Come in asia and get your gear here bro 😊

Correct. I m 5’5’’ and shorter people have problems finding proper gear.

@@jfouellette5174 you'll find lots here 😊

I'm also 5'6", we have it GOOD compared to those shorter! 29ers are out, but everything else has an option that's ok.

5'6" isn't short. That's right sized. Carry on.

same experience here, 26 is snappier and easier to avoid obstacles

Well no shit. The smaller wheels have a shorter circumference, which in practice is basically the same effect as reducing the final drive ratio in a car. Makes all the gears in the cassette easier, and since you have a fixie, having one gear that is easy enough to pedal is incredibly important.

I repeat; the gearing is the same, even allowing for the difference in the circumference of the wheels. However, the 26” does spin up quicker and feels more nimble. No shit.

That usually depends on the frame. Some have ridiculous amounts of clearance, particularly older frames that took 27x1-1/4 (622-32) tires and some low-mid range hybrid or cruiser frames that do over 60mm in 700c/29er.

It's such an understated point that shorter riders probably do not need all the extra weight/bulk of heavier materials and components. Does a 50cm bike need to be rated for 300 pounds bike + rider + gear just like a 60cm bike?

@@qcriverrat A good point. And when structural beams are shorter (top and bottom tubes), they are stiffer. So you'd think frame tubes could be smaller diameter and or thinner walled. That said, I think cyclists in general are overly concerned about weight.

@@wturber I think Russ has said in his videos about Jamis bikes that they actually do take this into account with their frames - the smaller ones use smaller tubing. (I might need to get on of theirs.) That being said, I'm trying to make my Marrakesh 52cm work for me and it is just obscenely heavy for what I need. Even self-containing on Ragbrai, I'm 150 pounds + 35 lbs gear. If I had mounts I could haul that on my Pacer, I'm sure. I'm not a weight weeny (I love my Ogre), but the Marrakesh is ridiculously overbuilt for a smaller rider.

@@qcriverrat Tell me how much lighter you think the bike would be if properly built to scale for a smaller rider? Also - getting back to the point of this video - are you running 700c or smaller wheels?

@@wturber Most steel gravel bikes seem to be about 25 pounds. That would work for me. I have 650b wheels ordered and at the LBS, hopefully they're finished building them soon.

Generally I find that bike shops assume I'm an idiot because most customers know almost nothing about their/their kids' bikes. And some try to upsell or avoid doing certain work by banking on the idea that I don't know what they're talking about.

This is the thing that amazes me. Seems like a lot of money left on the table by the refusal to appropriately size bikes for a huge portion of the customer base. (Works the same with the clothing industry, incidentally.)

Looking at the hunt 650s how are they? Did you get the carbon ones?

@@vindogg80 no. The hunt mason adventure wheel set. The price difference for carbon was bonkers especially given the minimal difference in weight

@@dougcohenmiller alot more differences between the two than weight but I see your point for sure.

You're spot on about the bottle cages - my gf is 5'8 with about a 33 inseam but still struggles with standover on her 27.5 e-MTB. The top tube has to be a certain height to clear the downtube-mounted battery, fair enough, but some design genius put the bike's only pair of bottle bosses on the top tube! Needless to say we have not made use of these..!

It was marketing. Create a need and then supply the solution.

Specking different forks, wheels, tires… for new bikes in different sizes costs a *little* more than just doing 1 size. It was cost. A lot of what manufacturers decide to push is simply profit. The easiest way to increase profit is reducing costs. Multiple wheel sizes would serve taller and shorter riders far better. It adds costs. It would also be nice if bikes for shorter riders had narrower handlebars, shorter cranks, possibly lower spoke counts/lighter rims… whereas bigger frames came with wider bars, thicker diameter tubing, wider tires, bigger rotors….

@@stefhirsch6922 Bike companies and bike shops are not profit-generating monoliths like other industries. There's probably still old timers in the business who never want what happened during the bike boom to happen again. That being, the destruction of most of the longstanding American and European bike companies due to getting outcompeted by Japan and Taiwan. SRAM is a frankenstein of dead companies.

@@Aubreykun bike manufacturers are businesses. A successful business doesn’t necessarily make the best stuff - they make money. Thus Klein and Bontrager, who were known for making exceptional quality products went out of business and were bought by Trek and their quality levels dropped. Significantly and rapidly. Their stuff was industry leading in performance but people weren’t buying enough to make ends meet. Why because they made it better. Similar story with Bridgestone. Or when wtb made aftermarket top shelf top $$$ stuff and Steve Potts/Richard Cunningham left so Mark Slate (and some other guy I forgot the name of) shifted the company to lower budget Oem products. Mass volume oem makes more money than selling a handful of top $$$ made in America parts. Back in the mid-late 1990’s cannondale used to use 28 spoke front wheels combined with 32 spoke rears (at least on mountain bikes). That stopped. It wasn’t due to the front wheels failing - ordering different wheels for the front and rear wheels adds costs. Not much but it does add costs. It’s common when working on bikes to have the nipples on the same wheel to require different size spoke wrenches. Surprisingly common. Whatever is cheap is what gets used. Even if they are different sizes. The machine building wheels has basically a big bucket for holding nipples and factory workers just dump more nipples into it when it gets low. Bottom bracket problems are an absolute plague in press fit carbon fiber bikes. Carbon fiber can’t be molded with the precision necessary for a trouble free bottom bracket (or headset/head tube) - it requires machining to properly ensure that the frame isn’t going to be a squeaking, creaking piece of junk that requires replacing the bearings on every few weeks/months. A properly faced head tube/bottom bracket shell combined with a decent quality well adjusted bottom bracket/headset should last a minimum of 25,000 miles/40,000km without trouble. Consistently. Heck most metal frames are at 0.25” out of alignment. New from the factory. Too accurately measure said frame alignment requires a frame alignment table which bike shops RARELY have. For what many bicycles cost the quality is vastly lacking. I say these things with 22 years of bike industry experience.

@@stefhirsch6922 I understand all of that, but what I was referring to was in the 70s thru early 80s when east asian manufacturers absolutely annihilated everyone else. Few companies that were around before the bike boom survived until the turn of the millenium and fewer lasted much longer. Everyone likes to talk about the golden age of the like, upstart dudes making bikes - early Trek, Grant-era Bridgestone and so on - but that's really only part of the story.

Good comment. I'm 5'6'', I don't think taller riders have any idea how awkward it is managing massive 29er wheels. Even the 27.5 hard tails I've ridden seem huge. If I get a mtb I'm looking for a 26er.

The bike industry like most industries revolves around profit. The easiest way to increase profit is to reduce costs. Making bikes in multiple wheel sizes costs extra. Bean counters call the shots.

The frustrating thing is, (in my head at least) bike mfrs. make more profit off one $15,000 dentist bike than any 10 commuter bikes (if they actually made commuter bikes), and like Stef said, they go where the money is. It's not like bikes are a huge industry anyway.

@@Korina42 i have no problem with people buying $15,000 bikes. Most cyclists aren’t going to buy $5000+ bikes let alone a $15,000 bike. Manufacturers know clearly that the vast majority of consumers aren’t going to spend nearly that kind of money. Bike shops know that most people walking into their shop don’t care about the wind tunnel testing of the latest greatest, or the intricacies of all of the various kinds of unobtanium the bike is made of, how many grams lighter the handlebars are or the intricacies of the rubber compound used in the tires. Manufacturers also know that brands which only make super expensive stuff (colnago, moots, Chris King, foes, turner, industry 9…) aren’t the ones making the most money brands that sell either cheap such as pacific (who also own schwinn, gt, mongoose, cannondale) or who make everything (trek, giant, specialized) make considerably more money. Manufacturers also know that their brand is associated with a certain price point. Ferrari, Lamborghini or Rolls Royce don’t try to sell cheap cars and daewoo, Hyundai or Mazda don’t try to sell super exotic. Bike shops that only sell high end bikes without any “family bikes” don’t tend to stay in business - even in affluent neighborhoods.

@@stefhirsch6922 I'm also fine with $15,000 bikes; if that's what floats your boat and you can afford it, more power to you. The problem is, mfrs. tend to trickle down the race bike technology to the rest of us, who've been trained to expect "New and Improved!" every year. I mean, for your average commuter and recreational rider, what is the advantage of a 1x and pie plate cassette drivetrain? They're lighter? I'm the heaviest thing on my bike; a couple of ounces will be unnoticed. They're simpler? Really? Using a front derailleur, especially with indexed shifting, is not complicated; bike riders have been using them for decades. Same goes for electronic shifting; it's a "solution" in search of a problem. /rant :)

@@maaduece5132 It's similar to the track/TT market catering to people who try to go pro. Few people actually go to bike parks and velodromes. Those that do can afford the cost of either the expensive real estate near them (location, location, location) or the massive expense and time off of work to travel to them. Many towns have ordinances against using bikes on local nature trails and even park footpaths.

I can still remember when 29ers first came out seeing a woman who was probably 5.3" standing at an intersection with a 29er...everything about it looked out of proportion.

Strongly agree. I'm 6'3" and never had a mountain bike that really fit me until 29ers came along. I got a Salsa Mariachi about 15 years ago and have never wanted anything else. Wheel size drives frame geometry and there's actually a pretty narrow range of sizes within any wheel size frame that doesn't have to make concessions of geometry.

the two-triangle frame itself is a major "blind spot" of antiquated technology that has been improved upon in many ways but continues to predominate largely due to the fanatical intransigence of the UCI

Compact chainset s 50-34 isn’t it?

Instead of retrofitting the front, change the rear. 52/42 used to be the standard when the rear topped out at 14t, so if you swap to a casette or freewheel that does the same you end up with easier gearing than an 80s bike

@@Aubreykun get a megarange 34 tooth rear

MTB brands matching wheel sizes to frame sizes as you put it - I absolutely hate it. I specifically bought my current mtb hardtail because the brand offered all frame sizes with 27.5 as well as 29in wheels. I choose to ride 27.5 while I'm just over 6 ft tall, if a brand thinks that I'm only allowed a 29er for my height, they are not getting my money.

This issue is wild and I cannot believe it doesn't get more attention. With all the accusations of sexism in sports, some true, some exaggerated you would think a more authentic case like this would get attention. Bike shops staffed with dudes who are 6 foot 4 inches are not helping the issue.

@@qcriverrat I’ve worked in many bike shops and 6’4” guys are rare. It’s a bike shop not the nba. They are however overwhelmingly staffed by men. When I go to trade shows it’s also overwhelmingly men staffing the booths and most of the attendees are also overwhelmingly men. That said much of the problem isn’t just that it’s men. It’s cost cutting. Ideally bikes should be made in 8+ stock sizes with the tubing diameters and wall thicknesses varying with the sizes, multiple wheel sizes, proportional cranks/bars width…. Once upon a time bikes had steel forks. A simple way to alter clearance between your toes and the front wheel is a slacker head tube angle. Unfortunately in order for a bike to handle properly the head angle and fork rake needs to correspond. With a carbon or suspension fork options for different fork rakes are limited whereas with steel it’s easy to simply bend it. People will buy junk that doesn’t fit their needs if it’s lightweight, shiny/pretty and has some BS marketing crap to push it.

I have a 26 inch 90's hybird with the toe overlap issue and it's even probably a bit of an oversized frame for me. I only wear a 7.5 shoe in women's and. It's 's hard to imagine someone with larger feet on that bike. With my perfectly fit gravel bike on 650B it's not an issue and neither is slamming the bars into my knee. Lol I do love 90s flat bars tho, just think they look cool.

The difference in wheel diameter means the gear inches are different even if the cogs are the same. If you happened to find a combo of wheel/tire/gears that works well for you, you may be able to recreate it with a smaller wheelset by adjusting the tire size, cogs and chainrings. Maybe even mess with crank length if you wanna use Sheldon's Gain Ratio formula instead.

@@Aubreykun tomorrow is Sheldon Brown's Birthday, get out and ride to honor him

But... but... 26" is so *slow*! You can't ride over everything! How could you stand it? (JK; 26 4ever!!)

@@Korina42 Ha! Yeah - the only things I have a problem rolling over are the rock gardens and roots you would need full suspension for anyways - never felt like my 700c gravel bike is getting me over more chunk then my 26 inch rigid MTBs.

24" is used in Trials and some people use it for Urban Assault Bike builds. It's a nice sturdy compromise between the rugged high acceleration of BMX and the control and rollover of a 26.

Regardless of the wheel size most bikes come with gearing which is sub optimal for the people buying/riding them. Different riders live in areas with different terrain, have different pedaling styles (spinner/masher), amounts of gear carried and different fitness levels. It is entirely possible and recommended to modify one’s bike to better serve the owners purposes. In addition chainrings and cassettes are wear components. Either replace perfectly good equipment or just ride what you have until you wear it out and replace your chain, cassette and chainring(s) with stuff that serves your needs better.

New wheels (even assuming you can convert them without a new frame) cost more in both parts and labor to set them up than a cassette/freewheel with a favorable ratio. And you lose out on the hard end in efficiency and drivetrain life.

You might keep an eye out for a '90s mountain bike; they have 26" wheels and are extremely versatile; I have a '92 RockHopper for my all day everywhere ride, with Brooks saddle, rear rack, north road bars, and Maxxis DTH tires (fast and supple). You can make them into commuters, bikepackers, trail riders, grocery getters, pretty much anything.

6’6” checking in. My 1985 Ritchey Ascent is just fine for me with its 26” wheels.

Preference as well. I'm 5'8" and generally like bigger wheels for the stability.