I've been thinking about building a steel framed, fully rigid, single speed 29er for a while now. As I was looking at parts the other day, I got a little curious about suspensions and wheel sizes.

Where did the mountain bike wheel sizes come from? Is there something magic about the numbers 26 and 29? Why not 25 or 30 inch wheels?

Rear suspensions, who first came up with the idea? Is it a "new" thing?

I'll start doing my homework, but I wanted to ask here as well.

cmh