throttlemire

Looks great except for all the clown pajamas. This trend needs to die a quick death.

I can totally see where he's coming from. He's talking about the riders who don't like such a big change from 26" wheels to 29" wheels. Those riders are not going to try a 29er, but they will give a 27.5 a go. I have a friend firmly in that camp. Only time will tell if he's right and those who try the 27.5 will then go on to try a 29er and 27.5 will die out. I seriously doubt it. That's his main argument and it makes total sense when you compare it to the tweener technologies. But as others have said, this is a size and not really technology. I do believe that Niner is not innovating and got burned by the new Enduro 29er if it's as good as the reviews say it is (but it's all media based and they are bought by Specialized). A company with Niner as their name should lead the way, not be following. If Niner came out with a low BB, 145mm+ bike with short chain stays in carbon, I'd definitely consider it. An RDO WFO XTR blah blah blah. They should also consider doing an internal gear transmission - something no serious bike company is doing.

Sorry but Pinkbike is kissing SRAM's ass here. These rims are nothing new, just new to SRAM. They devoted so much space to basically a product launch. Look at Salsa Gordos who went 35mm years ago and Velocity Blunts are that wide today. I'm a true believer in wider is better and I'm not interested in anything less than 30mm outside rim diameter. The Syntace wheels look very promising, but they are pretty expensive as well. Those puppies go to 40mm!