The Future of wheel sizes on Hardtails

Who Should be on what size wheel?

  • Everyone on 26

    Votes: 9 12.0%
  • Everyone on 27.5

    Votes: 10 13.3%
  • Everyone on 29er

    Votes: 15 20.0%
  • XXS - MED 27.5 / LG-XXL 29er

    Votes: 9 12.0%
  • XXS - Med 27.5 / MED- XXL in 29er (MED in both wheel Sizes)

    Votes: 32 42.7%

  • Total voters
    75

1speed

Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
There is no need to take any of this as a personal attack in any way. The truth is that at least 2 of the largest bike mfgers in the world are going to be 100% done with 26" by 2015. Those decisions have been made. Tires, fork and wheel production numbers are dropping. This was the first year that Stan's sold more rims in 650b than in 26". They are selling more 29er than 27.5" by a large margin. At least for now anyway...


My real motivation here is to see if 27.5 should be for all riders or should we see wheel sizes scaled by height on hard tails. Specifically on bikes below $1000 where this may be the riders first mt bike, do you think that a scaled wheel to riders height makes sense??

The poll results show that so far, the vast majority of voters would choose a scaled system with overlap for med riders who might choose to go either way. This system of course makes it easier on vendors with less sky's to manage.

Of course smaller builders may make 29ers in xxs and some may do 27.5 in XXL, but the target here is not super high end.

In the original post, you mentioned that you do see it as wheel-size scaled to rider height. Do you typically make the recommendation to your customers or do you usually go with what they request walking in the door? Or do they typically ask about it themselves? One thing I've learned is that I have to be open to suggestions from my LBS because no matter how much I may play around on these things, my shop guy knows a lot more about bikes than I do. Like I said earlier, I'm pretty much happy on a 29er (and I'm right on the edge at 5'6"), but if I was in the market for N+1 and my shop guy (who's proven again and again that he wouldn't steer me wrong) told me I need to try a 27.5, I'd definitely go out and at least demo one.
 

743power

Shop: Bicycle Pro
Shop Keep
I've yet to feel a 29" full suspension that i am comfortable on, and my hard tail 29 is still less than ideal for me, but I think I will stick to the 29er for hard tails. The advantages are so clear that its impossible to overlook. Personally, as someone who is above 6 foot, I have no interest in 27.5 hard tails, but I'm very interested in them for FS.
 

jdog

Shop: Halter's Cycles
Shop Keep
In the original post, you mentioned that you do see it as wheel-size scaled to rider height. Do you typically make the recommendation to your customers or do you usually go with what they request walking in the door? Or do they typically ask about it themselves? One thing I've learned is that I have to be open to suggestions from my LBS because no matter how much I may play around on these things, my shop guy knows a lot more about bikes than I do. Like I said earlier, I'm pretty much happy on a 29er (and I'm right on the edge at 5'6"), but if I was in the market for N+1 and my shop guy (who's proven again and again that he wouldn't steer me wrong) told me I need to try a 27.5, I'd definitely go out and at least demo one.

So consider these facts when looking at a sub $1000 HardtaiL:

The 29er:
more stable
Carries more momentum
Rolls over bumps easier
People already come in looking to buy them

The 27.5:
Lighter
accelerates faster
jumps better


I lay these ideas out and typically buyers will go for 29er. I have tried selling 27.5 hardtails and I find them a tough sell. This even goes for shorter customers. They often respond: ' My friends all have bigger wheels, i want them too"..

The media has been pumping 29ers as the best thing going for a # of years now, and suddenly they are saying "less big is better, but bigger than small is better".. It is all fairly confusing.
 

BShow

Member
Guy who destroyed the cat 1 class at the nationals rode a FS 29er converted to SS...true story.

It was the Singlespeed Open field and Seamus is pretty legit. He was riding a converted Giant FS 29er. In addition to the SS title, he also won the Pro SuperD national championship that weekend. He's been racing World Cups since 2008 I think.

Back on topic, My wife is 5'2" and she's got a SS 29er; she loves that bike. She also has a couple of geared 26" hardtails and she loves those too. I think it boils down to a good bike fit and if you can make a bigger wheel work, great. If not, stick with the smaller wheels... that's great too. If you're sticking with the smaller wheels though, you might want to start stock piling some backup parts.
 

A Potted Plant

Honorary Sod
I'm new to biking in general as a adult and a compleat baby in mtb'ing but I have tried a 29er thought it was cool riding around my town because I could run over everything from curbs to tree roots to even small children but I got a 26er because to me it was more fun aside from pedaling being easier everything else was made more technical which made things more fun.


At the end of the day, whatever your reason for riding a bike the one thing you want to do while riding is enjoy it. 29ers make riding boring while my old ass trek 800 is tons of fun.
 

wonderturtle

Well-Known Member
not really

think he made that comment since I guess he thinks 29ers make it too easy or something... hence "boring"

but it depends what youre riding and where.

to me, riding a fully rigid, singlespeed 29er at places like Allaire or 6MR is far less "boring" (more of a challenge) then riding a full suspension, geared 26er at such places (talk about making it too easy and "boring"....MY opinion).

whatever. this is another thread thats gone on too long. J asked the question since he is a SHOP OWNER and it is HIS BUSINESS to wonder about what people "should" be riding. for most of us though, the question about what others "should" be riding is, well, none of our business really.
 
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Frank

Sasquatch
It doesn't matter what you ride as long as you are having fun doing it. Debating as to what is better is not as important as being able to ride.....something I've learned over the last 3 months.:(
 

Wobbegong

Well-Known Member
It doesn't matter what you ride as long as you are having fun doing it. Debating as to what is better is not as important as being able to ride.....something I've learned over the last 3 months.:(

Preach!! :)

The best bike to ride is the one you have.
 

soundz

The Hat
Team MTBNJ Halter's
confucius say a 5'2" person can never know how a 6'2" person feels on a 26" bike.. or any bike for that matter

Sent from my HTC6500LVW using Tapatalk 2
 

jdog

Shop: Halter's Cycles
Shop Keep
I am pretty happy with the voting results so far. It seems like the scaled system makes a lot of sense to most people.

Based on this a $500 bike buyer would come in looking for a bike and depending on the size of the rider the wheel size may vary, but the spec would not.
 

icebiker

JORBA: Morris Trails
JORBA.ORG
What I'd really like to see is a 650b rim, with a 3" tire, on an FS bike. This way, you get 29" wheels, with Krampus grip, without the extra height/diameter of a Krampus wheel (29+), all in an FS package (which has proven to be a successful platform for trail/AM bikes in 29").
 
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