Get an ebike :) Seriously.
I'm old, and I don't understand anything anymore
Posted by: Cheez1ts
Mullet is 27.5 wheel in the rear, 29 in the front
Probably not too different than 24/26 you just alluded to
Which makes it all the more curious. History doesn't look back fondly on the 24/26 experiment except to laugh a little. And yet not a hint of irony as people fawn over 27.5/29 now. The bike industry doing its thing I guess.
Posted by: craw
Posted by: Cheez1ts
Mullet is 27.5 wheel in the rear, 29 in the front
Probably not too different than 24/26 you just alluded to
Which makes it all the more curious. History doesn't look back fondly on the 24/26 experiment except to laugh a little. And yet not a hint of irony as people fawn over 27.5/29 now. The bike industry doing its thing I guess.
Yes and no, for me. 26/24, as I'm sure you know, was mostly about solving frame geometry issues at the time and to a smaller extent, to extend the life of rear wheels with the up-tick in big burly riding. The biggest issue was roll-over performance, which killed the concept once frame geo caught up to the level of riding at the time. 29/27.5 is mostly about ass clearance, and to a lesser extent, cornering feel. Since the roll-over performance of a 27.5 wheel is light-years better than a 24" wheel, I don't see much irony in the comparison.
So this mullet thing, wouldn’t it drop a couple degrees off the super trendy steep seat tube angles? I guess bikes would be back to something like a 73-ish degree STA angle running a mullet set up, or is there some kind of offset seatpost bushing now that would bring you back to the stock geometry? I better patent that shit and get rich on the next wave of trends. Imagine when people go extreme to a 26/29 mullet!
Sounds like we had it pretty good the first time around
Posted by: mammal
Posted by: craw
Posted by: Cheez1ts
Mullet is 27.5 wheel in the rear, 29 in the front
Probably not too different than 24/26 you just alluded to
Which makes it all the more curious. History doesn't look back fondly on the 24/26 experiment except to laugh a little. And yet not a hint of irony as people fawn over 27.5/29 now. The bike industry doing its thing I guess.
Yes and no, for me. 26/24, as I'm sure you know, was mostly about solving frame geometry issues at the time and to a smaller extent, to extend the life of rear wheels with the up-tick in big burly riding. The biggest issue was roll-over performance, which killed the concept once frame geo caught up to the level of riding at the time. 29/27.5 is mostly about ass clearance, and to a lesser extent, cornering feel. Since the roll-over performance of a 27.5 wheel is light-years better than a 24" wheel, I don't see much irony in the comparison.
The irony is that we thought 26/24 was awesome at the time and we laugh at it now. The hivemind thinks 29/27.5 is awesome right now and there's an equal likelihood that we'll laugh at it later the same way. I'm just saying it's a possibility, and if you're loving 29/27.5 right now I'm stoked for you. The real culprit is the bike industry which promoted dual 29s for all riders - that just doesn't make any sense.
Last edited by: craw on May 20, 2021, 9:10 a.m., edited 1 time in total.
I love 29” wheels but am mullet curious - there are some big wheel compromises that would be solved by a smaller rear wheel.
I did 26/24 and 24/24x3” and knew right away they were dumb, just too small. 29/27.5 seems way less silly, I think the concept is sound but mountain bike wheels just needed to get bigger overall.
Edit: this mullet talk needs more dumb examples to laugh at:
26/24 DMR Trailstar. This bike was much better 26/26 with a 5' DJ2
Stinky with 7' Jr. T and 24/24 x 3" Kijo's, because I "liked the handling" of the small wheel on the DMR, lets get that front end down too! Pedal strikes everywhere, but in those days I did my best to avoid peddling anyway. This bike would have been awesome with dual 26's but it never got built that way.
Last edited by: tashi on May 20, 2021, 1:38 p.m., edited 1 time in total.
A little more mullet please, 29/ 24 is gona be BIG !
Posted by: craw
Posted by: mammal
Posted by: craw
Posted by: Cheez1ts
Mullet is 27.5 wheel in the rear, 29 in the front
Probably not too different than 24/26 you just alluded to
Which makes it all the more curious. History doesn't look back fondly on the 24/26 experiment except to laugh a little. And yet not a hint of irony as people fawn over 27.5/29 now. The bike industry doing its thing I guess.
Yes and no, for me. 26/24, as I'm sure you know, was mostly about solving frame geometry issues at the time and to a smaller extent, to extend the life of rear wheels with the up-tick in big burly riding. The biggest issue was roll-over performance, which killed the concept once frame geo caught up to the level of riding at the time. 29/27.5 is mostly about ass clearance, and to a lesser extent, cornering feel. Since the roll-over performance of a 27.5 wheel is light-years better than a 24" wheel, I don't see much irony in the comparison.
The irony is that we thought 26/24 was awesome at the time and we laugh at it now. The hivemind thinks 29/27.5 is awesome right now and there's an equal likelihood that we'll laugh at it later the same way. I'm just saying it's a possibility, and if you're loving 29/27.5 right now I'm stoked for you. The real culprit is the bike industry which promoted dual 29s for all riders - that just doesn't make any sense.
Hindsight is 20/20, but we only laugh at 26/24 because we are completely out of touch with what riding geo from 1999 was like. If we were forced to ride those same frames with their same underdeveloped angles, with only a 24" wheel to solve the problem, bet we'd be doing the same thing again.
I've never tried a mullet setup, but know one person who loves it, and one that really wants to make it happen. First guy wanted better rollover on the front of his 27.5 bike (loves it). The second wants to solve ass-rub on his 29er, and honestly finds the rear traction of a 29" wheel excessive through corners. He wants to break away earlier, and finds that 27.5 wheels do that better. These are both pretty subtle tweaks compared to the mullet problem solving that went on back in the day.
Posted by: tashi
I love 29” wheels but am mullet curious - there are some big wheel compromises that would be solved by a smaller rear wheel.
I did 26/24 and 24/24x3” and knew right away they were dumb, just too small. 29/27.5 seems way less silly, I think the concept is sound but mountain bike wheels just needed to get bigger overall.
Edit: this mullet talk needs more dumb examples to laugh at:
26/24 DMR Trailstar. This bike was much better 26/26 with a 5' DJ2
Stinky with 7' Jr. T and 24/24 x 3" Kijo's, because I "liked the handling" of the small wheel on the DMR, lets get that front end down too! Pedal strikes everywhere, but in those days I did my best to avoid peddling anyway. This bike would have been awesome with dual 26's but it never got built that way.
Man those Kujo’s were the bomb back then. I think they weighed 5lbs per tire but they looked badass. .
So. Much. Tire.
I was so choked one wouldn’t fit on the back of the DMR and I had to run that Stout.
'We' have had 26/29 mullets in the past but failed due to them being for XC applications which might as well be 29/29 for most people. But for people who like to smash drops, land whips sideways and generally hoon around, there's some logic at least in just going all out BRC. Maybe the industry is pushing the wrong trends yet again ;)
https://www.tmz.com/photos/image_jpg_20170824_f10932d25d2d549b9502395f51b3cb6c/
Posted by: craw
You'd be surprised how amazing a dropper is. I've been riding since the pre-dropper days, I even still have a hite-rite in a box somewhere. I consider a dropper indispensable.
100% agree.
I started biking in 1997. Took a hiatus in 2010 when my son was born, until this past fall (a solid decade off the bike). In my absence the greatest advancement in biking technology has been dropper posts.
It's not the fancy frame materials, the "modern" geometry, the wheel sizes, the 1x drive train or the 520% cassettes. It's the dropper posts. All those things are improvements for sure, but the dropper post changes everything.
If you could put a decent dropper on a "freeride" bike from 2005 it would be waaay more fun to ride than a modern bike without a dropper.
The only plausible scenario where that wouldn't be the case is if you're doing 100% of your riding in a lift access bike park.
Posted by: Ride.DMC
Posted by: craw
You'd be surprised how amazing a dropper is. I've been riding since the pre-dropper days, I even still have a hite-rite in a box somewhere. I consider a dropper indispensable.
100% agree.
It's not the fancy frame materials, the "modern" geometry, the wheel sizes, the 1x drive train or the 520% cassettes. It's the dropper posts. All those things are improvements for sure, but the dropper post changes everything.
If you could put a decent dropper on a "freeride" bike from 2005 it would be waaay more fun to ride than a modern bike without a dropper.
I would agree a carbon frame is not necessaryily necessary
but the brakes wouldn't work as good, when the drive train wasnt dropping chains it wouldn't shift as good , the need for a front der would compromise frame geometery , the shorter WB with more upright angles would be way more nervous handling due in part to the BMXish sized 26" wheels which are also slower, the suspension wouldnt be as good every component on the bike would all be a generational leap backwards in use and performance
albeit with a dropper seat post
someone tell me what component from 15 yrs ago worked better ?
Last edited by: XXX_er on May 24, 2021, 11:09 a.m., edited 2 times in total.
Posted by: XXX_er
Posted by: Ride.DMC
Posted by: craw
someone tell me what component from 15 yrs ago worked better ?
The 20mm axle.
Last edited by: velocipedestrian on May 24, 2021, 9:35 p.m., edited 1 time in total.
Posted by: velocipedestrian
Posted by: XXX_er
someone tell me what component from 15 yrs ago worked better ?
The 20mm axle.
This.
Also QR20
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