Not necessarily...you'd need to find a fork with less offset to increase the trail...all of these generalizations depending on the geometry of the bike you're comparing to, that is.

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

Except the 29er WAS Fastest by 11-19 seconds on a representative 4k x-c circuit. Perhaps not "Statistically Significant" as in they could state it was fastest with 95% confidence. In this particular study I'd imagine that's the case, simply because they don't have a sample size to achieve that confidence interval. But I don't think marginal gains for a 40k time-trial are necessarily statistically significant, much less practically significant, yet hundreds, perhaps thousands of riders are buying new wheels and aero helmets every year...

Sigh...we don't even know enough from that "report" to say that one was even truly time-wise faster when corrected for power output and conditions.

Did they correct for power differences? What about ambient conditions? (At those speeds air density and drag will matter) Was there a single outlier run that drove the average up but didn't result in a statically significant difference overall?? None of the answers to those and similar questions are available.

That's the point of the stats...to tell you when you may be fooling yourself and/or missing key variables. To ignore those stats and then declare a "winner in practical terms" is ludicrous.

BTW, marginal gains for 40k TTs are fairly easy to discern (in a statistically significant manner) with some simple measurements of power, speed, and ambient conditions, along with a knowledge of the true elevation profile. It seems to me anyone attempting to make these sorts of MTB comparisons would do well to study those methodologies and mimic them.

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

BTW, if this study shows that in "practical terms" a 29" wheeled bike is faster than a 26" wheeled bike, does that mean that "practically speaking" 27" wheeled bikes should all be shunned for XC racing?

And if XC MTB speed potential is a function of wheel size, why didn't the 27" bike slot between the 2? Bigger is better, right?

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

WTF was that? "Statistically there was no difference, but in practical terms there was." Wut?

What a load of BS! What is this guy a Dr in?

Conclusion: Test was unable to prove any difference, but we are going to pretend it did so we can stir up some publicity and controversy.

And if XC MTB speed potential is a function of wheel size, why didn't the 27" bike slot between the 2? Bigger is better, right?

First clue that we are looking at a random number generator.