29rs and 650b at Duthie
The Duthie boardwalk is such a grand entrance, like riding up to a mountain bike cathedral
Being introduced to Step it Up at Duthie by Steve Bourke was cool, a bit terrifying at times and meant focusing on not f’ing up and ending the ride with the smallest time gap possible. Most of it came back to me on the MTB and noted that the scene was the same, just the bikes are better, wheels bigger, suspension taller. Could make the argument that Shimano Deore XT with thumb shifters worked better or at least as good. Brakes are drastically better – I know this because I was pulling the rear one the entire time.
If you don’t know Bourke, he’s a former nationally ranked BMX racer – 5th – and mountain biker. We may have raced WIMs (Washington, Idaho MTB Series) as Elites together, back in the day, but couldn’t remember. Best thing was the dude didn’t give a shit about the blog I publish or that I was media. He was just gonna show me the trail and how they throw down these days. Each trail we rode, I only saw him and Scott Matual from Raleigh for about 12 seconds. I focused on keeping the gaps close, so they didn’t start Marco Polo’ing my name during the Evergreen MTB Festival.
As mentioned on Twitter, Raleigh set me up with their new Talus hardtail. A bike that performs like all high-end bikes do these days: very well. I’ll race short track on it in a few weeks and want to spend more time at max effort before a longer post. It did attract much attention from other mountain bikers who wanted to know what I thought of this or that part.
Handles like a high-end bike should: very well
Also delay the full review, cause I rode this Jamis 650b…. 
Them Little big wheels barely fit inside the iPhone camera frame
On 650b, I’ll put it this way
If tech were ran by stoners, like the bike industry is, what they’d do is convince the consumer Bluetooth was the latest, smartest tech. Then mid product cycle, just as people we’re upgrading, they’d introduce a different version of it that did they same thing, but with different sizing. See with the bike, there is no industry association pushing an agreed-upon spec to increase market share with better product. Instead, they manufacturers are all just slicing up thinner slices of the pie and killing each other’s marketing with different spec.
Continuing the tech analogy, those that have invested heavily in 29r should start the FUD campaigns now before 650b takes hold. Cause the ride is better. I’ve been hearing talk, some buzz, and Mark V mentioning 650b in dirt; as opposed to being evangelized by randonneurs like Jan Heine. Also just announced that ENVE is making 650b wheel sets.
In an analogy to cars, 26 is like an SUV, 29 a monster truck, and 650b is the crossover. Yes, old is new, like everything with the bike, but the handling is distinctively and near instantly “yeah, that’s better.”
As the sensations and muscle memory of riding MTB came back to me at Duthie, I still found the 29r a bit unwieldy and had to let the wheel track where it wanted. I compare it to sitting on top of two large gyroscopes and tapping them in the general direction you want to go; instead of precisely doing what you want.
Raleigh’s look pops as well on the camera as the trail
The Jamis 650B didn’t feel like that. At all.