kppolich wrote:
No offense, but you just defined the most niche setup of all time.
Speaking as a PNW gravel rider, I have multiple friends on modern gravel bikes with that exact setup. All of them seemed happy with the addition of the 650b wheels to their stable.
I think full-coverage fenders are in the minority, but they are not rare, and definitely have their uses here.
Quote:
650b will go the same way as 27.5 did for MTB, away.
The seeds for the modern 650b gravel trend were planted in the 1990s in the Grant Petersen corner of the market, and it has gradually grown outward since. There just doesn't seem to be a rapid market extension beyond the long-term underlying demand in the way that there was with the explosive 27.5" MTB boom, so I'd be surprised if it suffers from a sudden bust followed by a rapid loss of reasonable tire options. In which case, even if something is "niche", there's nothing terribly problematic about that. Worst-case scenario, you just replace the 650b wheel with a 700c when you eat a rim dent in the summer of 2036 or whatever.
Rapid loss of options is the exception, not the norm. 650b had been dead for decades when it began to be looked at again in the 1990s, and it had never been a common size in the US, yet Americans were still somewhat able to source replacement tires at that time.
Or look at the 27" size. It's been dead for three decades, and back in the day, it was mostly used for cheap heavy gumwall road tires. You can still buy replacement cheap heavy gumwalls in 27" today, but you can
also find knobby tires, tough touring tires, and even some reasonably supple (albeit not high-end) road tires like the non-PT Pasela. There was even a new 27" rim introduced to the market in 2019, the Velo-Orange Enterprise. Which is pretty silly when you consider that 27" bicycles can usually be swapped to 700c wheels without trouble: it only moves the brake track down by 4mm.
kppolich wrote:
What frame(s) are these going on?
According to the OP, a Diverge.