This episode’s title was engrained in my pre-pubescent head, well uh, a long time ago. I have a tremendous grasp for the obvious. I would be driving around for hours on end with father as he did business calls from his Metairie and then later Houma, Louisiana homebase listening to stacks of 8-tracks he kept in his front seat of his assorted Oldsmobile 98s. Naturally, there were the obligatory musical best-of compilations of all the favorites and others.
However, it was the many comedy selections that had likely an even bigger impact on me. Richard Pryor, Redd Fox, Jonathan Winters, and Justin Wilson were all awesome regulars, but Steve Martin’s early records were my summer school. They were at once raunchy, hyper-intelligent and absurd. I loved it and could recite virtually all his bits word for word. I actually performed a Steve Martin routine in my elementary school talent show but lost to a kid singing about being a nut. Maybe the world was not ready for a ten-year-old singing Grandmother’s Song. That number often echoed in my head as I pedaled around on my purple Stingray and it’s twenty-inch wheels.
That Schwinn had the smallest of wheels I was ever aboard as I never rode BMX. I moved onto twenty-six-inch wheels with my paper boy bikes/beach cruisers and basically stayed with that wheel size until 2014. In the year prior three big shifts were a foot (a wheel?) with everyone wanting in on the 27.5”/650b wheel size craze and the onset of the long-low-slack geometry that became pervasive. More than twenty years prior 29ers had come on the scene, but never had completely grabbed everyone. I believe this had less to do with the wheel size, but instead the geometry constraints that builders were attempting to shoehorn 29ers into.
Music Selection: The Chisel: “Bloodsucker” or just cue up any of the 8-track references above.
I always despised 29ers and I tried every different style of them available. They lacked the fun playful style I favored, and I always felt like I was up on barstool after being overserved when piloting them. That finally changed when I rode the first iteration of the Kona Honzo. Finally, someone figured out that you could employ geometry for a wagon wheel bike that would let you play as well as mow over everything in your path. It was a hardtail that was not trying to be an XC bike which outside of the early 00s punishing freeride/dh hardtails was mostly unheard of at the time. I recall stating at the time that this geometry will eventually be on everything. *
It was into this geometry revolution that 27.5/650b wheels dropped. The bikes were now riding better than ever and with 27.5/650b wheels you could have (some) of the 29er wheels rollover coupled with smaller 26-inch wheels maneuverability/strength. It made for good copy, but it was the geometry that was a bigger factor in the more rapid adoption of this “new” wheel size. I was curious about them in 2013 after having ridden the Honzo but realizing that full suspension 29ers were not quite there. ** I demoed many new 27.5 bikes, including the first bike I ever rode with a $10k MSRP. I knew my next bike would be a 27.5 as I noted the differences in feel, speed, and handling that were superior to my 26-inch bike at the time.
The final tectonic shift was the push into one-by drivetrains. Front derailleurs were all but dead to me off road by ’12 as I was already running a single ring and chain guide on a bike at that point. Frame builders now were free from having to design around front derailleur mounts. This also allowed for more compact rear centers/shorter chain stays allowing for smaller bikes to accommodate larger wheels without feeling so gigantic. I for one was thrilled with this and it was a move that while not without some issues was incredibly dynamic in how it changed bike design.
*I was correct about this. I said the same about disc brakes in ’99, thru-axles in ’01, and dropper posts in ’05. You should be listening to me, dammit!!!
**Around that same time my pal was part of the group of riders that put the first Banshee Prime prototypes to test, and he loved it. I nearly bought one, but in the end went with the 27.5 Rune instead. I would finally end up listening to him some years later upon acquiring my first 29er, but we are not there yet.
It was amidst this tempest that I forever abandoned twenty-six-inch wheels. I spent the next several years riding my long-travel 27.5 bike everywhere. It was great and seemed nearly invincible in its abilities. That Banshee Rune gave up nothing in handling to any of my previous 26” bikes and was speedier to boot. The only qualm I ever had with it was that my pals on their 29ers were nine out of ten times faster than I was most of the time going up or down. I had to work harder to keep up with their speed and momentum, but I never had any issues in the nastier tech terrain prevalent on our favorite rides.
This minor niggle finally drew me into the 29er realm. Well, that and the fact that everyone else I knew was or had been riding 29ers and would not shut up about them. I was the guy on the “little wheel” bike. Endless harassment. I did have one brief dalliance with another 27.5 bike prior to going all in on wagon wheels and that was one that left an indelible mark on my riding preferences. Stay tuned out.