Recently an industry trade magazine ran an article on how the evolution of the road bike has resulted in the situation where nothing but the front wheel of a typical early 70′s road racer would fit on some road bikes from today. Mountain biking is following hard on those foot steps.

I wrote about some of the things I saw coming down the pipline several months ago. Now it would seem that those things are starting to come true. Fox has let it slip that they will be introducing a tapered steer tube fork for 29″ers for the ’09 model year. Pivot Cycles, as reported in the previous post, is bringing the “inboard” bearing two piece crank idea to 29″ers with their upcoming FS design.

What else might be showing up to further take us away from “current standards”?, ( I use that term very loosely) Well, here are a few more things I see going on that may have a good chance of actually supplanting our perceptions of what is “standard” issue for a 29″er mountain bike.

Bolt on front derailluers: These are already here on some 29″ers, but I think that with full suspension designs and the already tight clearances in the bottom bracket area on 29″ers, we may be seeing more of this. Hardtails could benefit from having a more forward posistion to reduce the chance of striking the rear tires when going into the smallest front chainwheel. Shorter chainstays might be possible as well. A side benefit to this would be stiffer front mechanisms for crisper shifting.

Integrated headsets and cupless designs: These have also been around and as much as I don’t really like the idea, I think it’s here to stay and will be a big deal in future frame designs. Crank Brothers new head sets, (they don’t even call them “head sets, preferring to use the term “directset”), is a step in this direction. All this will reduce front end height on 29″ers and allow designers to spec longer travel front suspension without paying the price of greater front end height. (By the way, why doesn’t somebody make a bottom bracket that works with the same cups as a headset? Just curious.)

Oversized Bottom Brackets: The only place left unsullied by all of this oversizing and shape shifting has been the lowly bottom bracket shell. Well, road bikers have seen big changes in this area and it is going to come over to mountain bikes. In fact, Cannondale has been doing an oversized bottom bracket for several years on some of it’s elite mountain bikes. They recently dubbed it the “BB30″ and have opened up the design to be used by others. Now it is being reported that Specialized (ironically) has also adopted the standard and that component maker FSA is also introducing several compatible pieces soon. This means that soon we will certainly be seeing BB30 bottom bracket 29″ers. Stiffer bottom brackets and cranksets should be a boon to larger riders especially.

Wheel Over Lock Dimension changes: For several years the standard over lock dimensions ( OLD) for mountain bikes has been 100mm front/135mm rear. With a few of the recent long travel 29″er bikes I have seen, the rear OLD has been 150mm with fronts still locked in at 100mm (110mm for through axle front wheels). I see this changing for 29″ers and all mountain bikes. I suspect that 140mm rear OLD wheels are on the horizon and that 120mm front OLD wheels and forks will follow shortly afterwards. But dont rejoice at the prospect of having a dishless rear wheel just yet. I have had a funny feeling this was going to come when 10 speed rear cog sets were foisted upon us by Shimano. (But that’s just the cynical, conspiracy theory part of my brain talking there!)

Will all of this come true? I’m betting most of it will. The winds of change are on the horizon.