Don't knock it until you try it. You can fit one in the back of your Imperial no problem afaik. Give it a try.650b isn't going to make riding any more fun than it already is... it might cost a bunch to switch over though.
thankfully only Jamis and KHS are really behind it, so i wouldnt worry too much yetIf this becomes mainstream I am going to go take a Sh*t on the doorstep of Big S, Trek, Giant, and Rock Shox.
What tires are you running?.....you can stuff them into a corner violently......Totally frikkin moto.
Marketing departments prey on the shortcomings of human nature; namely our desire to buy crap that we don't need. In 5-10 years there will be another wheel size that will have idiots drooling and 5 years after that yet another great wheel size. I'd much rather stick with what works and improve my abilities on a bike rather than have the audacity to think that it's the size of my wheels that's holding me back.Why mother ****ers always gotta reinvent the wheel...
The 2.35" Pacentis are wicked grippy with some nice open side knob and some siping with the nice new Panaracer compound and sidewall bumper. I run them on flows using standard tubes. There's enough sidewall to ride a slack and low 120-140mm bike WFO down hairy stuff but once you get into your ginourmous alpine stuff and big rocks at Pro speed I'm not sure if they'd stay on since they're nice proper XC casings. They stay on when I mess around and do gratitious cutties, etc.What tires are you running?
Minion DHF's come in a 29er now.If there are any 29" dh tires on the market(are there?) you could try to cut one down.
2.4 Maxxis Ardentcan we talk specifically about contact patch sizes, tread designs and tire widths?
Whenever I try to get actual information about 29 or 650B traction performance vs DOWNHILL 26" tires, I Google myself into the hell pit of MTBR smugness.
29er tire designs I've seen look not so great, but I'm no expert on XC tire "designs."
A longer contact patch (footprint) is better for driving, braking, and cornering traction in all conditions. The science behind this is sound (google terramechanics if you want to research it yourself). Wider is not always better, but we're not talking wider in this case, we're talking longer.i think that the contact patch argument is pretty much bull**** - the smaller the contact patch the more the tire digs in, the bigger the contact patch the more the knobbies that are doing something. by that logic, in wet and loose crap 26 would work better and bigger would be better in the dry. or maybe not. i only know i don't want any bigger wheels than 26 since i'm 5' 8".
Not most, some. Unsure how you define decent, but I assume a larger casing and some proper knobs? That's not going to happen with most of the conversions you see people boasting about on the interweb.so most of our 26" frames/forks have the clearance for a 650 right? But with a decent tire?
29" wheels just feel to big, too much gyro effect, and that's with single ply AM tires. They also force way too long of a chainstay.eh, if you're gonna go, go big or go home. I want to see some effort made towards DH 29er bits. Otherwise I'd rather just keep the faster accelerating and stronger 26ers.
This is one of the best posts i have ever read. +1 for relevance.Towns with three good restaurants are simply better to live in than towns with only two, I reckon'. Seems silly for the Eye-talians to be squawkin' that the Chinee place just ain't no good, and simply shouldn't exist. And let's not get started on them uppity mehicans, what with their chimiritos and whatnot, they don't like nobody else!
That is so 90'shehehehe all this talk about 29" this and 650b..and im still thinking of putting a 24" wheel at rear!
Oh well...
Looking at that new Fox fork it seems like they might be thinking ahead to.It seems logical to me. I'd imagine we'll se 650b being the common DH size in the next 5 years(maybe 6).
Or at least on some courses.
Mind you, I've not riddena 650b wheeled bike yet.
They're closer to 26" than 29". Roll over stuff better, and presumably won't feel to much more kooky than 26" does.
New hub/Fork standards too. So DH wheels can have a wider footing.