[Fibblesnork]

First time posting (though have a lot of time lurking) and I wanted to guage opinions on 650b road plus…

Bit of background, my usual road ride is a very nice, highly marvelous, extremely attractive, Dolan Ti which I have lovingly owned for the past three years.  It’s been great…  However, the last couple of years have seen a steady decline in my local road quality and cycle paths.  So much so that on a ride of any distance, I feel as though I’m doing cobbled classics instead of comfy cruising.

Being the solitary sort, I tend not to group ride and I had my eyes caught by a Whyte Glencoe in an lbs last week…  Interesting stuff I think and on digging a bit more, there are other options and some good choices and I believe that this may well prompt me saying goodbye to my skinny road bike and hello to something a bit more cushiony..

And then there’s gravel riding and bikepacking, two things that I’d quite like to get into. Yes I could keep the Dolan but I’m not sure I would get much use out of it but what should I be looking out for?

Pitfalls and problem I will have no doubt missed..  I’ve looked at the Whyte, I don’t mind steel (Vitus Substance on offer at Chain Reactions), I like the idea of tyre changing to MTB tyres, I also would refer 1x and I think I am already sold on it… I don’t have budget for a 3T Exploro, weight isn’t critical…

Will gladly hear the opinions of those with greater know….

Topic

[CXR94Di2]

The best decision I made was
The best decision I made was to buy a bike frame(Kinesis Tripster V2) which allows upto 50mm tyres(650b). I have 3 sets of wheels with various tyres sizes. my favourite is the 40mm G Ones . They’re so comfortable, fast.

[Canyon48]

hawkinspeter wrote:

Canyon48 wrote:

How are people getting so angry over a wheel size 

If you don’t want it, don’t buy/ride it.

If you want it, great! buy it and ride it.

More options can only be a good thing surely? I only own 700c bikes…

I’m waiting for road bikes to shift to a smaller wheel size for the improved aerodynamics. That’ll get them moaning for sure.

It certainly makes perfect sense to reduce wheel size. That way the CoG can be lowered, weight reduced and the frontal area reduced.

We only use 700c (nominal 622mm) because it derives from an archaic French system using 28″. There is no engineering case for using that size. It’d be interesting to give some engineers (a mixed bunch though, not just bicycle engineers) free reign to design the most efficient wheel to see what size they’d use. I’m sure there is a balance to be struck somewhere between rolling resistance, handling and aerodynamics – no-ones ever investigated it properly though.

Reluctance to change and sticking to tradition just holds back road bikes.

[hawkinspeter]

Canyon48 wrote:

How are people getting so angry over a wheel size 

If you don’t want it, don’t buy/ride it.

If you want it, great! buy it and ride it.

More options can only be a good thing surely? I only own 700c bikes…

I’m waiting for road bikes to shift to a smaller wheel size for the improved aerodynamics. That’ll get them moaning for sure.

[hawkinspeter]

joules1975 wrote:

And man never stepped foot on the moon, there was a second sniper when JFK got shot .. you carry on believing your conspiracies, whatever floats your boat. 

To be absolutely fair, it’s well known that NASA got Stanley Kubrick to fake the moon landing (watch Room 237 for more info), but as Stanley Kubrick was such a stickler for details, he insisted on shooting on location.

[Canyon48]

How are people getting so

How are people getting so angry over a wheel size 

If you don’t want it, don’t buy/ride it.

If you want it, great! buy it and ride it.

More options can only be a good thing surely? I only own 700c bikes…

[joules1975]

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

I don’t need to try 47mm horizons, if I need a wide tyre there’s already plenty of choice in the 700C market and the only reason for not producing more wider tyres in the slick road design in 700C is that the manufacturers want to flog a different product, it’s not hard to fathom is it! 

All my yawning is because you’re like a stuck record and it’s getting rather boring.

You do seem to believe that manufacturers just push things for no reason other than sales. To a degree this will be true (they only exist because they sell stuff) but they can only sell things that people want to buy – partly the demand is created by marketing I accept, but a bad idea will generally get found out, and pretty quickly these days.

Also, first rule of marketing is to only advertise something when there is a market for it – i.e. no point advertising something for christmas in January. Companies will only begin to create products for and market them once they beliveve there is a market for that product. They will prove there is market either through surveys/consultation etc. (in the case of a new product), or they will spot a developing trend and try to capitalise on that. The latter is the case with road plus.

As I stated, there are loads of wider 700c tyres, but they are heavy (for various reasons), and the lack of lighter options here has nothing to with with marketing – it’s because most people held firmly to the believe that narrower was quicker. Not only that but most frames would only take up to maybe 25c. Better quality 700c tyres would simply not sell in numbers high enough to make their production viable.

A combination of things opened people eyes to the fact that 700c and narrow tyres may not be all it after all – people trying differenct wheel sizes on MTBs, research showing that wider is in fact faster (in terms of rolling resistance anyway), and then disc brakes allowing people to change wheel sizes in the same frame, allowing people to try stuff out.

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

There was absolutely no practical reason to switch back to 650B other than to promote sales of a different type of frameset/bike.

Actually, no! 650B/Road plus came about because they can fit into many existing 700c frames (my carbon disc road bike from 2013 will take 650×42 without any problems, but as it was designed at least a year earlier when road plus wasn’t a thing, it’s entirely by accident). Once people started playing about the manufacturers realised there was a market for specifically designed frames that will take 45-50c or greater 650b tyres and so started to make and market them.

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

And my point was you get less practical framesets, lower spec and a higher price coompared to even just 10 years ago, for those that want to have low riders it’s at very little cost to the manufacturer and indeed using cheap shit alloy forks means the ride is not as good as steel or indeed CF. 

Nothing to do with 650B – that’s the exchange rates etc for you.

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

650B is a fad manufactured for sales alone, it solves no problem, it doesn’t aid reliability, it doesn’t aid comfort over what already existed and indeed limits availiability in a bog standard high street store or somewhere really remote.

And man never stepped foot on the moon, there was a second sniper when JFK got shot .. you carry on believing your conspiracies, whatever floats your boat. 

Oh, and 650B is actually an old wheel size originally used for touring etc., especially in France. Nothing new about it.

I will agree on your last point though. If you’re going into the middle of no-where then the spares that are most likely to be found should guide your choice of equipment, inc. wheelsize, and yes, 650B spares are likely to be harder to find, but then you’d also stick with cantilever brakes and most likely go full steel frame too.

However, the praticality arguements when in outer mongolia or such like aren’t relevant here, as the OP isn’t going into the back of beyond. 650B/Road plus will give them more comfort and decreased rolling resistance at the expense of a little extra weight and a drop in aero performance. And it allows you to nip onto canal towpaths or forest road short cuts without worry. 

If you’re going less than 20mph on british roads, the pros completely outweigh the cons!

 

[Fibblesnork]

Ok guys lot’s of input and

Ok guys lots of input and info but let’s all be civil… Opinions vary sure and we all have them…

I am indeed looking at a new bike and some blend of CX/gravel machine is calling to me… I looked at the Vitus and tbh the only issue I found there was that I can’t plonk myself on one as it’s remote purchasing only.

Steel is traditional and doesn’t put me off plus you can run 700s as well…

There’s a whole bunch of CX machines out there as well but I think I’m set on something of that ilk.

Plenty to digest to be sure and no, aero doesn’t bother me. I am far and away the widest part of any ride setup…

[BBB]

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

joules1975 wrote:

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

It’s a brilliant marketing ploy, we already had 650C(571) and 26″(557), there was no need to go back to the old french tyre size except if you wanted to get people to buy frames/bikes/wheels with the new size and say hey look we’ve got something that’s brilliant that fits your need.

Either 650C or 26″ could have worked, all that was needed was to expand the tyre choice, nope instead just resurrect a long gone sizing which very few existing frames could accept which means as highlighted perfectly by the OP, buying a new frame/bike.

I already have 40 and 42mm wide 700C tyres that work perfectly fine on my 18mm wide rims, my frame will accept 55mm wide 700C tyres if I so wished (sans guards, 48mm with) so I don’t need to buy another frame that is heavier, more unwieldy than what was being sold 10 years ago and to boot more expensive with lower spec components.

yawn!

Go try a bike with WTB Horizens fitted – you’ll be in for a nice surprise.

Yes there are all those other sizes around, but the point about 650b is that with a wider tyre the outer diamter is the same as 700×25/28. So what you might say, but for smaller riders like myself 700×50 just doesn’t really work, plus they weight more.

My gravel/touring bike has 700×43, but I’d much rather have 650×2.2 given that the forest roads can be pretty rough. My commuting bike has WTB Horizens, and it’s absolutely brilliant for blatting through town – don’t need to worry anything like as much about rough surfaces or pot holes, and it rolls really quickly.

Also, there are very few decent quality larger volume tyre options for 650C or, 26″ or even 700c (except for off road tyres in the latter two). Previously if you wanted to go big volume with a road tyre, you had to put up with a heavy and slow rolling city or traditional touring tyre.

Now, thanks to WTB and a few others, there are some light and really fast rolling big volume tyres available for 650b wheels.

oh and there are no lowrider mounts on the Whyte nor many other 650b bikes which my 10 year old frame does not to mention the Whyte has ‘alloy’ forks, no wonder they need wider tyres!

yawn again!

The days of loading up your bike with excess metal before you even start to strap any bags of stuff onto it are gone.

Why carry stuff and weight you don’t need to? Hence all the lightweight touring stuff available that don’t need fixed mounts on the bike.

You need to get some sleep or maybe you have narcolepsy?

I don’t need to try 47mm horizons, if I need a wide tyre there’s already plenty of choice in the 700C market and the only reason for not producing more wider tyres in the slick road design in 700C is that the manufacturers want to flog a different product, it’s not hard to fathom is it! YAWN!!

This could have been done with 26″(557) or 650C (571) size, 26″ was the go to size for off the beaten track touring/continental rides as they were easier to find in remote places, now try finding your 650B tyre in the back and beyond, you imply won’t! There was absolutely no practical reason to switch back to 650B other than to promote sales of a different type of frameset/bike.

And my point was you get less practical framesets, lower spec and a higher price coompared to even just 10 years ago, for those that want to have low riders it’s at very little cost to the manufacturer and indeed using cheap shit alloy forks means the ride is not as good as steel or indeed CF. 

650B is a fad manufactured for sales alone, it solves no problem, it doesn’t aid reliability, it doesn’t aid comfort over what already existed and indeed limits availiability in a bog standard high street store or somewhere really remote.

YAAAAAAAAWWWWWWNNNNNNN.

 

As it’s been said many times before, 650b is a wheel size that allows you to run higher volume tyres on frames designed originally for 700c without upsetting the geometry and handling, as tyres on both wheels are of a similar diameter. It’s just another option which allows more open minded people to experiment with different setups  suitable for their type of riding. It’s difficult to understand why anyone would be so worked out about having more choice…

You seem to very ignorant of other people’s experiences and preferences and mistake your very own personal  opinions for the reality. There is a big difference between holding an opinion and being opinionated.

 

[BBB]

matthewn5 wrote:

BBB wrote:

You don’t need a specific 650b bike to run 650b wheels

Errr yes you do, rim brakes can’t be adapted to 650b. And most of the standard bikes ever made take 622 (700c) or the old 635 rims and have rim brakes. You can only swap wheel sizes with disc brakes.

The OP is considering a NEW bike which will come with disc brakes. I thought it was obvious. It’s 2018, not 2008.

[Anonymous]

joules1975 wrote:

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

It’s a brilliant marketing ploy, we already had 650C(571) and 26″(557), there was no need to go back to the old french tyre size except if you wanted to get people to buy frames/bikes/wheels with the new size and say hey look we’ve got something that’s brilliant that fits your need.

Either 650C or 26″ could have worked, all that was needed was to expand the tyre choice, nope instead just resurrect a long gone sizing which very few existing frames could accept which means as highlighted perfectly by the OP, buying a new frame/bike.

I already have 40 and 42mm wide 700C tyres that work perfectly fine on my 18mm wide rims, my frame will accept 55mm wide 700C tyres if I so wished (sans guards, 48mm with) so I don’t need to buy another frame that is heavier, more unwieldy than what was being sold 10 years ago and to boot more expensive with lower spec components.

yawn!

Go try a bike with WTB Horizens fitted – you’ll be in for a nice surprise.

Yes there are all those other sizes around, but the point about 650b is that with a wider tyre the outer diamter is the same as 700×25/28. So what you might say, but for smaller riders like myself 700×50 just doesn’t really work, plus they weight more.

My gravel/touring bike has 700×43, but I’d much rather have 650×2.2 given that the forest roads can be pretty rough. My commuting bike has WTB Horizens, and it’s absolutely brilliant for blatting through town – don’t need to worry anything like as much about rough surfaces or pot holes, and it rolls really quickly.

Also, there are very few decent quality larger volume tyre options for 650C or, 26″ or even 700c (except for off road tyres in the latter two). Previously if you wanted to go big volume with a road tyre, you had to put up with a heavy and slow rolling city or traditional touring tyre.

Now, thanks to WTB and a few others, there are some light and really fast rolling big volume tyres available for 650b wheels.

oh and there are no lowrider mounts on the Whyte nor many other 650b bikes which my 10 year old frame does not to mention the Whyte has ‘alloy’ forks, no wonder they need wider tyres!

yawn again!

The days of loading up your bike with excess metal before you even start to strap any bags of stuff onto it are gone.

Why carry stuff and weight you don’t need to? Hence all the lightweight touring stuff available that don’t need fixed mounts on the bike.

You need to get some sleep or maybe you have narcolepsy?

I don’t need to try 47mm horizons, if I need a wide tyre there’s already plenty of choice in the 700C market and the only reason for not producing more wider tyres in the slick road design in 700C is that the manufacturers want to flog a different product, it’s not hard to fathom is it! YAWN!!

This could have been done with 26″(557) or 650C (571) size, 26″ was the go to size for off the beaten track touring/continental rides as they were easier to find in remote places, now try finding your 650B tyre in the back and beyond, you imply won’t! There was absolutely no practical reason to switch back to 650B other than to promote sales of a different type of frameset/bike.

And my point was you get less practical framesets, lower spec and a higher price coompared to even just 10 years ago, for those that want to have low riders it’s at very little cost to the manufacturer and indeed using cheap shit alloy forks means the ride is not as good as steel or indeed CF. 

650B is a fad manufactured for sales alone, it solves no problem, it doesn’t aid reliability, it doesn’t aid comfort over what already existed and indeed limits availiability in a bog standard high street store or somewhere really remote.

YAAAAAAAAWWWWWWNNNNNNN.

 

[matthewn5]

BBB wrote:

You don’t need a specific 650b bike to run 650b wheels

Errr yes you do, rim brakes can’t be adapted to 650b. And most of the standard bikes ever made take 622 (700c) or the old 635 rims and have rim brakes. You can only swap wheel sizes with disc brakes.

[joules1975]

janusz0 wrote:

Fab or fad?  Marketing.

If you’re doing this to overcome poor road surfaces, you could start by considering larger wheel diameters (like those 1990s’ 29 inch MTBs that were interesting until suspension got lighter and reliable) and thus move swiftly on to a suspension road bike like the Specialized Roubaix, the Cannondale Slate road and Lefty Oliver gravel bike, or just put Lauf forks on your existing bike?

Not sure your point.

29er MTBs are very much back. The reason they didn’t take off originally was due to people not getting the geometry sorted (and it was in the 2000s, not the 90s).

However, 29er MTBs don’t work for everyone, and nor do larger wheeled road bikes when fitted with big tyres.

650b works great on and off road, so long as you’re not bothered by aero.

And suspension’s fine if it gets really rough, but is pointless on road and smoother gravel, particularly with 650b as tyres always do a better job with smaller bumps.

[joules1975]

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

It’s a brilliant marketing ploy, we already had 650C(571) and 26″(557), there was no need to go back to the old french tyre size except if you wanted to get people to buy frames/bikes/wheels with the new size and say hey look we’ve got something that’s brilliant that fits your need.

Either 650C or 26″ could have worked, all that was needed was to expand the tyre choice, nope instead just resurrect a long gone sizing which very few existing frames could accept which means as highlighted perfectly by the OP, buying a new frame/bike.

I already have 40 and 42mm wide 700C tyres that work perfectly fine on my 18mm wide rims, my frame will accept 55mm wide 700C tyres if I so wished (sans guards, 48mm with) so I don’t need to buy another frame that is heavier, more unwieldy than what was being sold 10 years ago and to boot more expensive with lower spec components.

yawn!

Go try a bike with WTB Horizens fitted – you’ll be in for a nice surprise.

Yes there are all those other sizes around, but the point about 650b is that with a wider tyre the outer diamter is the same as 700×25/28. So what you might say, but for smaller riders like myself 700×50 just doesn’t really work, plus they weight more.

My gravel/touring bike has 700×43, but I’d much rather have 650×2.2 given that the forest roads can be pretty rough. My commuting bike has WTB Horizens, and it’s absolutely brilliant for blatting through town – don’t need to worry anything like as much about rough surfaces or pot holes, and it rolls really quickly.

Also, there are very few decent quality larger volume tyre options for 650C or, 26″ or even 700c (except for off road tyres in the latter two). Previously if you wanted to go big volume with a road tyre, you had to put up with a heavy and slow rolling city or traditional touring tyre.

Now, thanks to WTB and a few others, there are some light and really fast rolling big volume tyres available for 650b wheels.

oh and there are no lowrider mounts on the Whyte nor many other 650b bikes which my 10 year old frame does not to mention the Whyte has ‘alloy’ forks, no wonder they need wider tyres!

yawn again!

The days of loading up your bike with excess metal before you even start to strap any bags of stuff onto it are gone.

Why carry stuff and weight you don’t need to? Hence all the lightweight touring stuff available that don’t need fixed mounts on the bike.

 

 

[fukawitribe]

Increasing the wheel size is

Increasing the wheel size is sort of reversing the reason why people are interested in bikes capable of using more than one wheel size and in particular why using smaller rim diameters in nominally 700c road bikes is appealing. Reasons why this is perhaps a good call has been done to death recently, along with why 650b rather than other pre-established rim sizes might be slightly more convenient. That marketing has jumped on board should be a surprise to no-one, but it’s not the only thing driving this. Obviously none of this is new, it’s not a million miles away from what happened in the US and New Zealand that basically started the split of mountain bikes as a separate ‘thing’ in peoples minds in the first place, and larger tyres were more the norm until relatively recently anyway. Also none of this is absolutely necessary, I think that’s a given, but that’s not to say there isn’t any reason to consider it – at least conceptually.

 

I’ll not do things justice this late, so look elsewhere for more coherent reasoning, but here’s a couple of things to consider IMO.

 

Firstly, wider tyres can lead to more comfort (modulo pressure, casing structure, tubes etc) but as you go to wider tyres, wider rims also start to make more sense. This is more especially as you go more mixed use, on- and off-road, e.g. reducing rim roll-over / burping / pinch punctures (esp lower pressures), general bead/rim integrity, more tyre choice. Again, nothing essential, just potentially better behaviour – hell it can even make the tyre/combo more aero but that’s highly unlikely to be remotely an issue. This is a subject that could be discussed on it’s own forever seemingly… 🙂 That said,  as you go wider on the rim, you get heavier so smaller diameter makes more sense – you also get more opportunity to build more robust wheels that might make sense in the places where they’re going to be used.

 

Secondly, the wider you go – the taller you go. Not a massive difference, but that’s one line that is being pushed. Would you notice if someone inflated your tyres by half an inch or an inch ? Probably/possibly. Is it critical ? No, of course not – although personally i’d prefer a bike that rode the same as much as possible. The thing is, it makes more sense for frame designers to design a frame and fork that copes with a slighty smaller range of possible wheel/tyre diameters and it’s ultimately easier, cheaper and ultimately more convenient to the consumer if you have something that copes with that choice if that’s what you think you might want. If not, there’s never going to be shortage of people to sell you a bike more suitable for your more specific requirements.

 

So, that’s what I think is partly the concept – the practical point is that 650b/27.5″ is massively popular in the mountain bike world, with the associated manufacturing and research resource, and it has no sign of disappearing soon. There is also a huge choice of tyres and rims regardless of what hubs they’re strapped to. That should have obvious appeal to manufacturers, OEM users, retailers and consumers. Are there other rim formats that could have been used ? Sure, but what benefit might they have over something which is already well-established, widely available, affordable, technically profficient and with recognition in the market..

 

Bottom line – if you want to ride properly varied surfaces and if you can get a frame with space for wide and high tyres, different hub specs then why not… and 650b/27.5″ isn’t going away anytime soon. Is it something you need to sell your soul for ? Probably not..

[janusz0]

Fab or fad?  Marketing.

Fab or fad?  Marketing.

If you’re doing this to overcome poor road surfaces, you could start by considering larger wheel diameters (like those 1990s’ 29 inch MTBs that were interesting until suspension got lighter and reliable) and thus move swiftly on to a suspension road bike like the Specialized Roubaix, the Cannondale Slate road and Lefty Oliver gravel bike, or just put Lauf forks on your existing bike?

[Author]

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