You'll have to excuse me for not including those great pics in my response. They do look great. I think the concept is a very good one for exactly what you did. Keep up the good work.

Tim

I like the way you've got your frame pump in a different spot on the frame for each bike. Isn't the Ebisu made for 650b wheels originally?

Acht! I would love to claim responsibility for these excellent rides, but....

They are offerings from Cyclofiend

The Ebisu is a purpose built 650B bike. The others are conversions (one a Cernturion, the other Bridgestone). If you go to the Cyclofiend link and do a search for 650B you will see many cool builds... including many Kogswell purpose built models

I recognize the RB-1. I was in Kansas City and saw it at ACME cycles -www.acmebicyclecompany.com/ ) . They were real helpful and had built up several nice conversions, vintage, & fixed gears. The RB-1 made me drool while I was there.

just ran into a neighbor, out for a ride on a fully assembled rivendell saluki she just picked up in walnut creek. she loves the 650b wheels.

Well, I have to get into the act too!

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...6/bikepic1.jpg

Is it me, or is most everyone in C&V on the tall side, while everyone in fixed/ss or roadie on the shorter side*?

*Not that I frequent those other fora much, but I did notice a while back that fixed riders tend to be more in the shorter or average-height spectrum.

I think many/most C&V riders hail from the day of "A fistful of seatpost" while most of the fixed/ss/roadie types think that in order to be "cool" they have to look like a monkey humping a football.

I could be biased, though.

:D
I definitely understand the bias. I was making my observation more on just the height of all the bikes I see here--some very long headtubes in the C&V photos.

Still one of my favorite bikes on bikeforums! :D I'm still wanting to build one myself, but I'm going to have to wait until I move out of this apartment and into my house. Landlords tend to frown upon oxy-acetylene torches.

I hope this post keeps growing. I like seeing these bikes! Classy machines!

I'll be converting my 3 speed to a 650b here soon. Running a stock 50's 3-speed on gravel/broken old concrete paths is a bit jarring.

I hope there is a future.



See more at http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...eur+650b+world

Here's another tall one. Even though I normally ride 25" frames this one was a little too tall for me (steep angles bring the top tube up quite a bit). To make it rideable I put some 650B wheels on. Only ridden it a few times but it's a lot of fun to ride.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3191/...c8278f24_b.jpg

This is my potential 650b bicycle. It's a 1990+/- Gt Continuum with 700d wheels. 700d & 650b are interchangeable. While this bike does not have the classic good looks of the old lugged frame it doe's have braze-on bosses for front fork bags & 3 water bottle cages. At some point i plan to add drop bars, finders & STI.

A few comments on here make me suspect that some people only claim or dream to have owned a 650B bike. Toe clip overlap is one. What does the size of the tire have to do with toe clip overlap? The overall diameter of a 650B wheel equipped with its larger tire is not too far behind that of a 700c wheel with a road tire, and then when you add the fender (and what's the point of a 650B "conversion" if you don't add fenders?), you haven't gained a damned thing in terms of reducing toe overlap with the wheel. In fact, you will probably have less than you had with the 700c wheels minus fenders.

A purpose-built 650B frame (as opposed to a converted road bike) might have more clearance, but that would only be because the frame was designed for more clearance in the first place (when compared to an all-out road racing bike). It's not because of the 650B wheels and tires. You could design a 700c frame just the same (as in touring bike).

I think that in the Rivendell-type world, 650B became the next logical step after pushing huge tires on 700c wheels AND added fenders for a number of years. At some point, someone had to realize that in comparison to what 700c was intended for (skinny road clinchers or tubulars), very large tires on 700c make for a pretty large overall diameter. So if instead you go to 650B, you still have your large tires, but now in a more 700c-like overall diameter.

Look, it's not that I care one iota what anyone rides. But when I was young, almost all bikes in the US and Canada had wide tires. The few adults who rode bikes were usually seen on balloon tired bikes. Then, when people realized that there was such a thing as a lightweight 10-speed bike, the 60's/70's bike boom began. Nobody wanted wide tires anymore. Those who were stuck riding cheaper, entry-level 10-speeds were forced to ride wider road tires, but invariably, they wished they could afford narrower tubular wheels and tires. Now, some people seem to want to go back to balloon and semi-balloon tires. Maybe it's because so many more people are obese nowadays. But the logic escapes my cartesian mind, because you don't need to advocate a previously abandoned wheel size in order to get wider tires. It was the French themselves who abandoned 650B in favour of either VTT (mountain bikes and hybrids) or for the harder-core traditional cyclotouristes, 700c wheeled touring bikes.

There is something attractive about the 650B wheeled touring or city bike, but I don't think it adds anything to what we already have except one more tire size. On the other hand, maybe if all the mountain bike world switched to 650B instead of 26 inch the way 27 in wheels were abandoned in favour of 700c, it might make sense. Then you would have 700c for road bikes (very logical for interchangeability with tubular wheels), and 650B for everything else.

A 700 x 35mm is considerably taller than a 650 x 35mm tire. The benifit of 650b is that you can use wide tires and still have a similar outside diameter to, say, a 700 x 23mm tire. And yes, if you have toe clip overlap with a 700x23 tire, then you probably still will with a 650x35+. But it won't be nearly as bad as if you were running a 700X35 tire.

Longfemur, Thanks for fully explaining the reason 650b is such a great idea.

So a true 650b frame bike would have the clearance for toe clips and fenders?:)-----why not just get fatter tires for the 700c wheel if you wanted a randonneur feel or look.:D

Amen to that. I put some 700 X 32mm tires on my RSE and when the fenders went on, I almost killed myself. Didn't realize that toe clip overlap was so bad. I really wish I had the smaller dia tire/wheels. Fat tires really smooth out the ride for us over 50 riders.

[QUOTE=Longfemur;7263393]
A purpose-built 650B frame (as opposed to a converted road bike) might have more clearance, but that would only be because the frame was designed for more clearance in the first place (when compared to an all-out road racing bike). It's not because of the 650B wheels and tires. You could design a 700c frame just the same (as in touring bike).
[QUOTE]

That's true for clearance: you can design the frame for whatever clearance you want. But if you read my earlier posts I explained why the geometry of a bike is affected by wheel sizes in ways other than clearance.

Cheers,
Karl

:lol:

I think some of this discussion depends on where the person is coming from. If you think a road bike necessarily is what the mass market offers nowadays, I can see the appeal of a more relaxed drop bar bike like a constructeur-style 650B randonneuse. But there's no reason a more moderate road bike with decent 700c tires can't be just as comfortable. They can also look pretty nice and traditional rather than like bicycle replicas of Formula 1 racing cars. I guess I'm lucky that I got my road bike custom-made in a traditional style a decade ago when this was still reasonably possible and affordable. Even though it has 700c wheels, it can be setup like a randonneuse in almost every way. If I had wanted to do heavier touring with it, I would just have asked for heavier tubing. It's not that I have a hate on for 650B, but rather that I just don't see the advantages of it over a 700c wheeled sport touring or full touring road bike. But look, if you guys ever bring about the abandonment of 700c, I'll break down and put 650B wheels on it :-)

Personally, when I began re-discovering bikes, the older ones appealed more b/c they seemed more practical and usable. The bike market splintered a lot, especially once MTBs got a hold and everyone started getting into upright handlebars. Nowadays, though, I find the choices for a purely utilitarian bike fairly limiting, rather than expansive. I like narrower-tubed STEEL frames that I know are well-made and durable. I don't like the feel or the look of an aluminum hybrid bicycle. I think a lot of people who like the idea or use of 650b's also simply prefer to be able to have the elegance and dependability and construction of a touring or road frame, but the improved utility afforded by 650b's. For me, I'm eying the whole thing b/c I happen to have body dimensions that put my pubic bone in direct conflict w/ my preferred size--22cm. It was very nice to discover I could convert over to 650b and get the clearance I needed.

As far as the "one more tire size thing," I get that a lot of people just feel like it's some marketing gimmick, but hell, the last 5 years saw everyone go from 7 to 8 to 9 to 10-speed gear clusters. And brifters are really so necessary? I mean, if it's an idea pushed on the entire industry by the two components giants who control 90% of their market, everyone just accepts that these are upgrades "everyone has to have." If a few eccentric bike dudes w/ strong opinions advocate for those opinions, everyone flips out like they're the second coming of the evilest car salesmen in the world. I'm ambivalent about GP and Rivendell and all their personal hype, but hell, at least they break down and analyze the lifestyle of bike riding, rather than shoving ideas down the throats of the lemur demographic of today's bike buyer who basically wants (thinks they want) the equivalent of a bike version of a Hummer or a Ferrari.

It seems to me that in places where people really ride bikes a lot in their daily lives, or among those who ride a lot, what one actually is seeing is singlespeeds, sometimes fixed gear, 3-speeds, and tricked-out vintage road bikes. People I know who only ride modern road bikes are weekend warriors attempting to be racers, and the ones who go and drop 600 bucks on a new, crappy hybrid or MTB end up letting the thing sit in their apartment and riding it 2 or 3 times before selling it 3 years later. Most of the people I know who are interested in 650b are interested in it for its utilitarian purpose. So while I'm also one to be skeptical of fads or trends that only seem to increase someone's profit margins, I'm also happy when I find I have the option of adapting or re-adapting a bike for my own utilitarian purpose.

The picture wasn't enough to convince you, eh? LMAO. I guess I should send you over to the framebuilding forum to view my photo essay on how the pictured frame was built, but you'd probably accuse me of Photoshopping or something.

At any rate, it has already been pointed out that if you put a fat tire on a 700c wheel you end up with a much greater diameter than the same tire on a 650b wheel. Try putting a 42mm tire on a 700c wheel and then see what you'd have to do to your frame geometry to avoid overlap. It's not prettty.

Aside from the fact that you seem to be providing your own counter-argument here, it might be healthy for you to forget about Rivendell. I know a lot of folks get their panties in a wad at the thought of Grant/Riv, but they weren't the first to go back to 650b and they're a pretty small part of that scene these days.

I grew up riding and racing on skinny tires, and after returning to the sport following a ten year break, I realized what I wanted was comfort, rather than speed. I put in a lot of time with wide tires on 700c wheels, and it was invariably a compromise. Smaller wheels were/are the obvious solution, and you're right, it would have been more logical for the manufacturers to have gone to 26". But they didn't. Wide, lightweight road rims and tires are available in 650b and not 26". There is nothing available in 26" that holds a candle to the Grand Bois 650b tires, and believe me, I've looked. So do I stay home and damn the manufacturers for not being "logical" and making good 26" stuff for road use, or do I just go out and buy what I want in 650b?

Suits me. Make it happen, if it all upsets you so much. :lol: