Nah, their bikes are 2020 models but they've been on em for at least a month each. Nothing to do with them having to get used to them.Bugger me...have we not figured out wheel size has nothing to do with the amount of enjoyment we get out of our game of bike...end of the day it doesn't really matter , some people can ride others struggle a bit. Just because you were tailgating mates and you were up their clacker had probably zero to do with different wheel sizes.
You say you're mates were on brand new rigs, give them a few weeks to ac-customise as you need to figure out how to give them a bit of body english but after that when they'll be at the the bottom of the hill before you chances are you'll all had the same amount of fun.
Apart from that, not sure you read my post properly... Agree that wheelsize doesn't really matter