why do people hate on 29ers so bad?

A Little 29er History

The first frame manufacturer to build 29er Mountain Bikes was Wes Williams, owner of Willits Bikes in Creste Butte, CO, www.willitbikes.com.
In early 1999 Wes call me to see if White Brothers would build him a proto 29er fork. At the time the only 29er suspension fork was made by Marzocchi and it was one of their lower end models with small diameter stanchions; flexy and mushy. I talked our R&D manager Jim Lewis into putting something together for Wes; the first WB forks were a little sticky but they had larger 32mm stanchions and were a major step in the right direction.
After I got the first proto to Wes he drove over to Woodland Park, CO (where I lived) and joined our local Team Telecycle Thursday night group ride, see www.teamtelecycle.com. After the ride he left the bike with me for several weeks to pass around to my buddies to ride.
We all had the same comments of the bike: Positives: Flies downhill, great on the flats, good traction in most conditions. Negatives: A little hard to steer around switchback climbs and it accelerated slowly. The slow acceleration tendency made total sense since the first WTB rims, tires and tubes were quite heavy.
Wes Williams felt one of the big advantages of the large 29" wheels is that the bottom bracket is now below axle centerline. I could really feel this as the bike switched from turn to turn really easily. Willits bikes really took advantage of this benefit by using an even lower BB height since he was an advocate of short cranks (165mm to be exact).
Once the major manufactures started building 29ers the Willits brand pretty much got forgotten but he's the guy that got it started.

 

Sorry! Try www.willitsbikes.com

 

Again, not a 29er but a 700cc. Amazing skillz!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z1fSpZNXhU

 

Yeh, Willits was the man. When I worked directly for the evil empire, and we purchased Klein in 1995/96, we were going over their model history, and spent some time sitting around discussing the Adept, which was their successful Attitude MTB frame, fork & kit, but with 700c wheels and slightly quicker geo. We had all kinds of discussions as to where this model might fit in or progress. A touring rig? Not really. A reaally expensive hybrid? No. What about a 700c MTB? We tried a couple out, put 38s & I think even 42s on em, and realized there was something interesting happening there. ...but then mgt decided to run the brand on the cheap and drive the label into the ground, so all plans were scrapped. Close call there.

 

This thread has lost its 29er hate steam..here is something to possibly get the hate going again.

 

[youtube]OyIWPB-X49U[/youtube]

 

is today a week...what day is it?

 

Here is some more from Bush's visit to Niner Bikes. Apparently he is faster on big wheels.

http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=644479

 

wade simmons loves 29ers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewIBfWBP6G0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

im trying not to hate...but i find that i can't climb some of steep stuff that i can on my much heavier FR bike. I feel like i just don't have a low enough gear...can one of the enginerds tell me how much im losing on the low end gear ratio based on the info below?

29er-2 X 10 (26X36) 22lbs bike
26er-3 X 9 (22X34) 36lb bike

looks like im losing a bit head to head just on the ratio...then add in the 29er...what would the comparable ratio be for the 26er? 26er-22X??

 

Your 29er @ 26x36 is 21.0 gear inches. Your 26er @ 22x34 is 17.1 gear inches... lower is easier.

A comparable gear in your 26er would be 22x27 or 22x28. So yes, your 29er is not geared as low as your heavy 26" FR bike. Even if you went to 22x36 on the 29er, it would not be as low as 22x34 on the FR bike. A 22x38 would be about right.

For reference, a common 29er SS gear is 32x20, or 46.6 gear inches.

Source: http://www.sheldonbrown.com/gears/

 

With the gears you have the 29er is geared ~24% higher in granny.
Comparable on the 26er is 22x28. (ignoring decimal points)

To equalize run 3x9 with a 20 granny on the 29er. (Boone used to make 20T')

 

i guess this will just make me a stronger climber thanks guys!

 

Riding Trestle Bike Park with Devin Lenz (green), Brandon Schmitt (black), Skippy Wixom (blue), and Mike C in the orange 'thrift store shirt'. All 4 riders are on LenzSport PBJ 29" park bikes, riding Lacemine29.com wheels shod with WTB Dissent tires.

http://vimeo.com/14538235

Dean

 

I had the sickest pair of parachute pants back in '82, and I wore a red suede necktie as a belt. Talk about posing! Thank god there were no camera phones back then.

 

I saw Black Flag the first time in 82 [<-----yup random posing boast] but I never ever wore/owned a pair of parachutes pants [thank gawd]. The Poorman wore those f'in ugly things VJ'ing on Request Video Live and I remember thinking to myself wtf is that dude thinking? lol

 

That bike just doubled in price!!

 

Adding to "29er hate steam":

http://singletrack.competitor.com/2010/10/features/taming-the-29er-trend-at-least-a-touch_10872

 

Well I'll be damned...an intelligent, real world comparison of the two that basically comes to a rational viewpoint.

"just know that while the big wheels may be good for some, they’re not the end-all, be-all for all of us."

That about sums it up.

 

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