29ers getting popular here in NW Louisiana

MTBNate said:

We had a local bike club, just-for-fun, winter time trails yesterday and out of 13 riders we had 5 geared 29ers.

Orbea
X-Cal
Walt Works
292
Asylum

Much fun was had and the guy on the Walt Works smoked everyone.... as usual (at least he didn't do it on his Walt Works SS this time.)

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Still the same 'nobody cares' here in Marin. On the annual Turkey Day ride a few weeks ago, that a couple/few hundred people show up for, I only saw 2 other 29ers at the post-ride beer garden...a 292 and a Karate Monkey. I swear the ride must have been sponsored by Santa Cruz, since every other bike was a Blur.

tamjam said:

Still the same 'nobody cares' here in Marin. On the annual Turkey Day ride a few weeks ago, that a couple/few hundred people show up for, I only saw 2 other 29ers at the post-ride beer garden...a 292 and a Karate Monkey. I swear the ride must have been sponsored by Santa Cruz, since every other bike was a Blur.

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Ha! I had the same experience when I visited there.

tamjam said:

Still the same 'nobody cares' here in Marin. On the annual Turkey Day ride a few weeks ago, that a couple/few hundred people show up for, I only saw 2 other 29ers at the post-ride beer garden...a 292 and a Karate Monkey. I swear the ride must have been sponsored by Santa Cruz, since every other bike was a Blur.

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I think what is helping us here locally is the local top 20 NORBA ranked Sport racer always races either his WW geared or his WW SS. He is always praising the 29ers.

We also are fortunate enough to have a local bike shop owner who is also a fan. He had been selling the heck out of the Gary Fisher 29er line and he just picked up Orbea. At the moment he has at least 4 29ers on the show room floor (all Gary Fisher hardtails)... and even a couple in 21".

Maybe it is a Northern California thing. 29's are taking off like crazy in Southern California.

The type of trail riding we have here in our area (East Tx - Northern Louisiana - Western Arkansas) is perfect for hartail-to-4" of travel 29ers.

No more travel than that is really needed...

Oliver said:

Maybe it is a Northern California thing. 29's are taking off like crazy in Southern California.

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Dunno. Maybe it's our trails. Maybe it's just the people I ride with. Singlespeeds seemed to take longer to take off here a few years ago also. Of my riding buds who even acknowledge the existence of 29ers, they say they know the big wheels ride over the small stuff more smoothly, but don't want to give up maneuverability in technical singletrack. Personally, I ride my 29er in Tamarancho all the time, and that is some of the tightest, most switchbacky singletrack around and I do just fine. Of my other riding buds who look at me like I'm nuts for riding big wheels, they have too much invested in their Blur/Maverick/Intense duallies to think about plunking down more for a 29er.

Nate,

I used to live in Shreveport. (Born and raised there.) Now I live in WA State. I've also got a WW EBB bike on the way. I'm psyched!

Same goes for Arkansas.
at the last race of the year for the state series the expert class was dominated by 29ers.
The course it was held on has some pretty tight switchbacks and it did not seem to slow anyone down.

we've got three 29ers here in pensacola (my new waltworks is the third one). we also have a lot of single speeds (my new waltworks is one of those also). i expect to see more of both when i start whipping @$$ on the sunday morning rides

I think I saw another 29er on the trail yesterday but I really didn't pay attention. I figure as long as they're out there riding its all good. Are 292s or 293s coming in blue this year?

Trailfreak said:

Same goes for Arkansas.
at the last race of the year for the state series the expert class was dominated by 29ers.
The course it was held on has some pretty tight switchbacks and it did not seem to slow anyone down.

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And they will have some great competion with Alan Corum moving up out of Sport to Expert on his Gary Fisher 292!

I forget how many frames he's been through this year but our local hammer-head in Sport was right behind him in 2nd place for the series, on the same Walt Works frame.