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Jeremiah Bishop's new team (and bike!)

Mar 15, 2009
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There has not been much made of the fact that Jeremiah Bishop is riding for Cannondale - MonaVie this year.

I saw him at his first race in the new kit, new bike. He's running a 26" rear and 650B front. Very cool stealth set-up. You have to look closely to notice the different wheel sizes.

Discuss.
 
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Anonymous

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I prefer to think of it as deep scepticism. I'll STFU when it becomes impossible to win a cross-country World Cup on a 26in bike.
 
Mar 15, 2009
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Interesting. Dislike noted!

I've always thought that the mullet set-up with different wheel sizes looked pretty silly. But the 26"/650B was intriguing.

To John's point, are there any World Cup riders besides JHK riding 29ers?

And finally, James, what happened to CN's study of 26" vs 29" from a couple years back? I don't remember seeing the conclusion to that article.
 
Mar 17, 2009
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29er wheels in Europe

Most of the reason for why 29ers are not raced in World Cups are very few Euro manufacturers producing a 29er so naturally you won't see a 29er raced by Euros. Very few US manufacturers are producing a lightweight production 29er to race on. The other problem is spare wheels and tire selection is not as deep as 26". Don't use Euro's as the standard for whether certain equipment is better than others. Keep in mind these are the same guys who only recently adopted disc brakes over V-brakes, think eating warm bread on race day is bad for you and equate eating high amounts simple sugars for breakfast will give you more "energy" for the race.
Visit a European bike show and look for a 29er, you'll find about the same number of clean Spanish pros.
If you don't like 29ers then don't ride one, ride a 26" mtb and a 650 road bike. But don't let your lack of understanding physics interfere with journalism.
 
Mar 4, 2009
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FreeEthan said:
Interesting. Dislike noted!

I've always thought that the mullet set-up with different wheel sizes looked pretty silly. But the 26"/650B was intriguing.

To John's point, are there any World Cup riders besides JHK riding 29ers?

And finally, James, what happened to CN's study of 26" vs 29" from a couple years back? I don't remember seeing the conclusion to that article.

Ah yes, the infamous 26" vs. 29" behemoth. *sigh*

Much as the whole thing seemed straightforward from the outset, it's proven to be anything but. Obstacles have included multiple equipment failures (several more critical than others - though the frames have been bulletproof) and a complete change in testing locale (these bikes were designed for Midwestern US trails, not Colorado rock fields). But unfortunately the most disruptive deterrent has simply been time. Needless to say, it's been scarce.

Believe me. I WANT to finish it. But at this point it's become rather clear to me that the scale of this thing is somewhere on the order of my graduate thesis and it will do no one any good for me to put out there anything short of what it needs (and deserves) to be.
 
Mar 10, 2009
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There are a few pro's who ride 29'ers in the US pro circuit. The Gary Fisher Superfly is riden by A young Canadian named Peter Glassford. You will see him at Monterey!
 
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Physics is science. It depends on evidence and experiment, two things that are in vanishingly short supply in the world of 29ers.

29er advocates claim that 29ers are faster. If they were faster enough to make a difference, then we'd have seen something like what happened with aero bars in time trials in the UK in the late 80s. As riders adopted aero bars, the league table of time trials speeds re-arranged itself until it was back where it had been in the drop-bar era, but everyone was going measurably, significantly faster. Unarguable evidence that aero bars are faster.

Where's the equivalent evidence for 29ers? It's not there because even though a larger wheel rolls faster in theory, in practice the effect is so tiny at the wheel sizes we're talking about that it's lost in the noise.

All you're therefore left with is disadvantages of extra weight and reduced choice of tyres. Combine two different wheel sizes and you get yet another disadvantage: having to carry two different sizes of spare tube.
 
Mar 18, 2009
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How fast do you think a 29er with cross tyres set up tubeless could be? Now i have not spent a great deal of time on a 29er but have spent a lot of time riding a cross bike places you shouldnt be riding a cross bike and the more upright flat bar position and proper brakes and suspension forks would have made that a lot easier.
 
flip03 said:
How fast do you think a 29er with cross tyres set up tubeless could be? Now i have not spent a great deal of time on a 29er but have spent a lot of time riding a cross bike places you shouldnt be riding a cross bike and the more upright flat bar position and proper brakes and suspension forks would have made that a lot easier.
IMO it's a misconception that narrow cross tires (and tubulars for that matter) are "faster".
You'll have a hard time beating the 'cross pro showing up to your MTB race with his UCI spec cross bike. That's not because the bike is fast (take it for a lap), it's because the rider has built the skills needed to pilot such impractical machines at top speed, off-road no less.

The rolling resistance on smooth trails is what simple people see as the thing where 29" is supposed to blow away 26". As correctly pointed out above, the size difference is not significant enough. And, I'll add, bigger might well be better, when executed properly. Wider hubs, more spokes, etc.
IMO, truth is, 29" gives a rider the greatest performance boost (and certainly greater than the realistic 350-400g weight penalty) comes from grip, comfort, braking traction and climbing traction, roughtly in that order.
The difference over a lap obivously is not 9.4% due to the 9.4% larger wheels. But riders know. Like me, I can now drop on tight singletrack the guys whom I before could not stay with. Oh, the powerful feeling of pulling away from a good bike handler on his own favorite tight winding trail...
 

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