26 to 29 Adjustment period

Is your fit between the two bikes the same? I felt pretty comfortable right away.

Spend as much time on single track and in varying conditions as you can, pushing the bike hard to find the limits, what it does well, what it doesn't do well, and then go race. No replacement for track time or time in the saddle.

azrod68 said:

Hey,

Just picked up my HIFI yesterday and took her for a short ride (17 miles) and she is very different from my 26 HT. Yeah i know but still .....

How long on average does it take to adjust to the bigger wheels and full sus. I plan on doing a race on the 31 of Jan.

My training is short ride of 6-10 during the week then on the weekend longer on single track

Any suggestion getting used to the bigger wheels besides saddle time??:madman:

Thanks

Old and Slow

Click to expand...

Once you have the fit dialed in, just more saddle time. The change from hardtail to FS is going to be more of a change than the wheel size.

Took me a while

azrod68 said:

Hey,

Just picked up my HIFI yesterday and took her for a short ride (17 miles) and she is very different from my 26 HT. Yeah i know but still .....

How long on average does it take to adjust to the bigger wheels and full sus. I plan on doing a race on the 31 of Jan.

My training is short ride of 6-10 during the week then on the weekend longer on single track

Any suggestion getting used to the bigger wheels besides saddle time??:madman:

Thanks

Old and Slow

Click to expand...

I had to get used to the slower turning and the feel I am higher on the bike. It felt different. Now, I can jump between sizes and it feels fine. I enjoy both wheel sizes.

Thanks for the advice! My HT was 18.5 and my HIFI is 17.5 I would say the biggest change is the feel of sitting so much higher up! Kind of feels like riding around in a Monster Truck. I will hit some single track next weekend. So far I have 35 miles on her

for me it was the slower turning, My sugetion would be ride very tight single track with trees on both sides as fast as you can.

Also it hard to trust the bike, but you can go faster in turns and go over bigger obstacles.

The monster truck feel for me was off-set by the much more stable feeling the 29er gave me. I did notice how it would keep its momentum better as well. That feeling lasted for about 5 or 6 rides, after that it just felt "normal". When I would go back to 26" wheels it did not feel as stable or roll as well.

My biggest problem is adjusting to a FS bike from rigid, whether it's my road bike or my mt bike, but it doesn't take long (a few miles), and, as I get more ride time throughout the summer, the less of a problem it seems to be.

I have only been on 2 rides so far, but what i have noticed is .... it is a little slower to accelerate, but like everyone says holds the speed better! I live in the southern Az. so we don't have any trees for tight single track lots of open space. Lots of rock and sand! I am hoping in about a week I will be good to go for the race at the end of the month! I have noticed it goes like a cruise missel down hill

I found that a 29er instantly gave me more confidence to challenge larger obstacles in the trail. I noticed slightly slower steering, but was able to adjust to that pretty quickly.

As others have said, the FS change will probably take longer to adjust to.

All about fun

azrod68 said:

I have only been on 2 rides so far, but what i have noticed is .... it is a little slower to accelerate, but like everyone says holds the speed better! I live in the southern Az. so we don't have any trees for tight single track lots of open space. Lots of rock and sand! I am hoping in about a week I will be good to go for the race at the end of the month! I have noticed it goes like a cruise missel down hill

Click to expand...

I have fun on my Niner but I'm not sure it is better in every way then my Turner Spot. Both are fun and each have their strengths and weaknesses. People who tell you a 29er is better in every way either own a company that sells 29ers only or are 29er zealots. The only reason I ride a 29er is purely fun not for some performance advantage.

It took me about 3 miles to get used to how the bike turned & did things but about 20 miles to get to beleave the grip & just how hard you could push the bike on med to high speed corners

going from ht to fs will make the transition bigger. It will probably affect the acceleration more than the wheel size. You'll get the hang of it soon though, and I'm sure your descent speed will much higher with the fs and 29"wheels. As for feeling higher on the 29er, I felt that way too, although it's probably lower than my 26er. the BB is def lower on the 29er.

I'm coming off a full suspension 26" wheeled mtb, I'm still getting used to the gearing (going from 3X7 to 3X9), I found I picked too long a front stem so replacing with a shorter, and the fact it's a hardtail really threw me off on the first ride. Other than that it still feels like my 26er, I actually feel a bit more confident and quicker only because I assembled the thing myself!

I did a ride with a friend of mine that has a Turner Sultan. About 1/4 way through our 16 mile ride, we switched bikes. I currenlty ride a Kona Kikapu Deluxe - 26" wheels. I might have been how the Turner was setup, but after a quick seat height adjustment, I felt very comfortable on the bike. Rode it for 2-3 miles.

If you have ridden any bike for I while you get used to it for good or bad... If you had your shop or whomever set up your bike (tweak your stem length, properly set the seat height/setback etc..) it should just take you a few rides to familiarize yourself. My first stint on a 29er I built up ended in me selling it because "the big heavy wheels made it harder to ride on stop/start trails and it was too much of a transition between the two (AKA I was looking for excuses).." so I stuck with my 26" BLT... fast forward and now I have a rigid and f/s 29er. Give it some time, if all you ever rode was one bike it might take a while; we are all different the GF Hi fi is a nice rig but when you think of it you added 29" geo, G2 none the less and full sus... give yourself some time in the saddle-

my .02 worth
I usually ride a 22' framed 26' wheeled single speed and took a test ride on a 20" 29er with gears!
It should have sucked but i loved ever minute of it .. i guess it took about 3km to get the feel of the wheels and I never got the gears right .... just ended up putting it in s/s gearing and riding the silly thing.
Some people adapt easier than others i guess and 29 is not for everyone

It literally took less than ten seconds for me to "adjust" to descending on 29" wheels. Loved it immediately and felt right at home.

Climbing took a little longer. I had to adjust to not having as low a range as I did on my 26" bikes and that took a few weeks. In the end, it has made me a stronger climber. I have been on my 26" FS bike once since I built my 29er at the beginning of October and I sold the 26" HT.

my only issue was coming into corners way too fast ! easily fixed - hard to go back to kiddy wheels now