Are 29ers better at cornering?
May 17th, 2006 by Tim GrahlI’ve never ridden a 29er however I am looking into them to see if it’s something I should get. One of the things I’ve heard is that 29 inch wheels are better at cornering. Is this true? I don’t really understand why this would be.
–Eric
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Hey Eric,
Let me turn the question around.
Will a 20″ wheeled MTB (you’ve seen the folding ones) corner better than a 26″er? If so, why would you bet on that, and why aren’t we all on smaller wheels? Look at all the cool tricks BMX’ers do with them, and how burly those wheels are. And so light!
Many think that cornering is just about weight and changing direction. A light wheel hold less gyroscopic forces, THUS is faster. That’s skipping a few vital factors.
If you ask athletes in other sports, they’ll tell you larger wheels just corner better and more stable. This is faster.
Ever tried a 26″er with narrow knobbies? Felt nice and nimble right? But try and stay with a guy on a cyclo-cross bikes. Same tires width, he’ll be smoking you, especially through repeared corners where direction is changed all the time. Despite that “weight”.
It’s all about contact patch shape. Larger wheels have longer and thinner contact patches with the trail. Like a larger knife scoops up more butter, and asks more pressure to scoop, a larger wheel generates more grip. The long contact patch makes it cost more effort to turn the wheel even standing still, pure friction. This saved your butt when you’re going hard through a corners, changes in trail surface won’t affect your line as much.
With a 26″ incher, a tpyical 90º corners will be “steer in, correct, steerin some more, correct, apex, correct, steerout, correct, straighten, pedal hard.
29″ (exaggerated, of course) goes : steerin, hang on tight, apex, steerout and pedal before the corner’s over.
You round the apex at higher speed, and without all the correcting, less energy is lost between the first steer-in and going back to pedaling.
This brings to another sensitive point in the 29″ vs. 26″ debate : acceleration. Obviously, a larger wheel is going to take more energy to get up to speed. Phisics tell us it’s a minute difference compared to the bike+rider, and rolling resistance advantage should more than overcome it, but anyway. as you exit the corner faster with 29″, you find there’s hardly or no need to re-accelerate. Often I’ll find myself just pedaling through the corners, if pedal clearance allows it. So much grip and stability.
In a high-profile UCI race over superfast flat wide-open forrest trails, at one point I found myself the fastest in a straight line, but weak with teampo changes. So I took the lead to not have to chase. This allowed me to take corners my own way and at my own pace. I was the only 29″er in the top-100. I would set up for a corner, take it like only a 29″er can, and made sure not to be lazy getting out of the corners. Huge gaps opened behind me, even in single 90º fireroad turns like we all round thousands a year. A 26″ XC bike just can’t match a 29″er there, and the Elite racers in my group found out about it. Okay, was doing the biggest chunk of work, but they wore themselves out using their 26″ wheels’ “nimble, responsive, quick” accelerating to get back on my rear wheel.
On the singletrack trail that was the venue for the 2005 Dutch SS Champs, my main competitor would be my singletrack hero on his 26″er. Before I went 29″, I could only struggle to stay in his proximity on widing tracks like this. Now I was confident enough to in the pre-ride tell him where I would escape in the race, and show him how. and I actually did that in the last of four 4.4-mile laps. Flowing, slightly banked singletrack corners over really tiny wrinkles in the sandy inland dune forrest. Never straight, never flat. All about changing direction and minimum cornering speeds. Pedaling hard all through it made the added tire weight seem SUCH a boring argument against 29″. I felt invincible. My singletrack hero friend, though fitter, had to give in, he used all his strength to get back to me on a longer straight where I was essetially waiting for him. The sprint to the line was easy.
If you’re still here, another thing that makes me feel faster through corners is the option to take rougher lines. 29″ wheels roll over and through messy stuff easier. The stuff other ride around to mark their apex. With 29″, I get to ride a larger radius corner, with a tigher apex. It’s like cheating, really. quite annoying to have a 26″er in front of you in sections with fun corners. I actually have a hard time following them, as I can’t help copying their lines with are just so-so for my bike. when I ride my own lines, even with my tall ass, most 26″ers I race with have to let go. Obviously the lines I’m picking are NOT going to work for them.
Borrow a 29″ bike somewhere, and see how long it takes for your brain to get used to the new set of parameters. It took me months to get to 50%, and years to get to the platform I’m nearing at 95%. I still have all my 26″ skills when i swap to a friend’s bike, but it just feels like an inefficient way to change direction now. 29″-me is just pulling away everywhere, and on pretty basic Bontrager tires vs. super duper lightweight big volume 26″ tires.
One friend was instantly faster on his first 29″ trail METERS, on my bike. He adjusted his riding to the new parameters, something that cost me months of growing balls and intensionally squeezing the grip to not go for the brake levers.
Ok, enough for one comment…
Happy trails,
J
yea I belive that they do. Some guys say that they fell that there on road bikes in the woods
Whoa! Cloxxki, that was a “novel” but a great read. I can only chime in here with an “I agree” and underline the point that Cloxxki made about the cornering grip taking awhile to get used to. Seriously, your brain will tell you that you are about to die if you don’t scrub off some speed going into that corner. On a 26 inch bike, you will stack it up. On a 29″er, you’ll be amazed! I found out that brakes are not as necessary as I once thought. As for effort, that is going to be changing, I think, with the advent of 29″er specific forks that have trail numbers more suitable for 29″ers and are not holdovers from 26″ forks. The Inbred from On One has this sort of arrangement when running their fork on their frame. Much less effort to accomplish tighter lines in corners. Much improved slow speed handling. In fact, it’s as close to 26″ mtb’s as I’ve ridden yet. Hopefully, somebody like Rock Shox or White Brothers steps in and creates this for us in the suspension world.
All in all, it’s a better cornering bike “if” you know the skill set necessary and are willing to trust that it will work at higher speeds than 26 inch wheels. Miss one of these two things, or both, and you will think 29″ers are sloooow!
There! Not as epic as Cloxxki, but long anyhow!
My experience is the same as Jans. It took me a while to trust the 29′er wheels and tires to the point where I just stopped using the brakes going into high speed corners. What I do now is purposely go in waaaay hot, touch the back brake to get the rear end into a little drift mode, and just hang on. The big wheels grip so well.
I tried to emulate the speed on my 26′er and stacked it 4 times in a row.
The 29′ers absolutely eat the little wheeled bikes in the corners. There is no comparison.
R.
Totally right about the fork geometry. I changed from a Pace 29er back to my White Bros BW .8 for some upcoming endurance stuff and stacked it up several times due to handling differences in the fork which affected my cornering.
But as far as speed: I live for hot corners, and love the technical windy guys. I’m able to clean the tight stuff a good deal easier via the combination of big wheels and more rotational energy.
Not to mention larger air volume and lower tire pressure, which increases grip and reduces tire washout!
Here is a new one. I was a rodie long ago. Got out of the sport due to work/ kids/ no time/ no money etc. Now new to montain biking I started out with a 29er. I read everything I could find before I bought a good bike and 29er seamed to be right for me. 40 years old 6″ 195 lbs really good shape tons of time to ride. So I get my skills up and ride with guys faster than myself. Now feeling very good with speed, corners, skinnies etc. I live in Washington and ride my 29er 3-4 times a week. I work in Orange county every other week. In So-Cal I ride road bike every other day. Just recently I decided to start mountain bike riding in So-Cal instead of road. Needing a bike and it being a bike not to be riden too much wanted to keep it cheep. Also thought I could use a downhill bike for those trips to Whistler. Found a nearly new Enduro Expert on craigslist with full XTR good tires and no damage for 900 bucks. So I take my new pruchase to Wood Canyon park for a ride. At this point I am writting as a guy who has learned to ride on a 29er and now switching to a 26″ bike. I probably wouldn’t know any better if I had not have read every post ever written on 29er’s.
Here are my observations. Climbing was twitchy, the longer wheel base and longer contact patch make climbing seem faster more stable and smoother. Downhill going fast on my new 26er felt scarry I flew into a long nasy rock garden that was nothing I should have been scared of and a few feet in I knew I was going alot faster than I felt safe going. The bike seamed just past where it wanted to endo and kill it’s rider I mashed on the brakes and crept thru the remainder feeling like a rookie. In the corners I couldn’t seem to hold on to the line I wanted. Was sent flying over the bars when one line I had choose was rejected by my new 26er bike. I was ok with the line but the front tire burried itself in a brakeing bump and turned ninty degrees into the turn and ejected me. A thing about those brakeing bumps. They are just the right size for the 26″ wheel to fit into. I think that is because that is what made them in the first place. With my 29er I am used to flying over the tops of these annoying little items. The 29er tires just wount fit all the way down between them, I just get the tops. After cleaning up the blood and getting the dirt out of my eyes from crashing because the 26er doesn’t like going as fast as I my 29er. I am force to slow down and relearn how to ride this bike. I may even get rid of it and get another 29er.