I've always felt that wheel size should be proportional to the angle between your saddle and the front axle. The steeper that angle, the more likely you'll go over the bars when you hit something. With a 36" inseam, even a 29er setup feels like I'm above the bike rather than in it. To get anything like the stability of a shorter rider while keeping the reach in check (not everyone is torso-proportionate), the HA would have to be 40D or something. Droppers even the playing field quite a bit, but I'm reminded just how little margin I have when I'm caught on a sudden downhill with the post up. I'd definitely be in the market for a 32er.
That aside, I'm all-in on big tires. The 130/120 trail bike runs 29/2.6 on i35 rims. On an XC bike, I might drop to 2.4 on a bulldozed route, but there's so little weight difference in XR2/Ikon-class tires (~60g) that it doesn't seem worth the bother. You can make the bigger tire behave like the smaller one with a few more PSI, but you can't do the reverse for chunky terrain. My fastest times on my XC FS were with a 3.0/2.6 combination.
July 5, 2022, 11:29 a.m. - Alex D
I've always felt that wheel size should be proportional to the angle between your saddle and the front axle. The steeper that angle, the more likely you'll go over the bars when you hit something. With a 36" inseam, even a 29er setup feels like I'm above the bike rather than in it. To get anything like the stability of a shorter rider while keeping the reach in check (not everyone is torso-proportionate), the HA would have to be 40D or something. Droppers even the playing field quite a bit, but I'm reminded just how little margin I have when I'm caught on a sudden downhill with the post up. I'd definitely be in the market for a 32er. That aside, I'm all-in on big tires. The 130/120 trail bike runs 29/2.6 on i35 rims. On an XC bike, I might drop to 2.4 on a bulldozed route, but there's so little weight difference in XR2/Ikon-class tires (~60g) that it doesn't seem worth the bother. You can make the bigger tire behave like the smaller one with a few more PSI, but you can't do the reverse for chunky terrain. My fastest times on my XC FS were with a 3.0/2.6 combination.