Hey all. I went to get the fit worked out on my road bike and a couple people, friends and teammates, said my frame was a size too big. Makes sense, I suppose, if you look at the numbers. So my friend offered to lend me a smaller frame for the season at least. Alas, I will soon have a newish road bike frame getting lonely in the garage. So, I decided to do a 650b conversion on it, so I can use wider tires and real fenders for a geared commuter, and also because 650b bikes seem like an interesting thing to try out, if only for the summer if I don't like it. I figured it out, and I just need to pick up some long reach calipers, and of course the rest of the bike components, most of which I have lying around, or can get for cheap. No need to go too expensive on a commuter anyway, probably gonna go with eight speed indexed downtube shifters and a Sora front/Tiagra rear setup.

I think a geared bike would compliment my fixie well. It's a pain in the butt to haul stuff on it, and I like to take off the racks and panniers when I'm done carrying stuff, so I can zip around more easily, which is a hassle to do every couple of days. Having a geared bike setup permanently for hauling would be good, especially in the summer, when I hope to do lots of grocery shopping and errands by bike. Even if the geometry is not ideal for hauling, it'll be fun to have a geared wide tired gravel/adventure bike in the summer.

Does anyone else here commute on or utilize a 650b road bike? How do you like it? Is the greater rarity of tires and tubes annoying? How does the wheel size feel compared to other, more common sizes? Any cool pictures? Thanks.