Most of the time in life, bigger is better. We will focus in mountain bike wheels.
There is a big trend (excuse the intended pun) in the mountain bike community to the bigger wheel bikes known as 29’r. Why? Is this a better wheel size and should you jump on board? The short answer is maybe….
There are several big (yeah intended…) reasons to use the 29er. There are also some reasons to why a 26er may be the right bike.
Pros…
1) The bigger wheel means a bigger tire and that gives you a bigger contact patch on the trail. That gives you more traction. More traction means more control and better line management.
2) Bigger the wheel means smaller the bump. Less fatigue on the body, the muscles
don’t work as hard, so you’re more efficient.
3) The bigger wheel holds its momentum better, Which could be faster in some conditions.
Cons…
1) In tight switch backs the 26” wheel is easer to maneuver.
2) For very large (heavy) folks the bigger wheel in general will have more flex, and not be quits as strong. Longer the spoke, the weaker the wheel. There might be exceptions to this but it holds true as a general statement.
3) Shorter people will have trouble getting the seat position taller than the handle bars. Therefore they won’t be able to use their upper body strength as much and will have more weight on their sit bones and lose some stand over height.
So yeah, 29ers do some things well, and 26ers do some things well, too. .
The difference between the 29er riders and the 26er riders comes from differences in riding styles and preferred trail types.
If you ride aggressively on gnarly trails, bunny hopping rocks, hitting doubles, and finding the deep lines on technical trails, the 26er is, in most cases, still the bike you want. If you like to cruise, hit XC tracks, climb a lot, and flow through rollers, the 29er is more up your alley. And, incidentally, this portion of riders makes up a large part of industry sales, which is why so many 29ers are rolling around these days.
I hope this sheds some light on the different wheel mountain bikes. The best thing one can do is get out and ride.
Feel free to call or come into Collins cycle shop to talk more about these bikes or any questions. Thanks for reading and happy trails to you.
