I had heard a bunch of stuff about 29er bikes over the last few years and wondered what all the hype was about. It seemed a bit counter intuitive, since mountain biking has a lot of bike handling, and I thought the larger wheels would handicap that aspect. Maybe it would be fine for fireroads, long flat sections, etc., but that's not the kind of riding I do anyways. I prefer singletrack and technical riding where throwing around the bike is critical and you are always on your toes testing your limits. I love that adrenaline fix of riding on edge and the big endorphin rush of pulling off a critical section. I was actually pretty headstrong about it, and thought it was just a trend for casual riding or a weird offshoot that tends to happen in cycling. Kind of like the fixie trend.
Anyways, as I talked shop with various riders, I was noticing that more and more of them whom I respected for their bike handling skills were giving a lot of credit to the merits of the 29" wheel. It was actual first hand experience, not just theories. Results were starting to pile up at races all over and it wasn't limited to XC racing. Slopestyle, dual slalom, and even credible companies were coming out with downhill 29ers. The theory, was that the larger wheels simply skimmed over the choppy stuff better and the larger diameter meant that it wouldn't hit holes and rocks so abruptly.
Then things took a turn. As I rode with friends, technology in 29" and 26" wheeled bikes was changing- as it always does. My trusty Intense 5.5 all-mountain bike just seemed more and more like a pig. I hopped on various other bikes like the Pivot Mach 5, Yeti ASR 5, Specialized Stumpjumper Expert, etc., and they all seemed to ride circles around my bike. Okay, maybe not that drastic, but a noticeable difference.
At that point a lot of my riding friends were talking about entering some XC races. I race on the road sometimes, but mountain is a totally different thing and there was no way my current bike was going to keep up. I decided to live with my all-mountain bike and go in a totally different direction. There was no point in building up another all-mountain bike or anything similar since it wouldn't be good for racing.
The biggest hurdle is that I was broke. When I open my wallet, moths come flying out. A race worthy bike will set you back a ton of money. I figured the cheapest and best bang for my buck was to go hardtail, and heck I might as well experiment and go 29er since this bike would be purely for XC racing. I still had my other bike for when things got a bit more technical and the clock wasn't ticking. I also feel that my downhill skills could overcome the handicap a hardtail might give me compared with other riders and the tradeoff for lightweight at cheap cost and uphill efficiency was going to be worth it.
I decided to make this a process of research and to work on trades with stuff in my garage to make this happen. Heh, I was in no rush and I was going to wait for the smoking deals to make the bike come together. Those boxes in the garage with various old bike parts, snowboarding product, etc., was either going to be brought up in conversations for possible trades, or going straight to eBay. I also had to live with the fact that I was going to have to find a mainstream brand since the prices of boutique or exotic frames was just too prohibitive.
Time ticked and months past, and I was starting to assemble some key ingredients. I found a Giant Talon 2 frame with a price tag that was equal to skipping a night of drinking. It doesn't have the greatest geometry, and it flexes like crazy in all the wrong places, but good enough for intended purpose. Hell, how good does it have to be for XC racing? Just peddle the shit out of it until your lungs explode. It has hydroformed aluminum tubing, and the weight difference between it and a carbon fiber one is within reason. This frame had been parted out and the components removed, so I was able to buy it when normally it could only be found as a complete bike. I was also able to track down a used set of Shimano XT cranks, Avid BB7 mechanical disc brakes (lightweight and work okay- after all, I'm not stopping a 36 lb. downhill rig), used XTR rear derailler from a not-so-long-ago era (it looked like it had been used once and was in awesome condition), Specialized tubeless ready wheels with DT-Swiss hubs (a little research on the internet found them new for around $500 so I was getting them for less than half of that), and decided to go with XC racing tubed tires that I would convert to tubeless.
Tubed tires aren't as durable as tubeless tires, since they are designed to be run with a tube, but if you use Stan's fluid and convert them and be careful on rides, you will be rewarded with a very light set up that has the benefits of tubeless and the reduced overall weight. I've heard a lot about this from various riders and I was going to risk it, and I already had some experience with this theory on all-mountain bikes. I even decided to go with a triple up front and 9 speed in the back. 2x10 is still fairly new and even used stuff (if you can find it) has decent value, so I went with something that works and because there is so much of it out there, you can find it for pennies.
Anyways, after months of bargaining and letting more expensive trades go bye bye, it was finally all together and time to hit the trails. I did have to make a few compromises here and there, but overall I was pretty confident with what I had assembled. I took some extra time to dial in the position of my bars, seat, stem, etc., and it still felt a bit weird, but I was expecting that. I headed over to my local stomping ground that has a good mix of single track and some pretty technical terrain. I was a bit worried how it would do in the heavier stuff, but I thought back to over 20 years ago when I last had a hardtail and remembered all the gnarly crap I sent that old bike through.
On the trail, it wasn't all that bad. It actually went over holes and ruts much better than I anticipated. It carries tons of momentum up and over things and it handled better than I thought. The only downside is that it doesn't like to be jumped too much- at least from what little testing I had done. In the air it might be fine, but pulling up and flicking it takes a bit more finesse and strength and there just seems to be more mass underneath you. It just feels like it prefers to stay on the ground and skim over things. This is probably fine for what this bike is intended for and I'm not some freeriding, crazy hucker anyways. Maybe a medium gap or chest level launch, but this boy ain't jumping a road or staring down a 40 foot double.
So all in all, a fairly successful experiment and it barely scratched my wallet. Sure, I've already made some changes, and the tubed-to-tubeless experiment didn't work that well, but overall I was pretty close. I love the ride and understand why these bikes have less suspension on other platforms- they simply don't need as much. In fact it almost feels like my hardtail has a bit of suspension, since my point of reference has been a 26" wheel and it "feels" the trail a lot more. Time to grab a beer.
