26 inch wheels - advantages?

[Ming the Merciless]

We still have a couple of ageing high spec carbon framed 16” MTB’s they’re worth peanuts now but make a brilliant used buy.

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Ah the s works and white fox forks. Is the Giant the Trance model?

 

[DRM]

Breaking the global 26" mtb standard was move of total idiocy. I have 26" and 700c bikes and they both go OK.
I can see that 29" is good for really big, tall off roaders. The 650b is also a nice wheel size but how much different is it from26". It is bigger so less good for small riders.
Shops cannot support 26", 650b and 700c with all the tyres in stock. Can you buy 650b commuter tyres of the shelf?

If "they" were going to change tyre standards they should have ditched 650a 26" road and made 26" mtb available in road race to mtb sized just as they do with 700c.

I recall reading about these new fangled 29er MTB’s in MBUK, they’d run a test between 26”, 650b & 29er bikes, with a graph (not on a graph grid) suggesting that the 29er was far and away the fastest bike by quite a margin, till you looked at the actual times and even though the 29er was fastest, followed by 650b and 26” wheel last, in reality it just a handful of seconds difference from 1st to 3rd, proving it was just marketing tosh, I’ve got a 9 year old Cannondale SL3, that’s perfectly fine at doing what it was designed to do, I feel certain that in the near future it’ll be the latest thing again as they market 26” wheels as the new gold standard of MTB

 

[Gunk]

Ah the s works and white fox forks. Is the Giant the Trance model?

Yes a Trace Advanced, I built it for my son about 4 years ago, it’s a bit small for him now

 

[Andy in Germany]

Breaking the global 26" mtb standard was move of total idiocy. I have 26" and 700c bikes and they both go OK.
I can see that 29" is good for really big, tall off roaders. The 650b is also a nice wheel size but how much different is it from26". It is bigger so less good for small riders.
Shops cannot support 26", 650b and 700c with all the tyres in stock. Can you buy 650b commuter tyres of the shelf?

If "they" were going to change tyre standards they should have ditched 650a 26" road and made 26" mtb available in road race to mtb sized just as they do with 700c.

Ah, yes but if you keep the same standard how do you get people to upgrade everything on their bike including the frame when they really just need a new wheel?

 

[Andy in Germany]

Interesting you say that - and related to point made above by someone - have known two women on rides who had what looked like 700 wheel bikes at first glance but had been cleverly made (at some expense) to actually use 26 inch wheels. Everything looked fine. Both were japanese as I recall.

edit for clarity - i meant their bikes looked like road bikes.

For example:

As I recall you can get several touring bikes with 26" wheels, and other "old" tech like V-Brakes. I expect that will stay as touring bikes need to be fairly simple and rugged.

 

[Reynard]

At least the rest of the family can use Japanese ancestry as an excuse...

I don't have that excuse... I'm just a shortarse, end of.

A mix of 650c, 24" and 26" wheels here.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

All the incessant wheel size fads is entirely down to marketing BS, and nothing else.
Those of us who have defiantly given the marketeers the middle finger and refused to "upgrade" from 26" to whatever size they want to sell us this week, are just ignoring the noise and carrying on regardless. At the lower end of the market, 26" is still the dominant MTB wheel size even in the UK, and low build budgets don't run to disc brakes so rim-braked 26'ers aren't going anywhere even though the BS merchants would have us believe they belong in a museum.

 

[Andy in Germany]

I don't have that excuse... I'm just a shortarse, end of.

A mix of 650c, 24" and 26" wheels here.

Well that's the problem, I don't either. To rub it in the older lads are now taller than me and look down on me in every sense of the word...

 

[Reynard]

Well that's the problem, I don't either. To rub it in the older lads are now taller than me and look down on me in every sense of the word...

The cats do that to me. From the top of the bookshelves...

 

[tyred]

80 odd miles completed on my 26" steed today. Don't know how I managed that considering my wheels are allegedly obsolete!

 

[DCBassman]

Must admit, have an itch for a 26" rigid MTB again...

 

[JBGooner]

I think 26ers are faster uphill and off road than the 27.5 and probably therefore the 29ers.

I ride a 27.5 and my mate, who is only a bit less fit than me, a 26. On the flat in any terrain and uphill on road I usually have little trouble catching and going past him or just riding off into the distance if ahead. Off road however and uphill and its the very devil to try and keep pace and deep into the red (if I had powermetre) to get ahead of him.

This thread has me thinking about my long retired Marin Bear Valley in the garage :hmmm: smaller, nippier... more fun?

 

[Blue Hills]

I almost bought a second hand marin bear valley once to build as a tourer (am not an MTBer as such) - £50 as i recall.

 

[Jody]

One major advantage is having a shed full of suitable parts that you thought were soon going to be obsolete. Which led to this jack of all trades built last month for very little money.

One of the big downsides currently is the lack of rubber in 26". Yes you can still buy tyres, but seemingly not if you want sticky compounds or light weight. Choice is now very limited.

 

[I like Skol]

Nobody has mentioned that 26" wheeled MTBs are the coolest, especially when you are at the trail centre passing all the fangled new 27.5/29" uphill and down on a 25yr old hardtail