Will a 29er work for college campus commute?

I live abt 3 miles away from university I attend.

I want to buy a bike that I can commute with

Problem is I want the fastness and low rolling
resistance of a mt bike but the ability to jump curbs
and cut across grass a mt bike give

There are MANY curbs between me and school..... and
many curbs and obstacles on campus.

Will a 29er be the best of both worlds? Will it allow
me to feel "fast" on the streets to school.... yet
allow jumping curbs and such?

Do I need a front shock or will balloon-like tires
work?

Advice?

On Oct 17, 1:36*pm, wrote:
I live abt 3 miles away from university I attend.

I want to buy a bike that I can commute with

Problem is I want the fastness and low rolling
resistance of a mt bike but the ability to jump curbs
and cut across grass a mt bike give

There are MANY curbs between me and school..... and
many curbs and obstacles on campus.

Will a 29er be the best of both worlds? *Will it allow
me to feel "fast" on the streets to school.... yet
allow jumping curbs and such?

Do I need a front shock or will balloon-like tires
work?

Advice?

Hybrid with a doinger'll do it. Example:

http://www.jamisbikes.com/usa/thebik...allegro1x.html

On Oct 17, 7:36*pm, wrote:
I live abt 3 miles away from university I attend.

I want to buy a bike that I can commute with

Problem is I want the fastness and low rolling
resistance of a mt bike but the ability to jump curbs
and cut across grass a mt bike give

There are MANY curbs between me and school..... and
many curbs and obstacles on campus.

Will a 29er be the best of both worlds? *Will it allow
me to feel "fast" on the streets to school.... yet
allow jumping curbs and such?

Do I need a front shock or will balloon-like tires
work?

Advice?

A 29er is nothing but a wide 622mm rim with a low-pressure balloon on
it. The original and best balloon, Schwalbe's Big Apple, is generally
inflated to around or under 2 bar because that is where it provides
both suspension and comfort. While the Big Apples on my bike, carrying
an eighth of ton, cope well with involuntary crashes through the odd
pothole, I think that if you make a habit of jumping kerbs with low
pressure Big Apples, you'll be fixing a lotta snakebites. I don't know
how they will feel if pumped up hard enough not to care about kerebs,
but I'm sure that big air mass will cope admirably with a drop from
any height if inflated enough.

Big Apples are rubbish on loose gravel but okay on smooth lawns, even
when slightly soggy; at least they don't leave tracks behind like
narrower tyres; you don't want the college gardiners to lie in wait
for you with a shotgun loaded with salt, as happened to a mate of mine
who ****ed off both the head gardiner and the head porter, two men
far, far more important than the Master of the college (they can get
away with blasting undergraduates, he'd be put away for doing the
same).

The concept of the 29er is that it is used without a suspended fork,
that the low-pressure tyre provides the necessary suspension.

I suspect that you might be happier on a suspended bike with high
pressure semi-knobblies in the 1.5-2in range.

I have a couple of hybrids with sturdy ali frames, front and seat
suspension, 38mm Schwalbe Marathon Plus or equivalent, and they're
damned fast town bikes on which I routinely took big drops off
pavements when I rode out from my previous house. Good enough across
lawns if not too soggy. But my trekking bikes are intended to look
smart and just don't have clearance for any kind of knobbly tire,
which you might need in winter, depending where you attend school.

Frankly, given your intended use, and your preference for 29er wheels,
I'd buy a Surly Karate Monkey either built up or as a frame to build
up myself. It has all the necessary bosses to make it a versatile bike
that'll see out your college years and your early working pre-yuppie
years (after which you'll probably want a poncey Italian bike to pose
on). The KM is the most versatile frame I've ever found, and solid as
the Brooklyn Bridge. I'd buy it or build it up as a 29er without
suspension and first see if the biggest Marathon tyres (47mm I think)
with tread can handle the lawns. In winter you can fit fenders (the KM
has fittings for them) and in summer you can ride barewheel.

Andre Jute
Check out Andre's recipes at
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/FOOD.html

Andre Jute wrote:

Frankly, given your intended use, and your preference for 29er wheels,

I really don't have preference for 29ers

Just thought it would give me more "speed" when on the
road

Per :
There are MANY curbs between me and school..... and
many curbs and obstacles on campus.

Will a 29er be the best of both worlds? Will it allow
me to feel "fast" on the streets to school.... yet
allow jumping curbs and such?

That's my bread-and-butter riding.

I think it's more of a fat vs skinny tire thing than MTB vs
29-er.

Everybody says 29-ers roll better over bumps and that's probably
true; but you're not rolling over bumps, you're either
bunny-hopping them or manualling (is that even a word?) them.

I find that 1.5" tires at 60 psi give me some extra liveliness
and can negotiate curbs as long as I pay close attention - and I
weigh about 210#. But if I "miss" the weight transfer as the
rear wheel hits the curb on the way up, it can be pinch-flat
time.

OTOH, at the cost of that extra liveliness, something like WTB's
55/55 Mutano Raptors at, say, 40 psi are pretty much immune to
pinch flatting on curbs unless I'm consciously abusive.

Bottom line, I think it depends on which you value mo
pinch-flat resistance of liveliness. As far as I can see you
can't maximize both.

My experience has been that the 55/55 tires in "race" weight are
pretty good liveliness-wise, but don't compare to the 1.5's at
higher pressure.

I use both, have been riding the 1.5's the most lately... but I
do drift back-and-forth.
--
PeteCresswell

wrote:
I live abt 3 miles away from university I attend.

I want to buy a bike that I can commute with

Problem is I want the fastness and low rolling
resistance of a mt bike but the ability to jump curbs
and cut across grass a mt bike give

There are MANY curbs between me and school..... and
many curbs and obstacles on campus.

Will a 29er be the best of both worlds? Will it allow
me to feel "fast" on the streets to school.... yet
allow jumping curbs and such?

Do I need a front shock or will balloon-like tires
work?

Advice?
----------------

For that short of distance just get an old junky mtb, a brand spanking
new 29er will probably get stolen.

wrote:
I live abt 3 miles away from university I attend.

I want to buy a bike that I can commute with

Problem is I want the fastness and low rolling
resistance of a mt bike but the ability to jump curbs
and cut across grass a mt bike give

There are MANY curbs between me and school..... and
many curbs and obstacles on campus.

Will a 29er be the best of both worlds? Will it allow
me to feel "fast" on the streets to school.... yet
allow jumping curbs and such?

Do I need a front shock or will balloon-like tires
work?

Advice?

You need big fat slicks. Slicks for speed, fatness for pinch protection.
I think that's more important than wheel size.

On Oct 17, 10:31*pm, wrote:
Andre Jute wrote:
Frankly, given your intended use, and your preference for 29er wheels,

I really don't have preference for 29ers

Just thought it would give me more "speed" when on the
road

Well, okay, a 29er is actually "fast" for these reasons:

1. Bigger wheels run smoother and that makes them feel faster. A 700c
rim is bigger than a 26in rim and a balloon tyre has a bigger
circumference than a narrow tire, so by going to a 29er you get a
double hit in the fast stakes.

2. Your characteristc 29er tyre is the Big Apple, which has less
rolling resistance simply because it is fat, and then less again
because has a smooth tread, so that's another double hit in the fast
stakes. I responded to your post because I understand what you want --
I've got it on one of my bikes; the feeling of power the full 29er
derives from its smoothness makes you feel faster, and makes you
faster in real life too. At first I was amazed to discover that a
wheel that looks like it was engineered by a clumsy child from silly
putty can be so easy to pedal, and that a tyre so fat that it almost
looks rolled around the rim while standing still can hold the road so
faithfully that handling -- the bit that happens when you run out of
roadholding -- is hardly a concern.

However, all that said, I'm not so sure that your kerb-hopping doesn't
make a better case for the 26in wheel simply because it is known to be
stronger and the varieties of fat tyres for it is vast. BTW, the
Karate Monkey frame I recommended to you is capable of taking either
26 or 700c wheels, in either case with gennie fat balloons plus
fenders, essential for year-round commuting.

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Bicycles at
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/...20CYCLING.html

On Oct 17, 10:33*pm, "(PeteCresswell)" wrote:
Per :

There are MANY curbs between me and school..... and
many curbs and obstacles on campus.

Will a 29er be the best of both worlds? *Will it allow
me to feel "fast" on the streets to school.... yet
allow jumping curbs and such?

That's my bread-and-butter riding.

I think it's more of a fat vs skinny tire thing than MTB vs
29-er.

Everybody says 29-ers roll better over bumps and that's probably
true; but you're not rolling over bumps, you're either
bunny-hopping them or manualling (is that even a word?) them.

I find that 1.5" tires at 60 psi give me some extra liveliness
and can negotiate curbs as long as I pay close attention - and I
weigh about 210#. * But if I "miss" the weight transfer as the
rear wheel hits the curb on the way up, it can be pinch-flat
time.

Yeah, that's what I was telling him earlier, though I inflated my 38mm
Marathon Plus to 80psi. Never had snakebites but, like you, I would go
light over the kerbs. The Marathon's are fast tyres, cheap because
they're so longlasting, flatfree, and with enough tread to the
outsides of the rolling surface to give a measure of rough road and
wet road control, more than enough anyway for my fast downhills. But I
would suggest that if he goes that route a suspended (front and seat)
trekking bike is the answer, and 26in wheels will be stronger.

OTOH, at the cost of that extra liveliness, something like WTB's
55/55 Mutano Raptors at, say, 40 psi are pretty much immune to
pinch flatting on curbs unless I'm consciously abusive.

Is the implication here that if I blow up my Big Apples a bit higher
than the 2 bar (approx 30psi) they are now, I can go kerb-hopping?

Andre Jute
I'm not a know-all. I don't need to be. I know who to ask.

Bottom line, I think it depends on which you value mo
pinch-flat resistance of liveliness. * As far as I can see you
can't maximize both.

My experience has been that the 55/55 tires in "race" weight are
pretty good liveliness-wise, but don't compare to the 1.5's at
higher pressure.

I use both, have been riding the 1.5's the most lately... but I
do drift back-and-forth.
--
PeteCresswell

Andre Jute wrote:
On Oct 17, 10:31 pm, wrote:
Andre Jute wrote:
Frankly, given your intended use, and your preference for 29er wheels,
I really don't have preference for 29ers

Just thought it would give me more "speed" when on the
road

Well, okay, a 29er is actually "fast" for these reasons:

1. Bigger wheels run smoother and that makes them feel faster. A 700c
rim is bigger than a 26in rim and a balloon tyre has a bigger
circumference than a narrow tire, so by going to a 29er you get a
double hit in the fast stakes.

2. Your characteristc 29er tyre is the Big Apple, which has less
rolling resistance simply because it is fat, and then less again
because has a smooth tread, so that's another double hit in the fast
stakes. I responded to your post because I understand what you want --
I've got it on one of my bikes; the feeling of power the full 29er
derives from its smoothness makes you feel faster, and makes you
faster in real life too. At first I was amazed to discover that a
wheel that looks like it was engineered by a clumsy child from silly
putty can be so easy to pedal, and that a tyre so fat that it almost
looks rolled around the rim while standing still can hold the road so
faithfully that handling -- the bit that happens when you run out of
roadholding -- is hardly a concern.

However, all that said, I'm not so sure that your kerb-hopping doesn't
make a better case for the 26in wheel simply because it is known to be
stronger and the varieties of fat tyres for it is vast. BTW, the
Karate Monkey frame I recommended to you is capable of taking either
26 or 700c wheels, in either case with gennie fat balloons plus
fenders, essential for year-round commuting.

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Bicycles at
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/...20CYCLING.html

I'm thinking a Karate Monkey might be way too nice for college...

heck, I had a probably 10ish year old Schwinn stolen off my porch in
college.

More important than what bike to buy is what LOCK to buy. The bike is
preferably something with a little patina on it, mismatched tires, etc.

nate

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