I got one in the mail this week, the first in a while. I was surprised at how many new things there were in there. 27.5" wheels, ebikes and whatever the elf thing is. It's nice to see innovation even if it makes me wonder how I missed out on a new tire size.

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.

I admit, I don't understand the 650b craze at all. It started as a way to put fat tires on a 700c road frame, sustained by the availability of ONE high-quality tire. Now suddenly all of our 26" mountain bike wheels are obsolete. Next will come a new size: 650E that allows us to put narrow tires on frames meant for 650b.

Actually the French were building around that tire-wheel Long ago . they were using it while the US was using Ballon tires on Cruisers riding on Gravel back roads .

they were riding over hand Laid Cobbled streets In Their cities .. I still love the looks of those Parisienne fish scale patterned Pavers .

I tried converting 27.5" to metric and it wasn't 650 - are they the same size like 29" and 700c wheels?

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.

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!

I don't know that I'd call the 29er a 'dumb' idea;it does have it's merits. But I think it would've been better to leave it on the higher-end bikes were you've got pros or very experienced riders you can really appreciate the differences and choose which they like best,as opposed to putting them on everything.

I thought 650 was for short riders on small frames that wouldn't fit 700's without serious compromises to geometry.

Catalog??

my commuter bike has 700s' and I feel they are a little big. As far as switching to MTB rims and running slicks, I sometimes consider it; but it would be a lot of work. I really think that for shorter riders the 650s' might be a good choice (I'm 5'6"). Some road optimized 26" rims and tyres would also be good, they just don't seem to be common.

Catalog? I didn't get no stinking catalog! I'll be on the phone Monday - and I was just in their store spending money a week or so ago, and they even logged it on my acct!

It may be all in my empty brain, but it sure seems easier to ride a bike with 27 or 700 tires, over any 26 I've ever had! Might not make such tight corners, but, then again, neither do I.

I knew there was more to it somewhere, thanks!

Me too, it was the first time in a while I bought something there too. I've got enough bike stuff now that I don't shop there like I used to, maybe they figured the $100+ I spent there then meant I was a good candidate to buy more.

As with a lot of things bicycle related, people concentrate on a few merits but ignore a whole lot of problems. Sure, a 29er rolls over obstacles slightly better than a 26" wheel. But that's about the only thing they do better. If you are shorter than about 5'9", 29er wheels cause very large problems with fit. The large frame is also heavier just because it has to have more material to make the frame. On a positive note, a 29er take all the fit and weight problems that many women have and move them to a larger market so that more people can appreciate those problems.

The larger wheel can be flexy. The larger frame needed causes the frame to be flexy as well. The large wheels have more rotating mass which makes them harder to spin. You can say that they keep momentum at steady speeds better but when does anyone on a bicycle pedal at a truly constant speed and it's even worse when you are riding off-road. The large diameter also means that they are geared higher. Many people struggle with climbing off-road with a 26" wheel so increasing the mass and gearing them higher is going the wrong way.

The unspoken benefit of "compact" frames was that a retailer didn't have to stock all those sizes of bicycles to fit all those people.

Now we need another wheel and tire size? Is this to run the small LBS out of business because they can't afford to stock the SKUs for 26, 700, 650, and 29, and you need a retail giant like Performance to make sure they have everything for all those sizes?

(Written with tongue firmly in cheek. I let my TP membership lapse about 5 years ago because I noticed they didn't have most of the stuff I wanted to buy either in the shops or on-line.)

No switch to 260b around here. It's all 29r. 26 is history and only a few "gravitate" toward the 650b, which is much closer to 26 than 29. In just about any circumstance you'll be faster on a 29r, though you may prefer the handling of a 26 or 650b. In the end though, it's whatever floats your boat, so test ride them.