Just built a 29'er. Will I ever ride on 26" wheels again?

[wookiee]

Re:

...to end my input...

Its all about feel and confidence. When I ride a bike I feel confident riding, I ride faster. 29" wheels give me that confidence. I ride faster. Mathematically it may not add up...statistically it may not add up. But the way the bike makes me feel and ride does. Well it makes me faster! Is speed everything? Not for me...is enjoyment everything? YES! I just enjoy riding a 29" wheel bike. I have ridden MTB's since the late 80's and this is what suits me as a nearly 40 year old 17 stone 6ft 3ish bloke. Yes I'm sure there are many reasons that affect this enjoyment...Age, ride style, terrain etc etc but when I have an hour to spare in my busy life I go for the 29er. I don't think that a placebo effect would curry my favour. It needs to work and for what ever reason it does. There fore I will continue to ride my 29er with a 29" smile on my haggard hairy face!

Doug

 

[ultrazenith]

Re: Re:

...to end my input...

Its all about feel and confidence. When I ride a bike I feel confident riding, I ride faster. 29" wheels give me that confidence. I ride faster. Mathematically it may not add up...statistically it may not add up. But the way the bike makes me feel and ride does. Well it makes me faster! Is speed everything? Not for me...is enjoyment everything? YES! I just enjoy riding a 29" wheel bike. I have ridden MTB's since the late 80's and this is what suits me as a nearly 40 year old 17 stone 6ft 3ish bloke. Yes I'm sure there are many reasons that affect this enjoyment...Age, ride style, terrain etc etc but when I have an hour to spare in my busy life I go for the 29er. I don't think that a placebo effect would curry my favour. It needs to work and for what ever reason it does. There fore I will continue to ride my 29er with a 29" smile on my haggard hairy face!

Doug

Yes, when it comes down to it, enjoyment is all that matters. I'm not so bothered about being faster all the time, but what I hear from a lot of 29er riders is that it is more enjoyable - or adds a kind of enjoyment that complements very nicely what they can get from their other bikes. Hence why I will hopefully get a 29er next year :xmas-wink:

Let me also apologize for adding to the overthinking thing on here a bit.

 

[PurpleFrog]

Re:

When I ride a bike I feel confident riding, I ride faster. 29" wheels give me that confidence. I ride faster. Mathematically it may not add up...statistically it may not add up. But the way the bike makes me feel and ride does. Well it makes me faster! Is speed everything? Not for me...is enjoyment everything? YES! I just enjoy riding a 29" wheel bike. I have ridden MTB's since the late 80's and this is what suits me as a nearly 40 year old 17 stone 6ft 3ish bloke.

Might there possibly be a clue in the above why riding a 29er would have greater than average advantages for you? Jebus, you should probably be riding 30 inch wheels just to get a decent fit...

Yes, I rather think you would feel more confident on 29s!

 

[wookiee]

Re: Re:

When I ride a bike I feel confident riding, I ride faster. 29" wheels give me that confidence. I ride faster. Mathematically it may not add up...statistically it may not add up. But the way the bike makes me feel and ride does. Well it makes me faster! Is speed everything? Not for me...is enjoyment everything? YES! I just enjoy riding a 29" wheel bike. I have ridden MTB's since the late 80's and this is what suits me as a nearly 40 year old 17 stone 6ft 3ish bloke.

Might there possibly be a clue in the above why riding a 29er would have greater than average advantages for you? Jebus, you should probably be riding 30 inch wheels just to get a decent fit...

Yes, I rather think you would feel more confident on 29s!

Bring on the 30er or 31er...I'd give it a try!

 

[PurpleFrog]

Re: Re:

Bring on the 30er or 31er...I'd give it a try!

Is "wookie" just your profile name or your species???

 

[wookiee]

Re: Re:

Bring on the 30er or 31er...I'd give it a try!

Is "wookie" just your profile name or your species???

If you had met me you wouldn't need to ask that question!

 

[PurpleFrog]

Re: Re:

Bring on the 30er or 31er...I'd give it a try!

Is "wookie" just your profile name or your species???

If you had met me you wouldn't need to ask that question!

Tell your boss that his parents have a vicious sense of humour. I knew a guy called Richard Head once, which was bad, but if you call a kid "Hans Solo" then you might as well tattoo "wanker" on his forehead when you send him to school.

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

Re:

Here are some pictures that show the effect of wheel diameter on the distance between the rim and the ground for a given tyre pressure.

All the tyres are inflated to 10 psi and loaded to roughly the same weight i.e: (me leaning as hard as I can on the saddle).

Also, because a 29er tyre has 10% more air volume than a 26" of the he same width the larger wheel will give a roughly 10% softer ride for the same air pressure.

So a larger diameter tyre of the same width should give a softer ride with less chance of bottoming against the rim.

 

[Mike Muz]

Re:

Hmmm. Very interesting but 'leaning as hard as i can' seems to me not very scientific.
What you really need to do is to spill some paint on the floor, pump all the tyres up to a useable 30psi, then carefully put the bike on the paint to show up the real world footprint.
And where are fat bikes in the equation? I think they are around 29" when fitted with their massive tyres. They are run at far lower pressures though, so put around 8psi in those.
Finally, it looks like you need a longer chain, sunshine.

Mike

 

[kaiser]

As part of my work I also enjoy thinking way outside the box. Let me throw this one to the people with more knowledge and experience of bike and riding 29ers: What is it that makes the 29.0 inch wheel the perfect size for obtaining the benefits of larger wheels, and bottom bracket height)? Surely if 29ers give much better speed, why not go to 30" wheels to get even more of the same benefits? I don't doubt that people's experiences with 29ers are very real, but it strikes me that the marketing people have simply plucked the number 29 out of thin air.

And if even short riders can handle riding 29ers, wouldn't/shouldn't super tall riders like me be able to handle 30-31" wheeled MTBs? How cool would that be ...

29ers came about in much the same way as 26ers, using what was available at the time. 29" is the same size as 700c and at the start these rim were used in lieu of any purpose built jobs. * In the late 90's Wes Williets (or maybe Don Walker) was convinced that the bigger wheel size had benefits and set about trying to get the first 29er tyre made, eventually with the help of Gary Fisher WTB produced a tyre and set the ball rolling. 29er have been around for quiite a while now and it might be a surprise to some to know that they were not born out of an evil corporate emperors new clothes type initiative.



*I've not looked checked this for this post but its along these lines, the main players are correct though.