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.