moorey
call me Mia
Yeah, nah, I like to drum 2 handed :noidea:I reckon only your right arm looks like that (unless you are left handed
Yeah, nah, I like to drum 2 handed :noidea:I reckon only your right arm looks like that (unless you are left handed
Sorry about the bluntness, but that's crap. I've ridden essentially the same packages in 26er & 29er formats, plus a few other combinations as well for balance, and wheelsize (along with necessary geometric compromises) does play a fucking big part in how a bike behaves. Anyone with a vague understanding of basic physics (which is about my level) is aware of the concept of gyroscopic inertia where a rotating object resists a change in direction; the bigger the object, the geater the inertia. That's why 29ers need a different cornering technique than 26ers.Wheel sizes means less than groupsets, suspension components or brakes.
Ha.............exactly what I bought back in Feb. Not particularly light at 12.8kg (no dropper) but for riding north of Melbourne / Castlemaine / Bendigo this is my 'one bike' bike. For me there are no too many places I feel more comfortable on my Giant XTC 29er (maybe Kurrajongat at Youies?)I know it's a bit of a gravedig, but came across this thread while on a search from another and thought I'd post my thoughts.
After many years of 26ers (back from the mid-90s), I was a bit of an early adopter with 29ers and bought the first Specialized Stumpy 29er (hardtail) one day when all I needed was a new tube for my road bike - this was mid-2008. I just really liked the visual proportions of the 29er wheels on a large frame. I've always thought 26" wheels look just a little too small on anything bigger than a medium.
This started a run of 29ers for me over the next few years where I just couldn't seem to land on one that steered like I wanted it to. I genuinely believed they made me faster on pretty much everything except really tight stuff, but I was definitely slower on super-techie singletrack. The fact that bigger wheels necessitated wider bars was also a problem on any trails where you're constantly squeezing through narrow gaps in trees.
So essentially, I stopped having fun on my favourite trails. I was racing faster in 100km races with lots of open fire trail, but my social riding was suffering at the same time and jumping? Well, I was never that good in the air, but I really sucked at it on big wheels. When you add all that up, I was basically becoming a roadie; the sort of rider I'd despised for more than a decade. Fit and fast in a straight line, but f*(&ing useless on loose corners or jumps.
So, fast forward a few years and I'm looking at a garage with 3 so-so mountain bikes of varying wheel sizes and realising that I don't love any of them and I'm even having trouble deciding which bike to ride on any given day for any trail. It was all getting very demotivational. So the penny dropped, I cracked the shits and put everything MTB-related up for sale. Sold literally everything I'd collected over the years and started from scratch on the search for the perfect 26" "one bike".
Enter the Trek Fuel EX9. Not the best at anything, but pretty bloody good at everything except DH. Looks the goods (even for a 26er) and has all the new mod cons - tapered headtube, 15/142 through axles, floating rear shock, DRCV front and rear, internal stealth routing for the dropper. All the good gear.
It's now been to Rotorua, where it ticked every single trail in the Redwoods except the DH course. I briefly rode a couple of other bikes while I was there, including a new Giant Trance 27.5 and the only thing that told me was how quickly I wanted to get back on my Fuel. I saw some pretty bling bikes while I was over there, but was never ashamed to be out on the Fuel.
And now the Fuel has taken me to the top of B grade and a promotion to A grade at the local dirt crits. Sure, I bought a lighter wheelset for XC racing, but @ $700, it was a lot cheaper than buying a whole new race bike and has given the Fuel some real pep in its step. At the end of the day, I'm a 39 year old workaholic dad who smoked for most of the last 25 years and doesn't have time for any structured training - the fact I'm racing reasonably quickly has a LOT to do with a bike that has mistake-proof handling and simply motivates me to ride my guts out every time I'm on it.
The irony of chucking in 29ers (probably for good now that 27.5 is on the rise) and buying the Fuel was that it was only a few months later that Trek changed the Fuel to a 29er. Do I wish I'd waited those few months and gone with the bigger wheels?
No way. 26 ain't dead for riders like me who aren't overly tall (I'm 185cm / 6'1") and need a single bike to do everything. Absolutely loving it. There's never a single second where I'm thinking "geez, I wish I had x% less rolling resistance over that trail irregularity" (in my opinion this whole "angle of attack" argument is null and void on a dual-suspension bike, but anyway...), but there are moments every time I ride where I wonder how I put up with stupid big wheels for almost 5 years.
Footnote: Imagine my joy when I recently raced a 3 hour enduro in a location generally regarded as "29er heaven" and saw the elite men's winner on.. wait for it... 26".
+1 thanks for the laugh26" bikes are a joke, 29 is the way forward, science has proven it.Unless you want to be left behind in the world of cycling, best you sell your 26ers to me, at a extremely low price that is reflective of their obsoleteness and general all round crappieness and get a 29er under your arse. PM me. :first:
Kurrajong is exactly where I've been racing the dirt crits. Even there, I'm still not missing my XTC 29er and my Strava times also suggest I have no reason to miss it.Ha.............exactly what I bought back in Feb. Not particularly light at 12.8kg (no dropper) but for riding north of Melbourne / Castlemaine / Bendigo this is my 'one bike' bike. For me there are no too many places I feel more comfortable on my Giant XTC 29er (maybe Kurrajongat at Youies?)
They'll be racing what their sponsors tell them to race.I m going to watch the Cairns world cup with interest . are 26ers going to be faster down all the A lines? Wonder what the majority of riders are going to race there
Lols, just thinking the same thing as reading through. There's a lot of stuff in mountain biking that has become accepted truth - bit like religion really......Since when do 29" wheels necessitate wider bars? Do I need a wider saddle and wider shoes too?
The bigger wheel has more inertia (the mass is further out from the hub) and benefits from more leverage (wider bars) to make it turn. Inertia is the force that allows you to ride no-handed; it's what makes the wheel want to move in a straight line *against* the forces that want to turn it. A bigger wheel has more of this, so steering is *factually* harder on a 29er, even if the difference is relatively small, and a wider bar helps here.Since when do 29" wheels necessitate wider bars? Do I need a wider saddle and wider shoes too?
the larger, heavier wheel produces more centrifugal (is that the right term?) force and needs slightly more force to steer it while rotating. the longer bar provides slightly more leverageSince when do 29" wheels necessitate wider bars? Do I need a wider saddle and wider shoes too?
Inertia of a bigger wheel might change he force required to steer by 20%, but this is a change in force of 1kg versus 1.2kg. Never have I heard or felt people say I'm just not strong enough to turn a corner that fast ?!The bigger wheel has more inertia (the mass is further out from the hub) and benefits from more leverage (wider bars) to make it turn. Inertia is the force that allows you to ride no-handed; it's what makes the wheel want to move in a straight line *against* the forces that want to turn it. A bigger wheel has more of this, so steering is *factually* harder on a 29er, even if the difference is relatively small, and a wider bar helps here.
Also, when the front wheel gets deflected by a trail obstacle, it in turn has more leverage *against* the bars, making it more difficult for the rider to counter the deflection; again an area where wider bars help. A lot of people blame poor head angles for going over the bars on a 29er, particularly in the early days of horrible 29er geometry, where the school of thought was to improve steering response by making the head angle steeper. In my opinion, I believe the OTB epidemic was also from people underestimating how much the bigger wheels were controlling their handlebars; again an area where wider bars help.
So in a nutshell, wider bars give you more control, especially at speed (i.e. DH bikes) and bigger wheels need more control, so 29ers = wider bars.
You may well need a wider seat and shoes, but this will depend entirely on your diet over the festive season, not so much your choice in wheel size.
Wide bars were often fitted to overcome the higher inertia (gyro forces) of the bigger wheel to make the steering feel more nimble.Since when do 29" wheels necessitate wider bars?