bank had refused payment, i ok’d the transaction with the bank and then emailed the UK customer service bloke asking him to retry the payment. about 45 minutes later i had a reply from him saying everything had gone through fine and my bike was on its way.

my strive took 5 days from clicking buy to having the UPS man knock my door, there’s a good chance that your banks anti fraud system will block payment too so it mught be worth informing your bank of the transaction in advance.

looks like the champery podium is going to be filled with clown bikes from now on then 🙄

all this dry weather and i’m at home coughing up brown mucus due to a chest infection 🙁

this thread has taught me 1 thing, the OP is a bit of a bellend.

as far as BB’s are concerned i’ve had no issues at all with shimano bearings with them lasting well over a year without issue, same for hope , raceface and GXP BB’s are a different story though they reaqlly are terrible.
have an E thirteen crank&BB on my current bike and it also seems fine so far after 3 months of winter use.

from that description i’d go for the nerve CF.

its not out of the question, 75% of the track did appear to be fire road after all.

Why do people worry about air loss on forks with worn stations?
The air spring is on the inside of the leg, the seals just keep thee oil in and dirt out.
As long as your not losing a load of oil and the bushes are tight just do an oil change and keep on using them.

is ragley a CRC owned brand then?

if the bottle mounts are where i think they are they’re pretty unusable, 1 seems to be in the middle of a mess of cables and the other below the downtube.

seems like a very long winded way to say 650b nomad to me.
more like 20 mins of development than 20 years.

i recall it was kind of similar to mondrakers zero system, but all the virtual pivot designs aren’t a million miles from each other.

buzz you should have said you’d just pottered over some slightly undulating canal path on your singlespeed monstercross bike, there would be no end of nichebike hipsters patting your cyberback then.

ah right, shame, they looked quite decent.

i’d second bryn bettws, its right on top of the new bike park and 4x track a well as the wall and whites level, with the m4 only a few minutes away for access to brechfa or FOD, not particularly fussed about cwmcarn for trail riding, it’s a bit boring.

they are also interchangeable internally to accept either 26 or 650b wheels, unlike those scumbags at fox who deliberately reshaped the arch on the lowers on 2013 forks so they no longer clear 650b wheels.

bwaarp your my hero, let the let the XC wendy’s have their cumbersome fad-wagons so they can shred the gnarr down their local canal path.

for the love of god, can’t there be one thread without the 29er nazi’s invading.

or you could just buy the kit and do the job properly.

http://www.mojostore.co.uk/acatalog/Air_Spring_Volume_Tuning_Kit.html

richieokeefe1 the fact that 26″ bikes are so dialed now is exactly why they are pushing different wheel sizes so hard. its an easy way for them to shift new product, its very hard to sell someone something they already have.

well played OP, nice to see a real bike in one of these new frame threads rather than the usual rigid 29er single-speed fatbike abominations that are popular here.

biggest problem i had was that the transitions were way to lenient, even trying to take my time i was getting to the stages way to early and waiting around, i started every stage with frozen gears due to the waiting.

you hit the nail on the head there Northwind dan is likely do do very well in the upcoming enduro word series and the all new 650b 2014 GT force will appear soon after.

i quite like the GT but that santa cruz is hideous, i don’t care how much 29ers ignore the laws of physics, i wouldn’t be able to ride the thing because i’d start throwing up as soon as i opened the garage door.

mostly trail centre tracks but afan’s are pretty natural feeling by trail centre standards, the exceptions were the second half of stage 4 which was super boggy and a short section joining 373 to the 4x track, good job really because the natural sections were properly boggy with stage 4 being almost un-rideable. would have been amazing if it was dry though.

agreed atherton would have won on any wheel size the dude is insanely fit.
apparently on stage 4 (total mudfest) Neil Donoghue thought he’d pulled a bit of time on him only to see him running besides him carrying his bike !!

thought dan athertons bike looked a bit out of proportion too.

not sure if serious?? the twrch descent is as boring as a fire road, i find it the least rewarding of any of the welsh trail centers.

nope the faster rider is better always will be.

the massive push of new wheel sizes comes down to one very simple fact, that is that it is much harder to sell a person something they already have.
forks have gotten about as good as they can get.
better rear shocks have made rear suspension work well no matter what design it is.
brakes can send you into orbit with 1 fingers worth of pressure etc.

the big boys needed a new selling point so they started the whole 29er thing, a good few million $ later it caught on. suddenly everyone (americans) is selling their perfectly good 26″ bikes and buying 29ers and the marketing men are overjoyed. move on a few years and the same marketing, sorry R&D department decide they need a new angle and suddenly 650b is the third coming, suddenly craigs list is awash with the old hat 29ers and any american seen on a trail not riding a 650b is scoffed at by his peers.

at the end of the day the fittest rider will be the fasted to the top of the mountain regardless of wheel size.
and the most skilled rider will be the fastest to the bottom regardless of wheel size.

get some of the hardcore roadies to look at it, it may be a chinese knockoff posing as a colnago.
the proper roadies are awesome at spotting the difference

oh dear the wagon wheel evangelists have arrived, yes i’m sure they do go up hills without you even having to peddle, turn the redbull rampage course into a fire road, turn darts players into world champion XC racers over night etc,etc. . .

rider sponsored by a company that builds custom frames needs a custom frame. am i the only person that is not at all shocked by this. 🙄

there are plenty of excellent quality plastic frames for less than half the price of the ones OP mentioned, steel frames are for old people with trouser clips and Sam browne belts.