asmac

Giant is promoting 27.5 " wheels for all its 'Liv' women's bikes.

I've never heard of this size before which may just indicate how little I know.

Is 27.5" a standard? Is a good selection of tires readily available?

This bike would suit my wife but the wheel size confuses me...

Darth Lefty 

It's a size that was once known as 650B and went obsolete, but has recently been repopularized for long-distance bikes and for racing mountain bikes. It's right between 26" and 700c. The tires available are therefore mostly medium slicks and fat knobbies.

MichaelW

Slick tyres are not yet available in most shops. You have to go to the boutique bike shops for 650b.
It is a nice size but does it have any advantages over a universal standard 26", esp for smaller women?

Personally I think 27.5" is just a marketing man's dream, a whole new reason to buy new bikes that makes old ones obsolete.

asmac

In giant's case it seems to be a marketing woman's dream. They are nice bikes ("Liv") but I have no interest in oddball non-standard items. Too bad.

blakcloud

I just checked out Giant's Toronto website and the 27.5 wheel or 650b is being used for it's mountain bikes, like every other major company producing mountain bikes. Look at Specialized, Trek, Ritchie and a host of others. 27.5 is not an odd ball size, it is in fact the norm for new mountain bikes. In this regard, I think that 29'r just didn't fit smaller size frames so 27.5 can be the ticket.

For road bikes, it is true there are few 650b wheeled bikes but they are out there. Surly has the Straggler and of course there is Rivendell, Soma, Albion Cycles, Cycles Toussant, and a host of others but they are harder to find and certainly more specialized.

My wife and I both ride 650b Rivendell's, and I don't think I can buy 650b road tire in this city (Toronto). I order from Compass Cycles and the Grand Bois Hetre tires that we use are the best riding tire I have ever used, though I wouldn't use them for commuting. I use Schwalbe Marathons for flat protection in commuting mode.

Not trying you to convince you to buy a 27.5 but not as odd as you think. Now 36" tire for the super tall guys are what I call oddball tires.

There is a thread further down that talks about 650b tires for commuting and it is quite long and has many opinions.

noglider 

This is probably a good move, because it will make 650B more mainstream. I'm annoyed that so many are calling it 27.5, especially since it's smaller (in bead seat diameter) than 27" but I guess we have to accept that. By making the size more mainstream, there will be more more tires available, and the prices will come down.

It's a nice size because it allows the bike to be a little lower than the so-called 29er size wheels (another dumb name). This is important for women. I imagine only a few women will feel comfortable on bikes with that size wheel. They'd have to be tall women.

cruiserhead

27.5 will be the new standard for mtb
Giant is moving towards that, not just in women's bikes but all their mtb's

29er's will still have a place but not as widespread

Mr. Hairy Legs

My new MTB is 27.5... I'm short and didn't want a 29er so this works well for me. I expect 26 will gradually disappear...

fietsbob

the 650 A, B, C. like the 600 & 700 ABC were about the outside diameter of the complete wheel.

so, when a fatter tire is part of the plan, the rim diameter is smaller , thinner tire, the rim diameter is larger ..


I don't .. its too well established, world wide, and Pre-existing bikes need replacement tires..

Just more tires to stock ..

Compass bike has supple high end 650B tires.. ("fast" is still about the turning the pedals, effort)

A 1.5" wide tire is common to both rim types , now.

RoadTire 

Just when I'm considering a conversion of my Sekine to 700c so it's compatible with my Trek and all the 700c tires available...sheesh. I guess I should wait a little and replace my road bikes and mtb to 650b. My small framed road bikes would look better with smaller wheels, smaller framed mtb would look meaner with larger wheels. I could reduce the number of spare tires and tubes significantly. I could put mtb tires, cyclocross, or road tires on any of my bikes at will. Except maybe 2+inch mtb wheels might not work well on the skinny road rims.....

Let's see, 29 is 700c, which is smaller than 27 1/4 on my Sekine, and 27.5 is the same as 650b which is also smaller than 27 1/4.

Can't we just go back to discussing chain lubes?

NormanF

650B allows for a lot of options... but the main one is you can install fenders on the bike for commuting. The ride of Panaracer Paselas can be described as a marshmallow ride. Rough roads feel like you're riding on the clouds of heaven.

There's nothing quite like it.

El Cid

I can see having a difference of opinion on wheel size when it comes to singletrack, but what advantage do you get from a smaller wheel that would help commuting? I would think a 29" wheel, with its ability to roll over more, would be the most popular. I can't see where you really need the extra nimble cornering on a commute to work.

LesterOfPuppets

27.5" is a better size wheel for small framed bikes.

A lot of beginning (and even quite a few veteran) commuters dislike toe overlap. Pretty tough to make a well-fitting commuter 29er on a frame with 54cm or smaller ETT with not toe overlap, especially if running tires bigger than 25mm.

Toe overlap is just one of the reasons, however.

LesterOfPuppets

Dear God, please don't let this happen.

I should stock up on sixer tires while they're cheap. Even if they do disappear, hopefully 5 years later at Interbike : "Specialized introduces new 26" MTB standard!"

LesterOfPuppets

I just read recently where one company is speccing eccentric bottom brackets on one of their models so it can be adjusted for use with either 27.5 or 29". I reckon one could do the same for 26" to 27.5".

LesterOfPuppets

Just cruised the Giant site, and looks like the most commutery Liv bike I could find, Alight City, is 700c. Same with the Thrive. And the Via W.

Maybe you mean all of the Liv MTBs??? Got a link to the bikes you're talking about?

LesterOfPuppets

There are plenty of 700c Liv bikes to choose from. And one Liv 26" MTB, the Enchant. If she rides MTB tires then there are plenty of 27.5" knobby tires out there. More slicks and semi-slicks will appear as time goes on.

The last 26" MTB racing segment is downhillers and I think chances are good they'll go to 27.5 as suitable DH tires become available.

dynaryder

I just don't get why they don't use 26";street tires are readily available in thin to wide sizes,plus there's knobbies for winter riding. I prefer 26's for my commuters because I can easily find 2" tires for comfort,studded knobbies for ice,and I don't have toe-overlap issues even with fenders.

asmac

I was referring to this article: Liv/giant Rolls Out New 27.5 Mountain Bikes for Women | Bicycling Magazine

"In fact, Liv/giant believes so strongly that the 27.5-inch wheel size will hit a sweet spot in the female market, that it is no longer making women’s 26-inch or 29-inch models."

LesterOfPuppets

Ahh, yes, so you did mean MTBs. Makes sense to me. If a lady wants a 29er I guess they can select from the men's lineup.

Surprised they didn't mention the Enchant 26". Must be too low end for Bicycling Mag to consider

A lot of standards are falling by the wayside in MTB world these days. 26" wheels. Straight steerer tubes. Interchangeability of road and MTB cassettes. Triples are fading from popularity pretty quickly. Doubles might be close behind. I rode a bike with Sram XX1 and it was REALLY nice!

blakcloud

This would be a better discussion in the mountain bike forum since we tend to discuss commuting bikes here. Unless of course one is actually considering buying a squishy to commute on.

As I said previously, 27.5 is the new standard in the mountain bike world. If you take your quote and changed female to male, you would have seen that in every mountain bike marketing sales pitch from all the manufacturers. Read up on Kirk Panceti, as he was the one the spearheaded this whole movement. It has taken him 10 years but certainly deserves the credit for this trend in mountain bikes.

asmac

No, actually I didn't. My reading of this is that all of Giant's women's bikes are under the liv banner and that all of them, rolling forward, will have 27.5" wheels. Many liv bikes are not mountain bikes and I'm not interested in anything for which tires are not readily accessible. Maybe in a few years...

Anyhow, as they say, everyone loves standards, that's why there are so many of them.

LesterOfPuppets

The article was written in 2013 and there are still TONS of 700c Liv bicycles listed on the Giant site. The article is ONLY about mountain bicycles. And they even have one 26" Liv available.

It would be hard to sell performance roadies with non-700c, since you couldn't use neutral wheel support when racing.

Have you been to the Liv site? Check it out. All the roadies, flatbar roadies, CX and hybrids I saw are 700c. Entry level MTB and cruiser are 26"

RoadTire 

Confused. Naw, I'm just ingorant. Can you elaborate? I don't understand how bottom brackets change with wheel size. Still, I'll Google eccentric BB and see what I find...

LesterOfPuppets

You can run your cranks low for 29" use, so you can still tippy-toe the ground while in the saddle, or high for 27.5", so you still have decent pedal/ground clearance.

Same frame, choose your wheel size.