29er buckling wheels and random thoughts

sandy771

Had a Giant talon 29er for a while when i got into MTBing and quite liked it but was persuaded to move to a Trance as a full suss suited the sort of riding I am doing. Love the Trance but have sort of been itching to get back on a 29er again and am looking at a Tallboy LT.

One slight worry is the wheel strength on a 29er as I have heard that they are weaker and more prone to buckle, didn't put too much stock in this but went out with a buddy over the weekend and he went OTB on his 29er Talon and buckled (slightly) his front wheel. That said I did have a go on his and a slightly up hill bridle way that I find hardish work on the Trance was a breeze on the 29er. OK it was a hard tail but I felt the difference was not down to a flexing frame.

We do do a reasonable amount of downhill but its not what I guess would be classed as full on - I am not really sure what full on is - but I am talking rocky granitey twisty and turny bits but there are no huge drops/jumps - well there are some but at my age I have no great urge to try them and happy to take the chicken run. We'll do a little bit of jumping but not a huge amount

My thought is that my skill level may not be enough to appreciate the shortcomoings of the 29 inch wheel, i.e. I would need to be riding it harder than I can to feel the difference. But from what I have read (and to an extent experienced) the advantages might outweigh the disadvantages. I appreciate that the best thing to do would be to get on one but I live 200 miles from the nearest demo bike so this is not the easiest thing to do.

Money is not a huge object and I do plan to keep the Trance, but thought (and will prob regret this) that I would ask the combined wisdom of this place

Are there any problems with 29er wheel strength (I am about 240LB)?
will a 29er AM wheelset be strong enough - I would assume so?
are the reproted techy handling issues of a 29er really that much of an issue?
Do/can 29ers make good downhill bikes, or are they OK/sh1t?

tootsie323

Not sure that I can answer your specific questions but I use my 29er more as a x-country bike than a downhiller - and tend to avoid getting any significant air - for the very same concern... buckling the larger wheel. For my purposes, the rolling momentum I can use on the 29-inch wheel far outweighs the downside of backing off a little when I'm on a downhill section.
My bike is a Trek Mamba, a pretty good entry-level hardtailer but I suspect that a high-spec model may have better-spec wheels and, therefore, be more suited to downhilling. Handling is not necessarily an issue - geometry takes care of a lot of this, plus I hear riders state that it is a great way to 'up' their skill levels.

njee20

1. At that weight you're just as likely to have problems with wheels irrespective of size.
2. See above, they'll be fine
3. No
4. There's more to a bike than the wheelsize.

junglist_matty

I took my 29er hardtail with 100mm forks to Wales in July for a weekend of mountain biking (at Coed'y'brenin), it was fine on the trails, didn't buckle my wheels and felt really solid all weekend; was great fun.... I actually preferred it to my last trip which was on a full sus 26" trail bike.

My weight is 95kg by the way.

scarbs85

Giant have just released a full range of 650B bikes for 2014. I ride a 26" Trance which I love, and if I were to replace the Trance with something similar, I would be heading straight to the new 650B Trance from Giant for a good look. Their PR department are talking up the new wheel size, and for an "all-round" bike like the Trance, the idea of the "all-round" performance of a 650B wheel* should suit pretty well.

*Please note I have not ridden 650b wheels, this is purely taken from Giants PR stuff on the new wheel size.

kenan

I'v got a lightweight 29ER and a hard hitting 26 wheeled full sus. I ride the same trails on both bikes and have been supprised what the 29ER can do when pushed. I'm lighter than you @ 12stone but had no issues with the wheels bucking running red/black rated runs including a 10 foot tabletop jump.

pilch

I've got a few 29ers, haven't managed to buckle any wheels significantly yet, only issues i've had is loss of spoke tension on the odd occasion. I have seen someone else do one in an xc race though, but I don't think a 26" wheel would have faired any better in the same situation.

rockmonkeysc

29ers are terrible for downhill. For enduro they are fine but once you get to downhill they just don't work.
They are more difficult to manual, they dont steer as well and the wheels are not strong enough.
There is a good reason why downhill bikes don't have 29er wheels.

CycloRos

Mitch Ropelato and Specialized might argue with the claim that 29ers are terrible for DH after their performance at the World Champs! Damn shame he crashed on the first corner of the finals, or maybe that just proves the point afterall

Wheelsize is just one part of a whole package that is any given bike, for me it's more about the angles and matching the bike to the kind of terrain you ride. I've yet to find wheel buckling any more of an issue on 29ers than 26ers either...

JayKay3000

The fact that someone even decided to take a 29er to a DH World Champ race proves the wheel size works. It does not mean it makes 26 obsolete, it's just another option for DH riders if they want it. Saw the crash, gutting. Looked like had fun riding though.

You still need bike talent to win whatever wheel size you're riding. I only like 29ers because it's allowed us lanky folk to get back on mtbs as companies increase their frame size range around the bigger wheels.

YeehaaMcgee

JayKay3000 wrote:

The fact that someone even decided to take a 29er to a DH World Champ race proves the wheel size works.

No, it does not.
Well, unless by "works", all you actually mean is that they'll roll. It proves nothing else.

The Rookie

RockmonkeySC wrote:

29ers are terrible for downhill. For enduro they are fine but once you get to downhill they just don't work.
They are more difficult to manual, they dont steer as well and the wheels are not strong enough.
There is a good reason why downhill bikes don't have 29er wheels.

Yup, it's really hard to package 8" of travel into a sensibly sized 29er, that's the primary reason why it's not been universally adopted, not the others!

b45her

also to make 29"wheels strong enough for proper dh use they would be ridiculously heavy and exaggerate the slow handling characteristics even further.

YeehaaMcgee

That's just not true.

b45her

please explain your physics defying claim.

YeehaaMcgee

You first.

kajjal

junglist_matty wrote:

I took my 29er hardtail with 100mm forks to Wales in July for a weekend of mountain biking (at Coed'y'brenin), it was fine on the trails, didn't buckle my wheels and felt really solid all weekend; was great fun.... I actually preferred it to my last trip which was on a full sus 26" trail bike.

My weight is 95kg by the way.

Weight just slightly more and found exactly the same. For me my 29er rides better XC than my 26er it replaced. The 26er served me very well and I still enjoy riding it. I fitted DH spec wheels to my 26er to give it extra durability in the middle of nowhere and never had a problem with it.

Kowalski675

The Rookie wrote:

RockmonkeySC wrote:

29ers are terrible for downhill. For enduro they are fine but once you get to downhill they just don't work.
They are more difficult to manual, they dont steer as well and the wheels are not strong enough.
There is a good reason why downhill bikes don't have 29er wheels.

Yup, it's really hard to package 8" of travel into a sensibly sized 29er, that's the primary reason why it's not been universally adopted, not the others!

Aye, but at least that would give some credibility to the folks who maintain only tall folk can ride 29ers, lol...

b45her

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

You first.

doesnt take a lot, large spinning objects want to go straight more than smaller spinning objects.

also to make a larger wheel as strong as smaller one means more material and more weight. even if they were the same weight the bigger wheel would have more inertia due to the bulk of the weight being further from the centre.
it's pretty basic physics and it cannot be altered by any amount of marketing driven pseudoscience.

Chunkers1980

So why not bigger than road wheels then?

You didn't answer your claim, about being ridiculously heavy to make wheels strong enough for DH .

YeehaaMcgee

That's not physics, that's just musings. Here's some more, because, like you, I frankly CBA'd to find material specs and do the maths.
you'll find the actual difference in weight will be minimal. If there was a large difference in weight, XC riders wouldn't have adopted them so easily. There's really very little strength penalty, I really don't know where that idea comes from. Road bike wheels (which are 29ers) are pretty damned strong, despite being featherweight. Just ask Martyn Ashton!
Building a strong, light, 29er wheel is trivial.
Remember also, that the minor weight gain, is offset by being able to use lower profile, narrower tyres.

bennett_346

Glad to see this forum hasn't changed. Still arguing over pointless shit like little children. Hasn't this argument been done a hundred times already?

YeehaaMcgee

bennett_346 wrote:

Glad to see this forum hasn't changed. Still arguing over pointless shoot like little children. Hasn't this argument been done a hundred times already?

It's a place for discussions, there will be more occasions where people disagree, than otherwise.

rockmonkeysc

They would be heavier than 26" dh but not by a huge amount but when you add in the extra weight of dual ply 29er tyres as well then the weight adds up.
Bigger wheels also flex more and you're really going to feel wheel flex through high speed berms and rock gardens.