29ers

Mccraque

It seems that you cannot pick up a bike mag now without it being full of 29ers....most companies seem to have gotten on the wagon (wheeler) now. At the Gorrick on sunday a number of people were whizzing past (me) on them...

I rode a 29er in spain (Commencal Meta 29) earlier in the year and my expectation of it being a big unwieldy beast were put to bed early on. It seemed to fly.

But - in the environment I was riding, I didn't have a familiar 26" to compare to. I don't want to open the 26v29 debate that is being done to death elsewhere....but what do Strava users who regularly ride both types of bikes on the same trails find? Do certain sections favour one over the other? Is the 29er - as the mags will tell you - universally quicker everywhere?

I told myself that I wouldn't get pulled in by the marketing stuff and that I have a nice bike already. Yet....every month a new mag plops onto my doormat with shiny 29ers with smiling testers on board....

Please....pull me back from the brink.....

supersonic

Buy this months MBUK - they test (with caveats) the three wheel sizes of a set course and time them.

bennett_346

I'm sure it'll be impartial and have all the information we need to know.

Mccraque

Just looked the results up online. 26" last in every respect. Up hills. Down hills. Average lap time.

Surprise surprise.

bennett_346

Suprise surprise indeed.

ddraver

I was ambivalent about 29ers until I saw a Van Nichols Ti one in the LBS, even though it was in full Holland XCrace guise it was still very sexy....

If I was to buy one, it would be like that (though maybe with rigid forks...)

njee20

I'm sure it'll be impartial and have all the information we need to know.

Matt Page did it - he was talking about it on Facebook, he wanted it to be as impartial as possible - he's a racer, and wanted to know the fastest bike.

It was all tested using PowerTaps, same rims, tyres, fork travel, rear travel, tyre pressure, bike weight, rider weight etc. It's about as scientific as you can make a test, and certainly wasn't done by anyone with an ulterior motive.

dmorton

My thoughts and conclusion after reading it were that a full sus 140mm+ 27.5" wheeled bike could be very quick and a lot of fun.

I got to this from FS being generally faster than HT, then the test showed 29 and 27.5" were faster than 26". Out of 27.5" and 29" you can have more travel on a frame with 27.5" wheels so maybe that would be the fastest?

I also agree with the comment about 29ers being less 'fun'. I own one, I hit jumps, lips and bumps less. My 26er currently garaged but I can't wait to get out on it again.

This wheel size thing has parallels with board sports, e.g. snowboarding. Generally short boards are for messing about on and longer boards are for out right speed and stability

EH_Rob

As long as you're having fun when you're riding who cares what's faster in a test?

Although I've never owned a 29er I recently went from a 120mm hardtail to a 160mm FS. I'm slightly faster now on most trails I've ridden on both on the FS, the exact time gap depends on the exact nature of the trail. However on a few my HT times still stand.

However, I have way more fun on the FS. Does this matter to anyone else? No.

njee20

As long as you're having fun when you're riding who cares what's faster in a test?

Plenty of people! Folk who race, whether against their mates or 'properly', people are generally seeking more speed.

miss notax

I would actually quite like to try one but I have yet to be convinced that they are actually a viable option for *ahem* slightly shorter people like me. It just seems too much to fit into a small frame :?

cooldad

miss notax wrote:

I would actually quite like to try one but I have yet to be convinced that they are actually a viable option for *ahem* slightly shorter people like me. It just seems too much to fit into a small frame :?

I'm sure you can fit plenty into your *ahem* small frame*


*I tried to resist, honestly.

miss notax

Ha ha, i'm obviously having an extra rubbish day at work because that actually made me laugh!!

But I would still like to try a 29er!

njee20

Emily Batty and Willow Koerber are 5'2" and ride (Trek) 29ers, it can be done! Toe overlap and getting the front end low enough are generally the issues.

miss notax

Ah, ok, that's interesting....

You realise that if I end up buying a 29er in the next year now it'll be your fault now for telling me it can done

njee20

And here is Emily Batty's, complete with -17 degree stem!

miss notax

Very nice - but can't help thinking it just looks a bit odd :?

DodgeT

njee20 wrote:

Emily Batty and Willow Koerber are 5'2" and ride (Trek) 29ers, it can be done! Toe overlap and getting the front end low enough are generally the issues.

This bit alongwith mental images just made me smile.

njee20

miss notax wrote:

Very nice - but can't help thinking it just looks a bit odd :?

Pretty much! If you weren't seeking quite such an extreme position it would be more 'normal' though. The stem is the bit that looks really daft.

supersonic

It was all tested using PowerTaps, same rims, tyres, fork travel, rear travel, tyre pressure, bike weight, rider weight etc

The MBUK test? (latest edition?)

njee20

According to what Matt put on Facebook (not read the article).

"New MBUK magazine has a 29/650b/266 wheel size feature with a proper scientific comparison that I devised/wrote."

In the comments:

"Powertaps on all bikes. Same rims (No Tubes Crest). Same tyres, Hans Dampf. Same pressures, smae bike weights, same geometry, same travel...

I tried to cover everything I possibly could. There would have been no point in doing it if there were loads of variables. I wanted to know the answer for myself as well as write it up.

supersonic

The test in MBUK was interesting, but limited: it showed that weight for weight that the 29er was about 3% quicker over their course compared to the 26er. However 29er are not the same weight as 26ers spec for spec! That is one of the main points people argue when comparing them, so to take the extra weight out of the equation I thought was flawed.

The specs of the bikes were not equal either, the Felt Six pro vs Felt Nine Team is not a fair comparison, the latter is higher specced and costs more.

Which leads onto price: as 26ers are usually better specced for a set price, you get even further weight savings.

Sure, for a racer with unlimited pockets, the spec will be similar, but one bike will always be heavier. For the average rider where cost does matter, then things might be a lot different.

What was most interesting was the 650b, it was very very close overall to the 29er. (less than 1%).

So overall I'd like to see the test done spec for spec, and cost for cost (and with a non racer). Weight for weight is not real world, even for pros.

mattpage

Hopefully I can help remove any possible confusion.

It is the first time this type testing has been done publicly, ie. using power meters and controlling variables.
Before testing I spoke to many different engineers and those used to field testing to try and find the most accurate method possible.

The bikes were all the same weight overall, the wheels were different weights - as people know larger wheels weigh more. 26/650b are almost identical. 29er is not that much heavier, a few hundred grams like for like. Given rotating weight is considered most valuable when saving weight, you could perhaps speculate that the lighter wheels of the 26" bike would have been quicker uphill, but this did not prove to be the case.

Other than wheels, maybe the fork will be 100g heavier. But it is impossible to put an overall figure on it, you would just have to pluck something out of the air. Not very scientific.

We did try and get identical bikes from the same brand, but nothing was available in the UK or abroad. Overall the specification was very similar. Geometry and travel were kept the same, it was felt that was very important. Keeping the overall weight the same, would you really expect a bike with XX to be quicker than one with XT - Up or downhill?

It was not as if we had one bike with a cheap fork, then added ballast to expensive bikes with good forks. That would be an unfair test.

Time differences to most people were minimal, but they were repeatable and consistent.

ETA: We were testing the wheel sizes and the difference in those, not "what wheel size is fastest at £x price point".

ddraver

Seeing as I seem to be arguing about scientific tests a lot today (elsewhere), That looks pretty decent to me. Shame i can't get the mag in Holland though

njee20

It's available through iBooks I think, if you have an iDevice!

ddraver

No, not an ifanboi

Fatamorgana

The whole debate has been quite funny.
I did 2x pieces with a bike magazine (26 V 29) in 2008 and bought my Ti 29er that year based on what I rode in those tests. It was a no-brainer.
I had such fun on my 29er, it was an On-One HT and it engaged me in the whole riding process in a way that none of the other bikes I'd owned had ever done, both HT and full sus' bikes; all of which were 26ers.
It was an absolute hoot! A lot more engaging, you need to get her up to speed and then the rewards are there in the ride.
I had a 4 inch FS at the same time and some trails were more fun on the 26FS, but that's in part 'cause it was a FS and not a HT which always rode differently anyhow.
I was not especially quicker on the 29er as I recall, but it was a lot more fun. I was never quick, but enjoyed the 24hr rides and things like The Kielder 100 etc.
The racers I know who race in the top 10 at the likes of Thetford, Gorrick with podiums in the 24hr events, they've all gone to £6k+ 29ers a while ago.
Makes me quite nostaglic to think back to my own experiences in 2008 and smile about all the vililent, ignorant anti-29er rubbish people believed then.
Those who tried typically bought, there is no finer recommendation than that surely.
Try (and buy) would be my suggestion.

paulmgreen

I have had a 29er for a month now. I feel it's easier to ride. My average speed for similar effort on a 6-10 mile ride is about 1 - 1.5 mph faster. I notice on a longer ride I'm fresher in the second half. Once rolling its definitely easier and faster. I can catch some guys I wouldn't on my old 26.

lawman

Theres still the whole long travel issues though, 29ers seem to reach their limits above 140mm. Having tried a few 29ers, admittedly xc bikes, I didn't like them. Looking at size charts shows 650b to be much closer to 26", so I would be interested to see a test between 26 and 650b specifically.

And if you wanted to cover the whole spectrum, intense the tracer in all the wheelsizes, Fox make the 34 in all sizes, and obviously stans make their rims in all sizes too... Would be very interesting to see how that turned out!

Torres

The test looks like the most scientific that's been done to date; but I agree with the comment at the bottom of the article; publishing the power data would make the analysis better.

After all; it's all well and good saying 29ers are faster, but if you're putting in more effort then of course that's going to be the case.

The Rookie

This test was 26er, 650b and 29er, it 'suggests' that 26er is just too small as the 650b times are very close to a 29er despite it being a 27er (near enough, not a 27.5!).

It would be nice if the bikes had been ballasted to match rest of bike weight without wheel/tyre/forks which would be more representative perhaps.

For anyone on a budget 26er of course scores on cost, being cheaper to build a propotionately lighter bike.