What was the problem with 29+

[FLV]

Just a topic of mild curiosity really.

I wonder why 29+ has faded out... I used to own one, it was good fun to ride but I did find that the main limitation was getting the tyre pressure just right for off road mean it wasn't quite as good on road. I am still a little surprised that there doesnt seem to be many about.

I hear of 27.5+ a bit more but dont actually see many 27.5x3 either.

Any thoughts?

(Yes, work is a little quiet this week)

[Loki]

I think the consensus settled on wide trail or 2.4 / 2.6" tyres provided similar levels of float but without the downsides of a 2.9 to 3.0 tyre, as there was a decline in use tyre manufacture's reduced their range and in some cases stopped making the larger tyre, the same happened with many fat bike tyres. I personally am a fan of the Teravail Cornado 29x2.8, certainly a nimble tyre given it's size.

[Pirahna]

When I was buying my Jones a few years ago the 29+ had just become available, so I took it out for a couple of hours. It was like riding a jugernaut. Long wheelbase with big, heavy wheels, it wasn't exactly nimble, I couldn't work out what I'd ever use it for. I bought the last of the 29er frames.

When I bought wifey's Jones it came with a 29+ front wheel. She used it for a while with a more normal 2.4 on the back, I tried it for a few rides as well. It's now in my Dad's loft in Ireland, I live in Spain, which probably says everything about my thoughts on riding with it.

[Bearbonesnorm]

Was there a real problem or simply the perception of one? A case of manufacturers not willing to gear up for it when 650+ would be a simpler alternative and still provide many of the benefits? Dunno, I'm guessing.

[jameso]

I don't know much about 29+ from direct experience but 27+ always felt too conditions-specific to me. Which is fine because tyres generally are, but they were at least cross-compatible with 29" standard. 29+ was maybe quite niche?

I think the main thing was how few people want a dedicated rigid MTB. 29+ was a good thing there but only for some of those people. Small market and tyre molds cost a lot.

I did get to ride a Jones Plus on local trails a few years ago, I really liked it. A bit much for Chilterns singletrack but still fun there, loads of potential elsewhere. It's a big bike but it was quite agile for what it was. I kept my standard 29" Jones, it fits 2.4 on the rear and that's as big as I've needed on a rigid bike. Still daydream about a Plus for ambling across Wales but tbh a genuine 2.4 - 2.5 on a wider rim is enough.

(I'm off this week and it's raining..)

[Lazarus]

<TANNOY> PHIL TO THE FORUM <TANNOY>

For sure it's a different riding technique as a bit bouncy but I quite like mine and certainly done multi day.rides and 100+ miles in a daybon mine.
Not a lot of tyre choice out there and it's probably not the fastest tyre choice out there neber tried a big volume 2.4 or 6 though( my 3 " come up as 2.8 )

(I'm off this week and it's raining..)

same here and then 45 mph winds for three days

[Johnallan]

My 3.0 Bomboloni and 2.6 Mezcal both measure 2.8 on my rims. I'm happy enough with either

[PaulE]

excellent question, and I'm not too sure about the issue with 29+. I'm a massive fan of my stooge with 29x3 front and rear - works for everything from 30 minute blasts on the local steep rocky singletrack to this year's BB200 (and hopefully next year's BB300).

Only place I've not liked it was in a fairly tight concrete skatepark - meersbrook park for any sheffield locals - where the large soft tyres were rather scary. I agree that it's pretty much a rigid bike specific choice, but in that niche market it feels an excellent setup to me. Might help that I'm 6'1 with long arms & wide shoulders though, so any speed of steering issues are pretty minimal.

[ton]

owned three 29+ bikes in the past, and all were brilliant and perfect for a massive rider.
1 x jones plus, and 2 x surly ecr's.
only sold or swapped to try something else. i may dip my toe in again if the mood takes me.
my current offroad bike is a 26'' wheeled fatbike with 4.8 tyres. again, perfect for my riding nowadays.

[johnnystorm]

I wonder why 29+ has faded out...

Much like Fat Bikes I guess most people that want one have bought one so if no one is buying them...

Having said that the Pirelli Scorpion 29x2.6 on my Levo look as beefy as the Knards on my old Krampus. They have the added bonus of gripping in the wet!

So have they gone away, or have regular tyres just met them in the middle?

[riderdown]

Not 29+ but 27+

I bought a cheap on-one tik-tik (original sick bikes Marino frame) to try 27+ as it would also run a 29er tyre to try

I liken it to a series 3 land rover, gets over pretty much anything but just slowly. The big advantage for me is that with the 3.0 tyres don't sink in the east Lancashire bogfest we get 9 months of the year which the 29er 2.25 would

29+ would be similar I imagine

[fatbikephil]

<TANNOY> PHIL TO THE FORUM <TANNOY>

Right then!
The main problem was that it made rigid bikes much more capable and comfy over rough terrain and the thought of everyone buying cheapish rigid bikes and ditching suspension filled the manus with such horror they immediately got loads of on line mags to write it off as a niche for weird people. (For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not weird. If I was that wouldn't leave a word for the people I meet) the number of reviews I read where they said the wheels were really heavy and accelerated slowly made me laugh!

Conspiracy aside (and there is more than a grain of truth in this, I have it on good authority) It's hard to fathom. Some of the bull being touted by the 'zines was nuts. I think the main problem is that the manus keep trying to sell us race , fast and light and 29+ doesn't fit in with this. Other myths as follows:

1. They are heavy and sluggish - no. Not even remotely, even when I had unicycle rims. With the LB placcy rims and chupas they are as light as most normal mountain bike wheels and have much less resistance to rough terrain. OK if you went from an XC race bike with 12 spoke 19mm carbon rims and waffer thin race tyres to my Jones you'd notice a few differences. In isolation they roll well and it rips away as good as any other bike. It weighs 12kg despite a frame made of girders - compare that to the weight of an average steel hard tail or fancy bouncer which generally come in at 13 plus.

2. They steer slowly. err no. My jones has considerably quicker steering than a modern bike with a 63 degree head angle and 45mm fork offset, despite being a yard and a half long.

3" tyres are draggy. My duro cruxes (1.2kg, 3.25" wide and huge knobs) feel a bit draggy on road. Bonty XR4s feel a bit draggy. But eff that, off road they grip like nothing else ('cept bud n' lou). chupas roll as well as any off road tyre you would care to mention and better than most. The deal is that whilst chupas / (I mean bonty XR2's) don't have much tread they are wide so plenty of tyre to grip, particularly at 12psi. Pump 'em up and they fly.

Why it's fab
A 29+ wheel will roll over anything (it seems) I've got 27.5+ on the lowside and the Jones is an order of magnitude better for rolling over the rough stuff. In the dry it's even better than the fat bike. Many, many times I've gone into some bottomless hole expecting to mash my face; but come out the other side clean

Modern suspension is over priced, requires excessive maintenance and heavy. 29+ makes a rigid bike comfy and capable of dealing with some thoroughly drastic terrain (I always bottle before the bike does) Rigid with plus tyres could make for very capable and affordable bikes requiring minimal maintenance and providing people with a lot of fun. They may not be as fast as a bouncer in some circumstances but who cares about that?

It looks cool.

A mate has a further theory as to why the manus killed them - tyre machines weren't big enough to make them so they couldn't be arsed re-tooling.

So to answer your question, gawd knows. IT seems the main stream bike industry can't cope with anything other than people throwing huge amounts of cash year on year at increasingly complex and expensive bikes which most riders don't need. The fact that said industry is going down the pan is proof that this is nonsense.

There endeth the rant, I thank you!

But beware, the Klunkers are coming

[whitestone]

Following up on some of the points made about larger volume tyres...

I grabbed a set of the Alpkit 27.5+ wheels and did some testing on a hilly loop in the Dales comparing them to the 29" wheels I normally use. I wore a HRM with that data displayed on the Garmin so I was hopefully putting in the same relative effort for both sets of wheels. Some segments were mildly technical climbs, others like going up Mastiles Lane were more an endurance test.

There was basically no difference in times - some Strava segments were *slightly* quicker on one set than the other but it was never like you'd be waiting for your other self for any length of time.

There was some, errm, interesting undamped rebound at times with the 27.5+ wheels and tyres but it depended on you matching the rebound speed to the undulations in the trail - get it right (or wrong depending on how you view things) and you could be airborne without trying!

For moorland type riding where you aren't looking at "flow" then 3" tyres or wider make a huge (positive) difference. Somewhere on Ian Barrington's blog he comments on the 29+ front tyre helping loads on the Ledmore Traverse (I really need to try that on the fat bike )

[jameso]

I'm a bit sceptical of theories that the industry killed them off out of fear they'd take sales from other formats :) Surly and others would have kept supplying a niche demand if the demand was there. Maybe the more common 27+ gave a bad impression of the Plus thing?
They're a small part of a small subsection of bikes and most people buy into something mainstream. No doubt they're good at what they're intended for but the demand for that combo of format/tech and ability is small Vs the conventional options.
Similar is happening in gravel bikes - 650B makes a great all rounder and imo for that style of bike it's better than going 700 x 50, but mainstream sales are on 700C because it's the norm.

seems the main stream bike industry can't cope with anything other than people throwing huge amounts of cash year on year at increasingly complex and expensive bikes which most riders don't need.

With you there... Unfortunately people buy those complex bikes out of choice, why they do that is a real chicken/egg thing but looking at how many people buy smart home IOT stuff, smart watches etc .. simple solutions are not what the majority are looking for. "We were sold a dream of our future life in 2025 and this is all we can get?"

[godivatrailrider]

Nothing new to offer ... I ride a 29+ Rooster for most of by bikepacking and it's superb. But I like a rigid bike.
The Jones spaceframe/truss fork combo has had a number of iterations... 29 ( looks too skinny to me), 29 rear, 3" fat front ( looks odder but work pretty well, but that front is heavy) ... it's now running 27.5+ and it's a bit of a sweet spot with looks vs ride. BB is maybe lower, I seem to get more pedal strike, this may change when I need to adjust the singlespeed chain tension.

I've had the Rooster a while, 8 years, maybe more. I'm still running the original Chronicles and they're a superb tyre though I suspect discontinued :(

[faustus]

I like the 29+ Klunker manifesto! (not sure what manus means though??)

I agree that 29+ is very versatile, and can pretty much make the perfect rigid bike. They do also look fantastic! I'm less sure about a conspiracy, but it seems that B+ became the plus niche that was explored in a more mainstream way, because of existing compatibility with 'normal' 29ers. So it's probably the perceived failings of B+ that have inadvertently killed off 29+ from being more popular?

I've only run 2.6, so only plus 'lite', but I think it's the perfect all-rounder rigid bike platform. It uses more normal trail rims (for swapping to narrower tyres if needed), but still retains plenty of plus benefits. Hopefully enough 2.6-3.25 tyres keep being made, just a shame that being niche means more expensive tyres.

[Lazarus]

The industry certainly does not want you to have a set up that never needs upgrading hence the ( relatively recent) endless upgrades to standards( were we all snapping cranks so we needed 30 mm ones? Has it added anything to a ride experience ? )
They also need to convince a 50 year old mincer they need a 170mm shredder that is long and slack to part with £8 k + for a new bike that is yet another game changer.sonthey can roll along tame local trails.

Whilst not a conspiracy I think we can be confident they were never going to push rigid bikes ( even a Jones is pretty cheap conpared to a top end full sus)

[benp1]

By total coincidence, I've been re-setting up my 29+ front wheel/tyre to go back on my rigid Solaris. Had a problem with it earlier in the year so took it off, would like it back on again. I thought it worked really well!

[riderdown]

The industry certainly does not want you to have a set up that never needs upgrading

I would swap "changing" for upgrading. The constant development of incompatible standards that shorten the timeline to "obsolescence" seems more and more cynical to me

Whether 29+ was killed by that is a different question

[JohnClimber]

5' 8" with 32" inside leg here.
I love my 29er+ medium frame.
Gone from rigid to Lauf and now back to rigid again.
Used to be on spds now on flats.
It does everything I need from a bike packing bike

[substandard]

29X2.6-3.0 is the one for me and the main reason I still use fat bike frame sets these days, only tend to use the fatbike wheelset when it snows.

Have an ally Henderson that lives on XR4 2.6’s and a drop bar Harry bow I designed myself that is on mezcal 2.6’s

Using the fat frames gives “uk spec” mud clearance around these tyres too!