TRAIL BIKE MULLET EXPERIMENT - Vital Gear Show 17

A Santa Cruz 5010 and a Norco Fluid go mulleting, we look at the Alpinestars Missile Tech full-face helmet and plenty more in this week's Vital Gear Show.

sspomer
12/23/2019 12:35pm
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Happy Holidays Vital MTBers! On today's Gear Show. We have a special guest with us as we cover Vital's trail bike mullet/69er/mixed wheel size experiment where we rode a Santa Cruz 5010 27.5 bike with a 29-inch front wheel and a Norco Fluid 29er with 27.5-inch rear wheel. We check out Alpinestars’ brand new Missile Tech full-face helmet, a long-term impression of PNW’s Rainer IR dropper, e*thirteen Base pedals and more. This week was all about mountain bike racers and teams breaking up so they don’t have to buy each other gifts this holiday season.

 



Contents of this Vital Gear Show

  • 00:56 - MTB Team News with riders and brands breaking up
  • 1:54 - Vital Bike of the Day - Forbidden Druid
  • 2:14 - Raffle and Dream Build for https://www.jordielunnbikeraffle.com - #ROUGHAF
  • 2:52 - PNW Rainer IR Dropper Post and Loam Lever
  • 3:32 - e*thirteen Base pedal trail-side tech
  • 5:23 - New Alpinestars Missle Tech full-face helmet
  • 8:15 - We weigh 8 different pairs of flat pedals
  • 8:55 - Mullet / 69er / Mixed Wheelsize Trail Bike Experiment
  • 21:03 - Kyle Warner's take on the mixed wheel size bike

Vital Flat Pedal Face-Off

Vital Gear Club


Santa Cruz 5010 in the mullet experiment

Dual 27.5 with 150mm-travel Suntour Auron
69er with 140mm RockShox Pike
69er with Trust Message

Norco Fluid in the mullet experiment

Dual 29
69er setup



Related:
Vital Gear Show
Trust Performance
PNW
Alpinestars
Norco
Maxxis
e*thirteen
Santa Cruz
17 comments

View replies to: TRAIL BIKE MULLET EXPERIMENT - Vital Gear Show

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Chris_Maiorano
4 years ago
I put a 27.5x2.8 on the back of my 2015 Santa Cruz Superlight 29er and never went back. This is a cross country frame with only 100mm shock. The 27.5 plus on the back not only slackened the bike but feels like it added suspension in the back. Paired with a 120mm fork it feels great. BB drop has not been an issue and I feel like I still have better clearance on this bike than my 2014 trek remedy but I haven't measured it. When aimed downward I am amazed at how capable this bike is for such short travel. You just cannot go over the bars...Basically I feel like the conversion turned my cross country bike into a solid trail/all mountain bike. Give it a try in you have a short travel 29er...I think the benefits will be more noticeable on shorter travel bikes...
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jekman00
4 years ago
I had an extra 150mm 29er fork so I installed it on my Remedy (27.5). The Remedy came with a 160 fork so the 10mil drop helped with the head angle. I actually loved how it descended and cornered. Climbing was a bit of a struggle, I think if I had a 44 offset instead of the 51 offset it would have been perfect and I'm still toying with the idea of trying again. I also have a Slash (29er) and I've have been thinking of trying the 27.5 rear on that and adjusting the Mino Link to the upper position to get the BB and head angle up a bit. Thanks for the test, always glad to see others willing to try new "weird" things. Also I prefer "279" lol
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Curtis Gillen
4 years ago
Thanks for doing this test! I have been thinking of trying this with my new Banshee Rune, but I'm starting to realize the juice isn't going to be worth the squeeze...
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Jdasco
4 years ago
The key when putting a smaller wheel at the back of a 29er is bb height, which can be maintained with offset bushings and/or longer shock eye to eye. I did just that with a canyon 29 bike as a fun experiment. 5mm of shock eye to eye was all it took to get the bb and all the angles back to normal. Setup = 27.5x2.5 at the back, no plus tire needed
29 in front of a 27.5 is another story though, even with -2cm of travel it is still higher overall then previously and mess up with st angle
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Tobyb
4 years ago
I run a 29 on my zerode taniwha, I put on a 180mm lyrik and a works components 1.5 degree to slacken the front out, it is about 63 degrees and the seat tube is the same or maybe steeper. First sit it felt real slack but riding it I much prefer the handling. Also keeps the bb height in check too.
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Pepps
4 years ago
I run that mullet or 69er hardtail that was shown at the end.
Originally it was a 29er, i had no real problems running that set-up, but just wanted to try.
I was lucky as the BB height as a 29er was 330mm, putting a 27.5 sunringle duroc 40 with a 2.8 onza tyre out back only lowered my BB around 325mm, which i don’t have a problem with.
My SA went from 77 to 76 deg and my HA is 62deg, running 18%sag my HA is 63ish.
Personally i love this set up more.. has more snap, turns crazy and my ass don’t get the tyre buzz, i don’t have a problem with the front sliding out as i ride front heavy.
The only issue i found is on more flatter trails where keeping momentum is a little bit harder.
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Big Bird
4 years ago
I'm guilty of running my Super8 in 26/24 guise. That thing could turn so sharp! And handled those stair gaps so well!
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Maglor
4 years ago
This is super interesting, I did a similar experiment when I got my 2018 Scott genius in 29” but had my old bikes 27.5” wheels so a swapped them around, the genius’ flip chip helped to balance out the changes too, part of it might of been affected by moving to a new bike with a longer reach and different angles at the same time as experimenting with wheel sizes however I really liked the 69er setup but even with the chip in the steeper setting it slackened the bike out a little too much unless I was riding quite steep trails, in the end i settled on both 29 but mostly as it created a more balanced bike on the majority of trails I was riding (a mix between trail centre and steep off piste stuff) in conclusion I think the geometry matters more than wheel size, if more bikes are designed with purely mixed wheels in mind and setup exactly for that then I think they could be great but untill then will ride what the bike is designed for, on another note with 150 travel rear tyre buzz isn’t so much of an issue but on anything longer travel I would for sure be more inclined to stick with the 27.5 rear.
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Jim_Oxborrow
4 years ago
Yep similarly I tried with my spesh enduro 29 2017 .
I reversed my offset bushing and put 27.5 not plus on rear. I found it only felt better when the trail was very steep as it slackened it out too much. Also felt way worse on pedally or uphill sections. In summary I think it’s worth it if you’re trails were steep non pedally
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J1br0ni
4 years ago
Even though we are lazy and call it 27.5 the proper name is 650B, so I think 69er is better to say AND more accurate.
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Lars TB
4 years ago
The correct name according to ETRTO (= industry standard) would be '584' and '622'. That would leave us at '56-er'...
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