Originally Posted by
Little Darwin
27.5" is 650B (as I recall) and has been around for a long time... just not common. I suspect the flooding of the market is just a marketing ploy (or possibly a fad, which does often drive cycling products). After all, if 26" is good for some things, and 29" is good for others, then 27.5" must be the best of both worlds.
I suspect there was a slowdown in sales of mountain bikes with both common tire sizes, and so the "new" size was introduced to boost sales.
The 27.5" wheel switch is an admission that the 29er was a dumb idea. They just can't admit it enough that they go back to the more nimble 26" wheel.
Originally Posted by
no motor?
I tried converting 27.5" to metric and it wasn't 650 - are they the same size like 29" and 700c wheels?
A 26" wheel (559mm ISO) and a 700C (622mm ISO) (aka 29er) and a 27" (630mm ISO) aren't 26", 700mm nor 27", respectively. A 26 inch rim is really 22" in diameter. A 700C is really 24.5" in diameter. The 650B (aka in 'Merika as the 27.5er...dumb! Dumb! Dumb!) is really 23" in diameter. The sizes come from the outside diameter of a "standard" tire mounted on the rim. If you do the math, you'll find that that "standard" tire is kind of goofy too. For the 26" wheel, the tire is 2" in diameter. For the 700C, the tire is 39mm tire which is very wide for any modern road wheel.
If I can rant just a bit more, the 27.5er is perhaps dumber than the 29er. We need a whole new selection of rims and tires to increase the size of the wheel an inch! There just isn't that much of a difference between the way that a 26" mountain bike rides and a 27.5er (that stupid name again) rides. Not enough for all the changes need to stock the tires and wheels. There might be a difference between a 29er and a 26" but even there the difference isn't as great as some would have you believe. It's splitting hairs at best. The 27.5er is just splitting hairs split hairs. Dumb! Dumb! Dumb!