The Get fit club!

[airshifter]

I have a 26" full suspension bike with 160mm of travel in both ends, for my riding it's intended for xc rides and the occational enduro/bike park riding. The terrain in my area is quite technical with lot of roots and rocks. If I was looking for a new full susser, I might give a 27,5" bike a try. I probably wouldn't buy a 29" bike unless moved into a area with smoother trails.

My thoughts on the different wheel sizes.
I'm talking about bikes that are intended for actual offroad use, not the occasional ride in a smooth gravel path around the fish pond or downhill racing.
26" bikes nowadays are marketed for "fun" riding
- travel mostly 140mm-180mm (hard tail or full suspension).


27,5" (650b) is the between the the two, nowadays getting quite a lot of manufactures on board.
- travel mostly 120mm-160mm (hard tail or full suspension). Not as much choice is in tyres at the moment but increases if the standard catches on.


29" Most of them are intended for xc use or for longer rides, the geometry is a bit steeper than 26" which makes it a bit sketchier on steep downhills but works better on uphills.
- suspension travel around 120mm
- tyres roll better over small obstacles but isn't as nimble as a 26" around tight stuff.

The most important thing is to pick a wheel size and be a Richard about it.

The hard part for me is finding a good way to do some direct comparisons. At some point I need to get rid of the POS I've been riding, and being most of my riding is in milder terrain, I'm leaning toward the larger wheel sizes. But I really don't want to trade off if it results in sketchy handling.

I don't do what I would consider any hard core off road riding, but what I do is more rooted up, with quite a few logs here and there to cross as well. I really don't know if going to a suspended front end will ease the body beating on this riding enough, or if the larger wheel size would ease the beating even more.

I wouldn't think most people would find the change in tire size is enough to really make handling seem slow in the really tight stuff, as it's still not a very big wheel really. I guess this would be more affected by the rider size.


From everything I've read I think I'll end up going with a 29er if I buy new. Being I've beat up my back over the years the possible trade off in low speed tight stuff handling should be overcome by the larger tire soaking up transitions and obstacles a little better. I'm still torn between buying full suspension or hardtail. Most of my miles would actually be on trails and paved stuff, but as I said anything off road around here has tons of roots and small stuff that shakes you to death at anything above a crawl on a non suspended bike. I'd hate to lose efficiency in the road stuff due to rear suspension, but it would be nice to have something to soak up some of the quick jolting transitions at curb cuts and such as well.

[schmenke]

Mapmyrun is $h1t. I went on Saturday for a long run (28-29km) and it was too much for it. Again. At first it went fine but when it got a little cloudy and it started raining the measuring went berserk. My pace jumped from less then 6 minutes per km to 8. I know I lose pace as I add km but not like this. And by the 25 km mark it stopped working altogether. Only God knows what this crap measured so far. Maybe some of the km ran thus far have only been ran in my imagination

I’ve never had an issue with the app, other than it’s simply not as accurate as my GPS watch. Mapmyrun consistently reads my mileage too high, consequently providing an overly optimistic pace. For example, during my run last evening, when the app read 10km my GPS watch was reading only 9.5km. Doesn’t sound like much of a difference but it’s significant in that Mapmyrun resulted in an average pace of 4:53/km whereas the GPS watch I was wearing at the time read 5:04 .
From the few timed events I’ve done, the official time is always closer to what my watch reads.

[schmenke]

The hard part for me is finding a good way to do some direct comparisons. At some point I need to get rid of the POS I've been riding, and being most of my riding is in milder terrain, I'm leaning toward the larger wheel sizes. But I really don't want to trade off if it results in sketchy handling.

I don't do what I would consider any hard core off road riding, but what I do is more rooted up, with quite a few logs here and there to cross as well. I really don't know if going to a suspended front end will ease the body beating on this riding enough, or if the larger wheel size would ease the beating even more.

I wouldn't think most people would find the change in tire size is enough to really make handling seem slow in the really tight stuff, as it's still not a very big wheel really. I guess this would be more affected by the rider size.


From everything I've read I think I'll end up going with a 29er if I buy new. Being I've beat up my back over the years the possible trade off in low speed tight stuff handling should be overcome by the larger tire soaking up transitions and obstacles a little better. I'm still torn between buying full suspension or hardtail. Most of my miles would actually be on trails and paved stuff, but as I said anything off road around here has tons of roots and small stuff that shakes you to death at anything above a crawl on a non suspended bike. I'd hate to lose efficiency in the road stuff due to rear suspension, but it would be nice to have something to soak up some of the quick jolting transitions at curb cuts and such as well.

Same issue here, although I’m leaning towards the 650b as it sounds like the better compromise. Most of my riding consists of XC with a few cruising trails from time to time.
I’m worried that with the larger frame of the 29er will be less stable over the bumpy stuff. I'm not looking to break any time records, I just want a comfortable and stable ride.

Airshifter, get yourself a hardtail, you won’t regret it, especially considering that nowadays they are available with a suspension that you can lock out.

[Big Ben]

I’ve never had an issue with the app, other than it’s simply not as accurate as my GPS watch. Mapmyrun consistently reads my mileage too high, consequently providing an overly optimistic pace. For example, during my run last evening, when the app read 10km my GPS watch was reading only 9.5km. Doesn’t sound like much of a difference but it’s significant in that Mapmyrun resulted in an average pace of 4:53/km whereas the GPS watch I was wearing at the time read 5:04 .
From the few timed events I’ve done, the official time is always closer to what my watch reads.

what GPS watch do you use?

[janneppi]

I wouldn't think most people would find the change in tire size is enough to really make handling seem slow in the really tight stuff, as it's still not a very big wheel really. I guess this would be more affected by the rider size.

It's not just the wheel size that affects handling, 29" forks have a different rake to 26" forks which affect the steering input.
The difference isn't apparently very massive.

From everything I've read I think I'll end up going with a 29er if I buy new. Being I've beat up my back over the years the possible trade off in low speed tight stuff handling should be overcome by the larger tire soaking up transitions and obstacles a little better. I'm still torn between buying full suspension or hardtail. Most of my miles would actually be on trails and paved stuff, but as I said anything off road around here has tons of roots and small stuff that shakes you to death at anything above a crawl on a non suspended bike. I'd hate to lose efficiency in the road stuff due to rear suspension, but it would be nice to have something to soak up some of the quick jolting transitions at curb cuts and such as well.

If I hadn't tried a good full suspension bike three years ago I probably would be riding a 29" hardtail with a longish fork. Something along the lines of Kona Honzo. If you don't want full susser, don't try one.

[schmenke]

what GPS watch do you use?

I used one of these:

https://secure-nikeplus.nike.com/plu...s/sport_watch/

Pretty basic GPS watch. I purchased it only because it was cheap .

[Big Ben]

I used one of these:

https://secure-nikeplus.nike.com/plu...s/sport_watch/

Pretty basic GPS watch. I purchased it only because it was cheap .

Maybe I'll invest in one of those but not right now :P:. I've tested a few apps and they all have their own measurements (on the same track of course).... so I know now not to take that info too seriously. The thing with mapmyrun is that its measurements vary quite a lot sometimes.... up to 10%... So if we go with the most pessimistic numbers then some 130km out of the 1300 measured last year were imaginary.... quite a sad thought actually

[schmenke]

...I've tested a few apps and they all have their own measurements (on the same track of course).... so I know now not to take that info too seriously. The thing with mapmyrun is that its measurements vary quite a lot sometimes.... up to 10%...

Agreed, that’s why I bought the watch. It’s far more consistent and accurate. It comes with a Nike software that’s very similar to that of Mapmyrun. The only negative is that it doesn’t automatically sync your workouts through wifi like my phone does (you have to physically plug it into a USB port). Also, because it uses satellites (unlike your phone that uses a cellular network) it takes a minute or two to sync up to the satellites at the start of each workout. But, like I said, this was a cheap watch and there are other more expensive ones out there that probably work better .

[schmenke]

Definately time for a new bike .

Went for a ride the day before last and the rear thumbshifter is no longer working - can no longer downshift to a lower gear. Uphills were a challenge


In better news, I managed a 10km run in just under 50 minutes yesterday. Not a personal best, but not bad considering the less-than-ideal conditions yesterday .

[Mark]

Phone GPS does not use the cellular network. It uses the same satellites your GPS watch uses. The only difference is that phones have a better idea where they are in the world so the first fix is faster.