[Closed] So how soon will 26 " wheels be back in ?

Again?

2015 will be the year of the mountain tandem.

Never

Mountain biking will be banned once the number of wheel size discussions exceeds the amount of the internet that was allocated for pron.

^ 😆

The real issue is being able to try each of the sizes on your favourite or local trails to see which is most suited (suites you sir). Without this ppl will just go with what they have been told or read.

Mountain biking will be banned once the number of wheel size discussions exceeds the amount of the internet that was allocated for pron.

Thank god for that, I was getting worried.

Tuesday, around 10.30 am (it's my day off)

All this indecision, next bike will be a CX.

Now, discs or canti's....

Who cares? I've got two 26" wheelers in the garage & don't plan on changing either, for anything.

26" back in? Never really seemed to go out as far as can see...

I really need to hear the [i]bikeind[/i] take the on this topic...

26"? No, what we need is a size in between that and 650b which brings the benefits of both - for those who like their trails half-asleep. The next big thing will be 650c (aka 571).

scotroutes - Member

Again?

And again.

Just got back from a weekend away with our climbing club.
Spoke to three people who had deferred purchases of new MTB's because of the wheelsize debacle.
2 spent the money they saved on holidays and 1 bought a road bike instead.

Still don't personally know anyone who has bought or is planning to buy a 650b.

When the mud returns and I start riding my winter hardtail 😀

I really need to hear the bikeind take the on this topic...

Trust me 650b is not I repeat not going away anytime soon!
It is here to stay

26" Will stay for the cheaper end of the market

Continuously-variable wheel sizes, that's the way forward.

how big the wheels are surely has very little bearing on:

- how fast you are (that's based on skill)
- how much fun you have (that's based on terrain and mates)

And personally, I don't change my bikes that often. Generally only when they are either broken, tatty or I've upgraded them as far as I can.

So I'm still on 26s and still having fun.

2018 along with flares and disco fever.

Hopefully mine will still be working by then as like Rusty's mates I will wait 'till this is sorted out before next purchase!

[i]how big the wheels are surely has very little bearing on:

- how fast you are (that's based on skill)[/i]

which is why world cup xc races are often run by people riding 20" wheels?

[quote=wwaswas ]how big the wheels are surely has very little bearing on:
- how fast you are (that's based on skill)
which is why world cup xc races are often run by people riding 20" wheels?

add in fitness & strength to the mix then

about 4 years ago 650b was set to be the future

I must have missed that one. Only 650b thing I can remember seeing in the press then was Benji of this parish being dismissive about a Spooky Horror Taxi.

Trust me 650b is not I repeat not going away anytime soon!
It is here to stay

Thanks bikeind; could you let me know next week's lottery numbers while you are at it?

The fact is that even the people who make these decisions don't know what they will be offering us more than a couple of years ahead.

Of course they will try and sell us the new wheel size. One of the ways they will do that is by trying to convince us that it's here to stay. But, if it doesn't result in the increase in sales they want then you can bet they'll try something else.

So, to answer the OP, 26" wheels will make a comeback if and when somebody thinks they can sell more bikes by sticking 26" wheels on them.

Fair play to you bikeind, you are not giving it up are you...

Whether you are a genuine [I]believer[/I] or just another STWists comedy pseudonym I have to respect the tenacity with which you keep the whole [I]"650b is Teh Awsumz!"[/I] thing going...

God bless you.

My own prediction:

Bicycles will continue to use wheels, wheels will continue to be round (mostly)... That is all.

[i]Trust me 650b is not I repeat not going away anytime soon![/i]

I was reading this in magazines about 26" bikes, forks and wheels this time last year.

It's now getting difficult to buy a 'normal' but decent 26" bike off the peg and I can't see it being long before supplies of forks start drying up (certainly from the discount stores that tend to rely on buying 'close out' deals in bulk from manufacturers).

At least there's a large body of 26" bikes out there to make sure that rims and tyres continue to be available for some time.

26.75 is where its at ... trust me.

which is why world cup xc races are often run by people riding 20" wheels?

A throwaway comment of course (and there are very few riders here who race in World Cup XC).

The point is that if a (normal) rider thinks going to bigger wheels will make him/her faster then go for it. But it won't make any difference. If you're fast on 26s then you're fast and if you're not fast on 26s then new wheels won't change that.

And if it doesn't make you faster, and it isn't any more fun, then why are you spending loads of cash on bigger wheels/forks/frames?

I can't see it being long before supplies of forks start drying up

There won't be any problem getting forks for your 26" wheels. You just use a 650b fork with a 26" wheel 🙂 It wasn't long ago that most 26" forks could take a 650b wheel anyway. Even if you are worried about a couple of mm difference in offset, it's only the lowers that need to be changed anyway.

bikeinds propoganda aside

Ive got 650b bike coming any day now, not because I wanted a different wheelsize but because the specific bike I was after is only available in that size

26 will never die out but like 1" stems and v-brakes youll see less and less of them on the trails over the coming years

26"? It's back and the next really big thing.

A really really big thing.

Called fatbikes - you'll all be riding them next year except those of you deriding. 🙂

[i]for the purposes of humour or to strengthen your argument is unclear[/i]

bit of both, tbh.

my experience is that a 29er is faster on certain types of terrain *for the same effort*. It certainly feels like it needs less effort to maintain speed on the sort of bridleways you find on and around the South Downs and through a lot of the wooded singletrack too. This is actually irrelevant for most of the riding that I do as I don't go out for more than a few hours and tend not to race.

It does mean that 29ers give a different riding experience to 26" though. And I like different riding experiences which is why I have a road bike, a cross bike a SS 26" bike, a 29er hardtail and why I'm just finishing building an expensive 140mm 26" bike so I also can see and accept your argument that fun is as big a part of riding as speed.

Like vinyl and cd's though most people will buy what's conveniently available. 26" v 650b will be low on a lot of people's list of priorities - they'll want something they can buy in a local shop at a certain price point that makes them feel good about their bike and ridign it.

29ers have been kicking about in mountain biking since the late 80's early 90's... I don't ynderstand the whole "industry foecing new standards" thing as they have been playif catch up with the niche beardie builders who have bewn playing and refining stuff like this for years. 26" will still be about and that odd in between size thingy...yeh whatever. Just ride a bike and enjoy yourself. Pretty much any bike you buy now will be a loads better than one from 5 years ago so it's all good. I love the fact that back in the day atb's where a place for open minded loony designs and folks really wanting to do cool stuff. Now mountain biking has become mainstream on the whole it one of the most conservative and downright dull sports/activities/ pastimes. It's getting as baf as golf!

Like I said on a previous thread (would you believe this isn't the first one on the topic?), its not a massive leap to make frames and forks that can take either 26" or 27.5" and still be perfectly good in either mode IMO...

The fact that the recent 650b fuss originated from people basically just trying out some slightly bigger wheels in 26" frames that had a shade more clearance, tells you a fair bit IMO, it's not the seismic shift some people would have you believe...

There were already adaptable enough frames and forks available, essentially enthusiasts demonstrated the feasability of the thing (much as they did with 29ers before) so all the bike companies had to do is swoop in, lash together some products and blow their bugle signaling "NEW TOYS ARE AVAILABLE", the cynic in my dislikes this marketing driven approach, but then the realist in me accepts that its simply a business and nobody is actually holding a gun to my head either, I'm resistant to the whole thing, but I am really not that concerned...

Ultimately I'm not worried, it's another minor sub-division in MTBing that we could probably do without, but 26" wheels won't suddenly stop working and I'll be able to fit my 26" wheels in 27.5" forks with minimal drama I expect, I wouldn't be shocked to see some manufacturer or another flogging two bikes, with the basically same frame but different wheel sizes soon, all about COGs innit... It's the "cross compatibility issue" which Swapouts were made for, anyone with half a brain could devise a way of satisfying both the old stick-in-the-mud types and the MBR hype believers for relative peanuts...

There are plenty of "niches" where can't see 650b penetrating as quickly, if at all, DH DJ or street bikes are not jumping all over the fad... but you never know, there's always someone willing to try stuff.

It's not like 650b is a "Bad" idea just a different one, there are already bikes like the SC Bronson that seem to have people (with the money), who can look beyond the interwebz guff in a bit of a froth, it's apparently a good bike (SHOCKA!), surely that's the key thing in the end...

I'll probably end up owning a 650b bike in years to come, they are only bikes, they are just objects, trends emerge and others die down. Its not worth getting worked up about really...

This week, I ha' been mostly riding....

Elephants

[img] [/img]

This week, I ha' been mostly riding....

Elephants

*reported for bestiality and misuse of a step ladder*

wwaswas - Member
26" v 650b will be low on a lot of people's list of priorities - they'll want something they can buy in a local shop at a certain price point that makes them feel good about their bike and ridign it.

/Thread

Will somebody ,for just a minute,please think of the poor tyre manufacturers,they must be going through hell just now. 😀

fasthaggis - Member
Will somebody ,for just a minute,please think of the poor tyre manufacturers,they must be going through hell just now.

It's all their fault anyway. If they didn't make the tyres, 650B would never take off.

650B could of course get orphaned.

It has happened before, eg it's difficult get tyres of decent quality for a gentleman's sports bike (26 x 1 1/4") and impossible to get new rims that size (597 ERD). Possibly something to do with the lack of gentlemen these days... 🙂

yawn, they are all just bikes... move along, nothing to see here.

Next development as I see it is wheel size being related to frame size. As someone who rides either XL or XXL frames, there is no doubt that the position of the frame and rider, in relation to the wheels, on a 26" is very different to that of a rider of the same bike on a small or medium frame. Essentially us bigger riders are perched above, as opposed to being slung between, the wheels meaning higher centre of gravity and more chance of being involuntarily separated from our steed due to an unplanned forward movement over the bars (that's my excuse anyway 😉 )

So it seems to me to make sense that wheel sizes increase as the size of the frame increases. Certainly an XL or XXL frame with 29er wheels doesn't look nearly as clown-like as a small frame with the same. By the same token an XXL frame with 26" wheels looks more like a Brompton than it does a well slung bike like a small or medium frame will.

Some manufacturers are already starting to do this. Seems to me to make more sense than having a one size fits all mentality, regardless of whether someone is 5'1" or 6'4"

FWIW I've a 650b Norco Sight. Not sure whether it brings the trail alive for me or whether I'm faster on it, but overall it seems to fit better and I certainly enjoy riding it (I've also gone up in travel and increased slackness, so it is hard to do an objective comparison with my Flux, it's a great bike though)...

At the end of the day each to their own. Choice and innovation is usually a good thing, the market will usually decide what's best in the long run

I dont know but it has cost the bike industry a sale. I was planning on changing my full sus this year, but with all the uncertainty and speculation as to what will or wont be here in 2 - 3 years time then I have decided not to bother. There is nothing wrong with my current bike, just fancied a change, so I will carry on enjoying that and wait for the dust to settle.

Unlike most of you sceptical lot, who blame the manufacturers for pushing consumers to spend more money, I actually think its the reverse. I think there are many bike companies out there who are worried about missing sales because people will simply overlook them if they don't have a 650's/29-er's in their range.

Even the over-abundance of these threads kind of highlights this point. The fact that we've got so worked up about this means that most of us, even sub-consciously, downgrade bike companies in our minds if they don't have other sized wheels in their range.

I've just read an Orange 5 and Hevkler 650b review/comparison.

My interpretation was that "..if you move this way, that way, forward a bit, pump here, pedal there, but not this that or those, they are betterer."

Or in laymans terms you/the reviewer spent so much time justifying 650b everyone forgot to enjoy themselves.

And on that note, I'm out.

wheel size being related to frame size