- So, I've already done a video with my Scott Genius
running the different size wheels.
So this bike is designed to run a either 29 or 27
and I put it to the test with times but also to see
just how different the bike felt.
But, today it's time for something different,
it's something I've only seen on E-bikes so far.
I'm gonna try it with 29'er up front and a 27.5 plus
on the rear and put it to the test,
see if it's worth doing and if you can do it,
does it mean you should do it.
(eclectic music)
So, I've been running this bike now for a couple of months
with the 29" wheels and it's been riding great to be honest.
But, I've swapped the rear now for the smaller wheel.
It's a 27.5 and I've got a 2.6 inch tire,
so it's not only wide but it's deep as well.
People are starting to shy away from calling them
plus a little bit nowadays but it's definitely wider
than your average tire.
Up front, I've got that 2.4 so it's narrower but it's
also less tall so it's going to feel a little bit different.
Also on this bike you've got that flip chip,
which I've actually left in the low position for now,
so the bike has slackened out quite a lot.
I'm going to ride it like this first and then I'll flip it
over to high so that will equal the bike out a little bit,
almost like I'm running 29s front and rear again.
But I'll try them both, see how it feels.
(soft music)
So, I've seen people DIY this to their E-bikes,
so obviously you've got plus size tires on those bikes,
so you've got space to chuck a bigger wheel in the front
and it should work.
Canyon now released their Spectral On, E-bike,
with this set up from standard.
But does it make a little bit more sense on an E-bike?
Where you've got all that power going through
that rear wheel to have that bigger tire,
you get a bit more drive on the floor.
Is it going to work on all bikes?
I don't know yet.
How do you think it looks?
Let me know in the comments down below.
At the moment, if you ask me,
I think it looks a little bit weird.
I'm definitely not used to seeing a bike look like this.
But, I'll take it for a ride and see how it works.
(eclectic music)
(water splashes)
First impressions, it's wet, very wet.
Oh, you mean the bike.
Well, it feels slack, you know when you just sit on a bike,
I can see the fork going away from me.
So it does feel super slack, meanwhile
all I've really done is just reduce the size
of the rear wheel so that is gonna
drop everything as well. BB is quite low,
I'm gonna do a video on JMBN tech,
which will be coming out the same day as this video.
So I'll go into the stats, the numbers, the figures.
All of that stuff in that video.
This one is all about feel, really,
and it does feel slack. I think the BB is so low
it might cause me some issues
when it comes to pedaling through rough stuff,
with stumps and things, got to be careful of smacking
my pedals into the floor, but for now
I've just pedaled up the climb and down these few jumps.
Feels alright, it definitely feels a little bit different.
It almost feels like I've got a really soft rear tire.
Just cause when I'm riding over the little bumps
I just don't feel it quite so much through my feet.
I can feel the front or a bit more through my wrists,
but yeah I'm keen to crack on, see how it goes.
(drum and bass music)
(water splashing)
Well it's so wet I feel just like Danny Hart at Champery,
and just like Danny I do struggle a little bit
with dragging my bum on the rear tire.
Danny's a bit shorter than me so
I bet he does it a bit more often,
and I said that about this section of track
actually when I rode it last time with the bigger wheels.
I do drag my bum a little bit when
I'm trying to squash over things.
Of course with a smaller rear wheel I'm not gonna get that,
so that's one advantage of running this setup.
I do feel like it's too slack though,
so what I'm going to do is flip that chip
the other way around, raise up the BB a little bit.
Make it a little bit steeper on the head angle.
I think that's gonna balance the bike out a little bit.
I won't risk whacking my feet on
any roots or rocks or anything.
(soft music)
So I don't know exactly what that's done
to the angles of the bike, but it feels
much more balanced now, bringing it back up.
Doddy has lent me his digital angle finder thing.
It's probably got a much better name than that.
But I'm going to use that in the tech video
that I'm going to do very shortly
to tell you just exactly what that has done to the bike,
but sitting on the bike I think it feels better.
So, time to give it another ride.
(Electronic Percussion Beat)
Right, so I am scratching my head about this little mod,
to be honest. I can see the bike's really versatile,
I talked about it in the other videos,
we can run either 27.5 or 29. What about mixing the two up?
I really don't feel as much difference
as I thought I would, to be honest.
The rear tire does soak up some of those little bumps,
it feels a little bit, sort of, softer on the back.
But one of the biggest disadvantages for me,
I talk about this in other videos as well,
is with the wider tires, they just float a little bit.
Now today it's wet but it's actually not really
that muddy, the tires are digging through,
but I think the back tire's always going to perform
differently to the front, even if you put two
of the same sort of tread compound tires on.
Like a Baron on the back and a Baron on the front,
they're still going to perform completely differently.
So for me I don't think it's enough of an advantage
to run the smaller rear tire.
Maybe if you ride somewhere that's really rough,
really chattery it might help to have that
bigger wheel on the front, just to reduce some of that
sort of feedback through the wrists,
and the deeper rear tire on the back
to sort of soften those blows a little bit.
But for me, I think I'd choose just either
27.5 or 29 front and rear, and not mix the two.
If we're talking about racing, the UCI
also say that you can't run different size wheels.
You have to pick one size for front and rear.
However, I don't think you're gonna ride this bike
in a UCI style event, you're not gonna race it
in a downhill event, and it's not gonna be
a cross country bike, it's more suited to enduro,
and EWS isn't UCI affiliated so it's
not gonna effect you for that,
if you wanted to run different sized wheels.
So I'm not sure this mod's for me,
but I definitely think I'm gonna try it again.
Possibly in summertime when it's a bit drier
I can really put some back to back runs
with the different size wheels,
and actually maybe put some times in as well,
see how that effects it.
If you wanna see the tech video, that is coming soon.
That'll be much more detailed about
how this does effect the bike,
and if you want to see the original video
where I race the 29 vs the 27.5 on this bike,
just click up there for that one.
I love to hear what you think about this,
so leave your comments down below.
Give us a thumbs up and don't forget to subscribe.