Author Topic: Bike Recommendation...for you  (Read 377 times)

Svend

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Re: Bike Recommendation...for you
« on: October 02, 2013, 08:10:49 am »
Hey Liam,

I really like the concept of 650B.  Makes perfect sense to me, especially for smaller riders.  I often see small guys and women riding and racing 29ers, and it looks ridiculously awkward and disproportionate.

I am sure that for their next bikes, my wife and daughter (5'7" and 5'6", respectively) would really benefit from a larger wheel size.  They are on 26" hardtails presently.  OTOH, they are able to navigate almost all the gnarly terrain that I can on my 29er, and in tight twisty singletrack the agility of the smaller bikes is noticeable -- they leave me WAY behind.  Bottom line -- the 26" wheels are working great for them in our terrain, so there is no rush to go 650B.  But when the bikes need replacing, the slightly bigger wheels would be brilliant -- same agility as a 26er, and a bit more roll-over ability like a 29er.

As for Norco, they make great bikes.  Solid, great build quality, good component specs for the price, and the geometry is dialed.  We have two in our stable -- an EXC2 model 26" hardtail, and a Faze 1 full suspension 26er.  Both are outstanding bikes. 

I have read excellent things about the Norco Sight and Range models too.  Dirtrag magazine rated one of them (Sight, I think?) as THE best bike they had ever tested in the history of their publication.  Quite the accolade.  Nice to see that they are well respected south of the border too.

I have been toying with the idea of buying a road bike for about the past year, and the more I hear about vehicles taking out cyclists, the more I balk at the idea.  To add to the hesitation, the country roads around here, although pastoral and beautiful, have no shoulders, and have short steep little hills that would completely hide a cyclist from an oncoming car.  And people here speed...most go 20 to 30 km/hr over the limit.  Not a good recipe for staying alive.  On the plus side, there are hundreds of kilometers of rail trails around here that go through the same countryside as the roads do, and if we want an open-country ride, our hardtail mountain bikes serve us perfectly well there.

FWIW, my wife and I have been riding mtn. bikes on singletrack since 1989, and can count the total number of falls on one hand.  Worst is a bruise and a scrape, some paint nicked off the frame....accompanie d by a laugh or a curse...and then we ride on.  No ambulance required.

« Last Edit: October 02, 2013, 08:12:34 am by Svend »