if anything the trails getting built now are more 26er friendly. All these super smooth flow trails and tight switchback trails work to the strengths of the small tires and don’t take advantage of the bigger tires ability to roll over chunk.
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Maybe the larger wheels roll better over chunk, but the current riders apparently do not. Or why would every trail get sanitized then?
And no, I do not think that smoother trails are better for a 26er. Awkward, chunky trails with low to no flow work better on a 26er because you can play with the terrain, are less in plow mode and can accelerate easier (lower rotational weight, pumping). That is at least what I see when I ride with friends on 29ers: they plow, I am all over the trail to find good lines, pump, put in a sneaky pedal stroke.
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Fuck, this looks terrible! Luckily I live in a country where we do not have steep hills to begin with, so no problem with this.
There are no steep DH trails anymore because the 29er rear wheel tire buzzing the behinds of riders is not appreciated.
here it's because imba made land management agencies into empowered morons
we have millions of gallons of water washing filthy ass paved roads covered with dust, salt, and tire particulates into waterways but they're dead solid convinced water moving a grain of sand 20ft off a trail destroys all things in nature
I've not spent enough time on mullet wheels to know - does the 29er front/27.5 rear combo come close to the manoeuvrability of the full 27.5 bikes or is there a bit lost with the big front wheel. My friends who have tried have differing opinions on how much the big wheel takes away.Mixed wheels is the way to go. The best, or worst, of both worlds and with a few hacks you could probably change it back to full 27.5.
Even if they work to my advantage (full 27.5 on my Mega) I'd rather be disadvantaged and riding a proper trail. I'd debate that the 29ers seem to roll quicker on flat smooth stuff as well so you really need some gradient and steep tight turns to have an advantage on the little wheels these days.
Yeah local trail companies here refuse to incorporate any gradient because of the erosion aspect. Legal trails on public land here are almost all flat shit with switchback turns just to tick the sustainability criteria off.
Nope. Spent a day swapping between full 29, mullet and, and full 27.5 on my Session last year and playing with the flip chips per Trek's recommendations. Started with the 29er and that lasted all of 1.5 runs before I destroyed a wheel so not a whole lot of time on that setup but I put the 27.5 rear wheel on for the next run and immediately noticed it was easier to lean, pump, and just move around period. Swapped to the 27.5 front a few runs later and noticed it was way easier to do all of that and just more fun to ride but a little worse off in chunk. I'd say the mullet setup is closer to the 29er in terms of maneuverability, still a noticeable difference but the 29 front wheel still has a huge effect on how the bike feels IMO.
I would guess that The steeper sta alone should be enough for you! The amount of strain / load on my back is a lot lower after moving to a steeper sta. Gets the shoulders back, head up and provides a generally less bent over feeling. Fwiw, I went from a 2018 Bronson to a 2023 Patrol. New bike is heavier and bigger, but climbing is easier and back fatigue / pain is way down.In my mind, relevant #s are HTA, STA, chain stay length and reach. Even though it's a 2016, my bike was at forefront of the long, low and slack trend. Many of the new bikes I look at have a 65° HTA, 77 or 78% STA, 430-440 chain stays and approximately 450mm reach (not going to get into BB drop, as that seems mostly relevant to 29s!).
My bike has a 65° HTA, a 75.4° STA, 430mm chain stays, and 432mm reach. Nothing I see on the market is compelling enough to make me want to change. Yeah, the STA is a couple of °s slacker, and reach is a bit short by today's standards, but I'm also ok with running a 50mm stem for climbing comfort. Like @jstuhlman, at 5'9 with proportionally short legs (under 30" inseam) I could probably benefit from longer reach, but meh. I'm also on the east coast and prefer old-school, natural trails which tend to be slower and more technical. Our DH runs aren't particularly long or steep, and I'm not reaching DH speeds quick enough to warrant the extra stability of longer reach and wheelbase. Given the age of the bike, I've also been able to customize my shock (Tractive my Vorsprung) to suit me, my terrain and my preferences. So yeah, I'm pretty happy with how my bike rides as is.
Switching up now would entail getting an entirely new bike, and I just don't see anything compelling at the moment. It doesn't help that this site is full of cantankerous old luddites who help me see through the marketing BS...
Please tell me the 27.5 front was like 2 seconds slower a minute though, cos thats the excuse I've been using all 2023.
what's so fucking insane is that there's really only one condition that genuinely transports sediment: VERY log sustained grades. Just break that up a bit which is incredibly easy to do, and it stays on the hill.
Instead they'll move and expose 10x the dirt, put in 99 switchbacks which cause hard braking and hence, more free dirt churning, all to maintain some stupid ass grade that no one really wants to ride anyway.
Erosion that only carries shit 50 feet into naturally filtering ground cover where it settles is perfectly fine.
We just had to redo a section of trail that the local dirtbike club got approved, put in over the last 3 years because the very top of it had fall line straight section at the top of a free standing hill (IE, no water source except direct precip that falls right there). Maybe 60-70ft long and mostly rock. The dork from the forest service insisted that this was going to cause erosion, right after we were standing there with her following the biggest winter in 70+ years. I asked her to show us the erosion because this year above all would have produced it, and she just kept saying 'it's not to our standards'.
So anyway. Go build your own trails. Fuck the Police
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...but...but...but....IMBA!
Yeah like that other guy eloquently put it, it isn't the same. I mean it can't be, the wheels are different.
But this is my first bike with a 29" wheel and it didn't really feel like a huge change. Though, it was also a completely new bike so that skews it.
Happy to report though, the front wheel hasn't imploded from just riding along.
It always cracks me up when some dipshit from imba acts shocked that I tell them they suck and I can give them a very specific, detailed list of why. Fuckers are parasites.
At the end of the day, it's still the land managers who made the decision to suck. IMBA just gave them the template.
My pet hate is trail building companies that have a business model of sniffing out existing trails, approaching city councils to get funding to make them "sustainable" and "built to standard". Then coming along and using machines to grade a footpath in over the top.
They pretend they're doing MTBers a favour by "more legal trails!!1!!" but really they're parasiting the work of real builders to make a buck and they're building horrendous flow abominations by breaking dirt up with machines that then erode faster. Its happened so many times where I live, and because the clones come and ride the shitty trails in droves because they're publicised the trail companies can claim the whole thing as a huge success.
a full time trailbuilder buddy of mine wanted to rename his company IMBA trail solutions solutions
Holy Shit!
I didn’t know this was a common occurrence!! Some asshat tried that here in town with our *ahem* unsanctioned trails. Luckily the local riders here hate meddlers and told the city council and the idiot from the trail building company to fack off.
Didn’t realize that our local scenario was a targeted customer!!
Down here we're getting our late dose of stravadorks. Just a month ago we finished marking a new long trail. We spoke to every usual rider in our local spot to make sure the trail wouldn't go public until we had all the features finished (dirt and logs to make transitions in and out of big fallen trees, small canals to drain the water out of the sectors prone to become mud puddles, etc) only to have one of them upload the trail to that Strava shit the next day.
Suffice to say the next weekend the transitions were destroyed because we didn't have the time to pack them up, the mud puddles were now WW1 trenches, and several French lines were cut inside the camber turns sections we couldn't finish. We lost two months of work in less than a week.
Fuck social media whores. They are the ones ruining the sport.
Suffice to say the next weekend the transitions were destroyed because we didn't have the time to pack them up, the mud puddles were now WW1 trenches, and several French lines were cut inside the camber turns sections we couldn't finish. We lost two months of work in less than a week.
Fuck social media whores. They are the ones ruining the sport.
only exists as an ice cream flavor now
check the rules on importing american firearms
let our weakness be your strength
I'm here to help
(we won't send the cia this time)
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Some of them saw some members of the building crew heading down a new connection to the existing trail system, so we all went into damage control mode.
We should have realized earlier we couldn't trust the idiot with the dentist bike ( Pivot Firebird).
You're not helping! (I can't afford a new bike at the moment!)
silence and a tight build crew committed to the silence does a lot of good...but yeah, sometimes you have to play the heavy with the bros who spray a bit to liberally, but it's worth it in the end for the trail's longevity. and also, what Woo said, you can have steep gradients and prevent erosion issues, just need to throw tasteful grade reversals to get the water off the trail as fast as possible to prevent those long sustained ruts. That's one of my biggest pet peeves about diamondhead trails here in squamish, so close to being great, but after the first winter they're crank deep ruts filled with shitty babyheads.
I've legit cut tires, given directions into giant trail-less drainages and punched motherfuckers in the face over this very simple sentiment
A good friend of mine who used to post here said that if someone finds your trail, you only have yourself to blame. He's mostly right.
I've built a trail solo that took two years to build. In a somewhat compact forest. Entrance and exit was built last of course, but I would also put leaves and branches on freshly built sections.
A few MRP display bits on spesh-
Cheap jirt dumper fork, no shipping and tax, $360 is pretty reasonable
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Marzocchi Bomber DJ 26" Fork | Jenson USA
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Is there any reasonable or interesting bike parts that would be little cheaper to buy in US compared to Europe? Anything to especially look after? 72CAD billet bleeding cups from the northern neighbour?
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Sorry! It was 74CAD https://pinnermachineshop.com/products/brake-bleed-cup
One day I will own one just to be able to post in "Tool Nerds, Questions and Tool Snobbery"
Despite not being clear. You can clearly see oil height through the side of a shimano bleed cup
The plastic thread's wear less quickly if you're careful fitting the cup and don't over tighten it.
When doing a lever 'flick' bleed on a shimano lever. You don't actually even need to attach the cup.
It costs £4 to replace but if you find yourself having to bleed your brake 20+ times. Probably buy new brakes. Preferably not shimano
The plastic thread's wear less quickly if you're careful fitting the cup and don't over tighten it.
When doing a lever 'flick' bleed on a shimano lever. You don't actually even need to attach the cup.
It costs £4 to replace but if you find yourself having to bleed your brake 20+ times. Probably buy new brakes. Preferably not shimano