Mullet patrol?

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Mullet patrol?
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flag nwjekyll
Posted: Jun 14, 2019 at 15:09 Quote
Anyone try a 29" wheel/fork on an SBG Patrol yet?
flag telephunke
O+
Posted: Jul 30, 2019 at 12:06 Quote
keen to know this as well
flag fuckingsteve
O+
Posted: Aug 5, 2019 at 8:26 Quote
I just emailed Transition about this the other day. This is the reply I got:

"Chris was just mentioning that he was getting a lot of questions about the mixed 27.5/29 "reverse mullet" bike setups and I figured I should send a message to everyone to make sure they understood the technical details around all that. The long story short is... our bikes are designed for the wheel sizes that come on them, and we can't really recommend running anything else. But...

The wheel radius difference for a 29 wheel compared to a 27.5 is basically 20mm. Most people that are thinking about doing the swap to mixed wheel sizes realize that, but the thing they tend to over look is the added fork axle to crown. The common thought is... "The wheel is 20mm bigger radius, so if I run a 20mm shorter travel fork I should be good to go."

If you take a 27.5 bike and put a 29 front end on it, you would need a 40mm (ish) shorter travel fork to keep your geo about the same. That is 20mm less travel for the A-C and another 20mm for the wheel radius. So no matter how you slice it... if you put a 29 fork on the front of a 27.5 bike you are going to make a very significant change to the geo. A slacker HT angle and ST angle (rule of thumb is 20mm per degree) and a higher BB height. On the flip side... if you put a 27.5 rear wheel on a 29 bike you wouldn't make as large of a change. Just the slacker angles and a lower BB. But since you don't change fork A-C, the change aren't as dramatic.

In terms of athletes and what is motivating this trend, it is largely coming from racing...

Marco has been on a 29 front with his Patrol, but with a much shorter travel fork and a reduced travel rear setup. Hit motivation was largely thinking that the 27.5 rear wheel would be more durable than a 29 rear wheel. He is still breaking wheels, so from what Lars said, I am pretty sure he will be back on a Sentinel soon.

If you look at other notable pro racers... Loic was one of the biggest 29 DH haters, so you can't discount his pride in sticking with at least one 27.5 wheel. Not to mention, his bike is a proto mule, so they could have built everything around it in the first place. Pure speculation there. And as far as Martin Maes is concerned... GT don't make a 29 enduro bike and he is doing the best he can with what is available to him. At least that is the word I hear from industry people. The bet is that he will be on dual 29 once GT has something suitable for him. But time will tell.

I guess the moral of the story is... people love to tinker, and that is great. But it's rare that you can make something work better when it is VERY different than what the bike was originally designed for. With enough tweaking, you could turn any of our bikes in to a 27.5/29 mixed wheelsize bike, but people should only go in to that experiment knowing that they are forging their own path."
flag nwjekyll
Posted: Aug 10, 2019 at 13:07 Quote
Thanks for sharing their response
flag Martinez242
Posted: Aug 15, 2019 at 1:46 Quote
Hey,

I recently tried a 29" fork (lyrik 160mm) on the patrol. I measured from the ground to the bottom of the headtube. The difference is not really big in numbers but it felt quite off when I sat on it. So much that I immediately changed it back to original without even trying to ride it on my local trails. it Might work with a fox fork (smaller a2c) and an angle set. But I guess you lose warranty. I have a 140mm 29" fork in my smuggler now. I will try to fit that when I'm back from holidays. I guess that will work geometry wise. Not sure how the 160mm travel out back feels in combination with the 140mm out front.


Below some pictures:

Original setup (170 lyrik 37mm offset)
photo

Original measured from the grond to the headtube
photo

With 160mm 29" Lyrik
photo

With 29" 160mm Lyrik Measured from the ground to the headtube
photo

With 29" 160mm Lyrik Measured BB Height
photo
flag Lts3000
Posted: Feb 19, 2020 at 19:57 Quote
So, after reading transitions response if you put a 27.5 on the back of a sentinel it'll essentially lower it by 20mm. So if you ran a longer shock say 222 x 60mm would that negate any geometry changes? And with the added shock length you could also run a slightly longer stroke shock giving sn extra bit of travel. I figured instead of a 205 x 57.5 plus 20mm a 222 is pretty damn close and if you do the math on a 57.5mm stroke shock giving 140mm travel a 60mm would give around 145-146mm.
flag R-M-R
Posted: Feb 19, 2020 at 20:24 Quote
Lts3000 wrote:
So, after reading transitions response if you put a 27.5 on the back of a sentinel it'll essentially lower it by 20mm. So if you ran a longer shock say 222 x 60mm would that negate any geometry changes? And with the added shock length you could also run a slightly longer stroke shock giving sn extra bit of travel. I figured instead of a 205 x 57.5 plus 20mm a 222 is pretty damn close and if you do the math on a 57.5mm stroke shock giving 140mm travel a 60mm would give around 145-146mm.

Absolutely not. The issue is not the geometry, it's the kinematics in the extended region of the travel:

• Brake squat: Significant brake jack.
• Pedaling anti-squat: Very high, but not a deal-breaker.
• Motion ratio: Unacceptable. Simply a no-go. Dangerously close to causing the linkage to reverse direction at top-out.

Do not do this.
flag Martinez242
Posted: Feb 20, 2020 at 1:40 Quote
What you could do is throw a 2.3/2.4 tire on the front and a 2.6/2.8 tire on the back to eliminate the geo changes.
Changing shock stroke is a little too much of a risk I guess.

I have a 2017 smuggler which I sometimes change to mullet-mode. The change is quite noticable and very fun to ride.
Especially when cornering, man thats a blast. The slacker head angle helps on the steeps.
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