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The 650B movement.

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flag deeeight
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Posted: Apr 26, 2012 at 9:22 Quote
Aside from I think its black sheep cycles, nobody is doing anything with 36ers other than unicyclists, but that's still enough demand that Vee-Rubber is going to offer one of their new dual-compound foldable tire models in a 36" size. Just to fit into their "any tire, any size, same price" marketing campaign.
flag PHeller
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Posted: Apr 26, 2012 at 13:36 Quote
greendarthtater wrote:
I just feel bad for the 59" wheel guys.
http://ibismaximus.com/

Dude those wheels and tires were offered on just about every farm tractor over the last 50 years.
flag greendarthtater
Posted: Apr 26, 2012 at 14:10 Quote
PHeller wrote:
greendarthtater wrote:
I just feel bad for the 59" wheel guys.
http://ibismaximus.com/

Dude those wheels and tires were offered on just about every farm tractor over the last 50 years.

Probably still tough to get a hold of the carbon ones.
flag betaflash
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Posted: May 9, 2012 at 15:46 Quote
hey clunchpowers.. that frame conversion website you were asking about.. 650bpalace.com

Stuff to consider... a specific fork is highly recommended even if you can stuff the 27.5 wheel into your 26'er.. clearances to the fork arch will be super tight at the very least..
Your BB height will rise .75 of an inch so consider longer crank arms which will improve your pedal stroke leverage anyways.. whatever you add to crank allows you to drop your saddle height an equivalent amount lowering you into the frame.. hopefully you have the same amount of spacers under your stem so you can drop your bar height appropriately..
compare your bike geometry to a dedicated 650b frame, like say the Jamis Dakar.. chain stay length on this bike is
17.71.. chain stay length on, as an example, the SC Blur is 17.25, so although the 650b wheel and tyre fits in, you can see how the clearance gets really tight.
Your wheelbase will stay the same.. your head angle will stay the same.. unless you use an angleset to reduce the HA as increased wheel size usually requires a steeper head angle to keep trail under control.. the Dakar runs 69,
the Blur 68..
So you really will be experimenting with the conversion geometry and performance..
flag Kootenaycycle
Posted: May 10, 2012 at 21:56 Quote
I bult up a 2012 Norco Sight Forma for my wife with a set of 650b wheels. Running the racing Ralph's and there is spades of clearance on the rear end fully compressed. As well lots of room on the Fox Float 32 even at full compression with the bottom out bumpers removed.
flag deeeight
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Posted: May 11, 2012 at 5:33 Quote
Removing the bottom out bumpers from a Fox fork, and running 650B wheel in it is just dumb on soooo many levels.
flag egy87
Posted: May 11, 2012 at 7:05 Quote
Thanks! That's awesome.

greendarthtater wrote:
PHeller wrote:
Also, I don't get the whole "NO NEW STANDARDS" crap.

Who cares? I ride a 29", 700C, 27" and two 26" bikes.

I'm not swapping wheels between them, and even if I could, I wouldn't want to. Each has a specific tire for the type of riding I do with that bike.

Wheels are of a different realm than components, why? Because you replace tires/wheel well...never. And most of the time you buy a frame based around its wheel size.

I've never heard of someone saying "i was gonna buy this sick carbon fiber road frame for my 26" wheels, but they wouldn't fit! STUPID STANDARDS!" I've never heard of someone saying "I love the Lenz 29" bikes, but they are in 29" wheel size! WTH? Why don't they make a 26" bike?" OH WAIT THEY DO!

And that's what gets me, almost every manufacturer out there makes every bike in soon to be every wheel size.

I only feel bad for the 36" guys...

I just feel bad for the 59" wheel guys.
http://ibismaximus.com/
flag Kootenaycycle
Posted: May 14, 2012 at 21:43 Quote
deeeight wrote:
Removing the bottom out bumpers from a Fox fork, and running 650B wheel in it is just dumb on soooo many levels.

You miss read, I removed the bumpers to make sure there was no issue, they where installed back in before the bike ever hit the dirt.
flag froogalfrog
Posted: Jul 15, 2012 at 0:03 Quote
One thing to remember, If you are swapping 26' rims with a fat tyre for 27,5'rims with a skinny tyre,(usually to get adequate frame or fork clearance, you will end up with a very similar overall wheel diameter which negates the effect of the bigger wheel size and so will not ride over roots etc. any better. you also end up with the disadvantages of the skinnier tyre which cannot be run at pressures as low as the fatter one and so might result in traction problems.The BB height will remain the same.Having said all that, I've converted an old Kona 26' to 650B with 42mm tyres( for the road) and so far I love it- still have to figure out how to mount mudguards/fenders and V-brakes though- any ideas?
flag deeeight
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Posted: Jul 15, 2012 at 0:13 Quote
froogalfrog wrote:
One thing to remember, If you are swapping 26' rims with a fat tyre for 27,5'rims with a skinny tyre,(usually to get adequate frame or fork clearance, you will end up with a very similar overall wheel diameter which negates the effect of the bigger wheel size and so will not ride over roots etc. any better.

That's a common refrain of anti-650B folk... but its not actually an apples and apples comparison. To be at all close to the diameter of a 650B, you need an extremely fat (and thus extremely HEAVY) 26er tire. Like a 2.7" wide, and nobody makes on of those under a kilogram. The heaviest 650B tires available today and projected for next year, are all less than that. .

[quote]
you also end up with the disadvantages of the skinnier tyre which cannot be run at pressures as low as the fatter one and so might result in traction problems.The BB height will remain the same.Having said all that, I've converted an old Kona 26' to 650B with 42mm tyres( for the road) and so far I love it- still have to figure out how to mount mudguards/fenders and V-brakes though- any ideas?[/Quote]

Again a falsehood. Pacenti Quasimotos, which are about the skinniest of the knobby 650Bs available at 2.0" wide, can be run pretty damn low. I'm 200+ pounds and I run mine at 32psi and 30psi. I'm only 1psi higher than I run my NeoMoto 2.3s. The tire casing size plays a bigger roll in the pressure index than the knob widths.
flag PHeller
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Posted: Jul 30, 2012 at 9:13 Quote
I've been thinkin lately about how after the 650b movement, there will be no real "new" wheel sizes. I highly doubt anyone will commonly go bigger than 29" and I don't think 24" will make a come back in the downhill market.

If anything we may see more 659ers and other hybrid mix and match bikes, but for the most part, this is it.
flag deeeight
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Posted: Jul 30, 2012 at 10:25 Quote
PHeller wrote:
I've been thinkin lately about how after the 650b movement, there will be no real "new" wheel sizes. I highly doubt anyone will commonly go bigger than 29" and I don't think 24" will make a come back in the downhill market.

Actually there are several other wheel sizes available that could be brought back into usage the way they were originally intended to be used, also we now for 2013 have a production 31er to enjoy also. Surly Krampus...its a 700C format wheel (so 622mm ISO bead seat just as 29ers use) except with a full volume 3 inch wide tire mounted to a 50mm wide rim on standard width 100/135 hubs with an effective diameter of about 31 inches. That's part of the problem though... there is no 26er, or 29er wheel really. The 559mm bead seat size rims, as we use for 26" bikes, is an american rim size leftover from Schwinn balloon tire bikes from the 50s. It doesn't have another industry standard code to it though like 700C (622) and 650B (584) do. But 29ers all use 700C rims. In euro parlance, the letter represented the tire width, the number was the approximate wheel diameter (in mm) with that letter width of tire. A 650A and a 650C was the same diameter of tire, but because the C was wider than the A, the C's rim was actually also a smaller diameter than the A's was. That's how they were established, but those conventions have long since gone out the window. But we still use the rim/tire bead seat sizes originally developed for them. Now we use them with all sorts of different width tires though, and we end up with all sorts of different inflated tire diameters as a result. Anyway I'll list the others and you can see what could result...

700A = 642, 700B = 635, 700C = 622, 700D = 587
650A = 590, 650B = 584, 650C = 571
600A = 540
550A = 490
500A = 440
450A = 390
400A = 340

Now in the past thirty years, I have encountered 650A and 650B tires for mountain bikes, 700C and 700D for both road and mountain bikes, and 650C for road bikes. Now the system was originally french to do wheel sizes by diameter and letter, but pretty much everybody adopted their methodology. Now the only DUMB size in all that, was 700D as it was right between two existing sizes (650A and B), it was invented in 1990 by GT Bicycles, only had tires produced by one brand for it, and was only ever used on FOUR models of GT bikes, all of which were discontinued within three years of introduction. They would have been better off just having tires/rims produced in either 650A or 650B as both had history in both mountain and road / touring bikes already, and were close enough in bead seat diameters to what they ended up with as to make no difference. The rise of 650B in popularity has however been a godsend for owners of those older GT bikes though, as the effective rim radius is only 1.5mm difference, they can squeeze 650B tires onto 700D rims, and in fact 650B rims will fit their frames/forks and line up perfectly fine with the rim brakes mounts they have already.
flag PHeller
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Posted: Jul 30, 2012 at 13:11 Quote
deeight,

While I understand that there are plenty of other tire/wheel choices out there, they will never more than novelty items. The fat tire 29er is still a 29er and all those 700C/D 650/A/B/C are so close to the same diameters that we won't see new frames designed around them.

What I mean is this: I think we're witnessing the end of the MASS PRODUCED wheel size debate.
flag deeeight
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Posted: Jul 30, 2012 at 14:13 Quote
PHeller wrote:
deeight,

While I understand that there are plenty of other tire/wheel choices out there, they will never more than novelty items. The fat tire 29er is still a 29er and all those 700C/D 650/A/B/C are so close to the same diameters that we won't see new frames designed around them.

What I mean is this: I think we're witnessing the end of the MASS PRODUCED wheel size debate.

Did you not read? There is no specific 29er wheel... its 700C... the same as practically every road bike and hybrid uses. The whole 'TWENTY NINER" crap label is just marketing department naming to hide what the wheels actually are from anti-roadie personality mountain bike buyers. And yes... we will continue to see lots and lots of new frames designed around 700C, and we will continue to see more and more new frames designed around 650B.
flag PHeller
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Posted: Jul 31, 2012 at 9:16 Quote
DeeEight,

Exactly my point. We're witnessing the end of wheel size development. I don't think we'll see anymore sizes adapted for use on MTB's on the mass market scale like 26/27.5/29.

Maybe you disagree. I just can't see the advantages for 99% of riders to go to 31's or even a small increase over 700C unless your really tall and heavy. I could see the advantages to going to high volume tires on 700C like the Krampus, especially if weight increase could be minimized. We also have seen the fat-bike trend grow, and I expect that to continue, but again, I think it will always be a boutique item that most riders will have a second bike.

I'm not bashing any wheel size, so no need to get defensive. I'm just saying that from here on out that everything will be about making the "primary" wheel sizes that we've got work better.

 


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