The latest news and rumors to cross our desk here at Twenty Nine Inches are here for you to check out. Also, keep in mind that Twenty Nine Inches is also on Facebook where we also post news and rumors on a regular basis.

Big Wheels Of A Different Sort: Salsa Cycles introduced a snow bike for 2011 on their website Monday called the Mukluk. Snow bikes use a 26 inch standard rim diameter, but that’s where things end as far as being similar to a 26″er. Wider rims, (70 plus millimeters), and much bigger volume tires are fitted in an attempt to float over softer surfaces like snow, sand, or gravel. The resultant outer wheel diameter attains…….you guessed it, approximately 29 inches!

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Salsa Cycles Mukluk as seen outside of Minneapolis’ Angry Catfish Bicycle and Coffee Bar. This is a pre-production set up.

We like snow bikes here at Twenty Nine Inches and what a lot of folks may not know is that bikes like the Mukluk can be fitted with standard 29″er rims and rubber, making a purchase of such a bike seem a bit more practical, since the bike could be made more versatile. Salsa Cycles says that the complete version of this bike will have a MSRP of $1499.00 and will also be offered as a frame with an Enabler fork for an MSRP of $599.00. See Salsa Cycles website for more info that they are posting today. Stay tuned for more on this new bike as we get more info.

Origin 8 Scout 29: We have just taken delivery of an Origin 8 Scout 29″er frame for review/test. This is the second version of the Scout steel 29″er which features revised geometry, removable cable guides, and new paint and graphics. We will be building up our example as a single speed and will be giving you our thoughts on how this MSRP $200.00 steel frame performs. Stay tuned for an Out Of The Box posting soon!

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German Big Wheel Movement?: We’ve been tipped off by some European commenters that German brands are starting to show interest in 29″ers. We have reported how the German Cycling Federation finally allowed 29″ers for off road competitions and this seems in part to be motivating the German brands to start showing some 29″er products.

Our European correspondent, “c_g”, has already been test riding a German brand 29″er, which you can catch up on here, and “c_g” promises to be reporting on more of the nascent 29″er scene in Germany and Europe as a whole in forthcoming posts. Stay tuned……..

Our view is that if European brands begin to adopt 29″er designs that we will begin to see more 29″er related products flow into the marketplace. We think this may take a while, but we also think it will definitely happen and that is a good thing if you like more choices.

We Were Wrong! It’s This Year!: Last year we dubbed “The Year Of The Carbon Fiber 29″er”. Well, we were a year off! This year we are hearing about the introduction of carbon fiber hard tail 29″ers from seemingly every where. Companies like Breezer, GT, and Scott are offering carbon fiber hard tails for the first time and other companies are expanding their carbon fiber offerings. We expect to see a few more announcements before Eurobike and Interbike, but even if we do not, the amount of the high zoot black goodness wrapped around big wheels has us a bit surprised. It will be interesting to see how the market accepts all of these new offerings.

It Gets Even Longer: we’ve gotten wind of a longer travel single crown 29″er fork that may be shown at Interbike. How long? Longer than the newly shown Rock Shox 140mm travel fork, that’s how long. One has to wonder what this sort of fork will end up on, and we can only speculate, but we feel it portends the announcement of some big, long travel 29″er from one of the major players in the 29″er market. Stay tuned!