Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
I have seen recent reference to 27.5 inch but quite frankly I have no clue what that is. I suspect that some committee of marketing managers had a conference call where they decided to give a new name to something old in the hopes of increasing $ale$ ... ... and bonu$e$.
I think what you're referring to is those jack-ass MTB companies up to it again. Like Trek decided to give 700c Another name and call it a "29er!!!" to sell it as some awesome new thing*. The size 27.5" is a 650b, renamed for the MTB world, called as much because it's the size between 26" and the "29er." Because, hey, why not add More names to the bike tire world so that we can all have confusing discussions to figure out which of 3 different names for 8 different tire sizes you need... Jackasses.
*Even though other companies were doing it back in the late 80s/early 90s.