Staking Claim to the Future of the 650B Wheel Size

For off road biking the wheel set is essentially one of the most important parts of the bike. This fact has led to the increasing popularity of the 650B or 27.5” wheel size. Recently, bicycling.com featured an article by Matt Phillips titled, “Giant Bets Big on 27.5” Wheels” and while there is a lot of great information in that article — Giants’ Big Bet is a relatively safe one.

As Matt states in his article, Giant was one of the last big bike companies to get on board with the 29er, and while they haven’t missed the boat completely on the 650B, they are still coming in on the back side of a wheel size that has proven popularity that many smaller bike brands have already identified as a new standard in wheel size.

Why the 27.5” is such a popular wheel size

A lot of why the 27.5” wheel size has become so popular is because it’s been heavily touted as the perfect blend between the 26” and the 29” wheel size providing riders the best of both worlds. My take on the increasing popularity is that it’s the perfect blend of that marketing message and just enough rider preference in the community to help it grow. There are certainly plenty of riders who absolutely love the 650b, for them it feels more comfortable, or they feel like they have better control on the downhill. Then there are riders who feel the 27.5” is all hype and marketing like Josh Patterson with his article on bikeradar, “Trail Tech: Cutting through the 27.5 wheel size hype” or Matt, Alex and Giulio who compared all 3 wheel types in a review, “Opinion: 26 vs 27.5 vs 29-inch Wheels”. I personally loved all the comments at the end of the last one — they’re worth a read J

So what’s my point? Hold off on your comments — I’m not writing another comparison. My point is that regardless of what anyone thinks the 27.5” is here to stay, well at least until something better comes along, and that big brands like Giant are still riding the coat tails of brands like Intense and Norco who are more willing to produce bikes to suit customer needs.

Significant contribution from bicycle brands

Jeff Steber of Intense grasped the opportunity of making the 650b the most popular and profitable wheel sizes in mountain biking. Intense is certainly one of the pioneers who helped make the 650B trend upward, while the big players such as Giant watched from the sidelines. Why not, it’s safer to wait for someone else to prove a venture is profitable before staking their claim and labeling it as the way of the future.

Jeff Steber, has undisputedly proven that he is indeed one of the finest talents in bike designs. Regardless of wheel size, his remarkable insight into the potential of turning the Carbine 275 into a crossover last year using 650b wheels was plain genius. This is a great example of thinking of the bike as a whole — not just components.

The assessment done by Intense on 650b wheel size technology is undeniably commendable. The positive results of this are on display every time the brand graces events such as Sea otter Classic. The future holds a lot of great things for Intense with the 650b wheel size and they have been working on it ever since. The Bike Attack Team actually reviewed the Intense Carbine 275 earlier this year, not for it’s wheel size but because it was a well designed performance bike. You can check out our review here.

Other brands like Norco abandoned the 26inch wheel and moved ahead with a lineup of 650b models. Through their work, Norco has promoted the 27.5” wheel size as a better all around fit. Other major players such as Trek and Giant didn’t seem to follow suit at first, but sales have spoken and manufactures have accommodated this size well enough for their stance to change.

So, Giant is dipping its toes into this supposedly lucrative and appealing pool of 650b wheel speaks volumes about their trust and faith in the size. This statement is very distinct since other brands of similar magnitude to Giant are remaining noncommittal to the cause. They, just like Giant, might come in when it’s already late with smaller companies such as Norco and Intense having gained a lot of ground in the race to the top. The unfortunate thing is that all three of these wheel sizes have their own strengths that are hard to abandon completely so the problem is effectively manufacturing frames to accommodate so many options.

I know you all have some pretty strong opinions about this over-talked about issue, but we still want to hear your thoughts, so let us know if you love’em or hate’em.