26, 650b, 29er

650b wheels are not the second coming of Jesus

Not a 650b wheel

...although you might be forgiven for thinking that, if you've been reading any MTB magazines or website this last year. And the year before that, it was 29er wheels that were going to solve the energy crisis and save the planet.

So what's going on?

I think the bike industry has run out of exciting things to sell us.

At least for now - until some chump tries fitting disc brakes onto a road bike...

Not required.

...oh wait, that already happened.

After all, it's not like someone has just invented the first MTB disk brake, or the first suspension fork, or indexed gear shifters that fit on the bars not the downtube.

The industry is instead, quite literally, attempting to reinvent the wheel. And not even reinvent. 650b is an old standard - "French utility bikes, tandems, and loaded-touring bikes" (from Sheldon Brown's Bike Rim Page).

But, do you really think it will make that much difference fitting a French utility bike rim? Want to know what a 650b bike feels like? Fit a really large tyre on your 26 bike. There is 25mm difference in diameter between the two - or to put in another way, less than 4%. Wahoo. That size difference can be made up by getting a tyre 0.5" bigger. If you have a 26x2", you can pop on a 26x2.5" and get the same effect.

There is the argument made against 26" wheels, that they are only used "because that's what the guys who made the first mountain bikes had lying around". Partly true - the Californians who converted the beach cruiser and clunker bikes, they did indeed have a bunch of 26" rims handy. But why do you think that's what they had lying around? Maybe that kind of size wheel is just about the right size for the average adult? Bikes around the world have all evolved to have wheels about this size. Maybe there is something in that. Even road rims, with a skinny tyre, have a very very similar diameter.

As for 29" hoops... Maybe sticking a road rim and a fat tyre on a flyweight XC hardtail makes some sense - cyclocross bikes have been doing that for years. Deja vu... weren't we already talking about 650b reinventing the wheel?

So, yet another size in between being that much better than either 26 or 29?

Don't believe the hype.