PICTURES BY MARK ALKER
Take a look round any bike industry trade show and it looks like those plus size wheels are here to stay. It seems that manufacturers are scrambling to design bikes for the new 27.5in and 29in plus tyres that have appeared recently, or have been trying to crowbar them into existing frame designs and pretending that they’ve been into the Plus scene for years. No one wants to be the one to miss out on the next 29er or the next 27.5er.
While the 29er movement took nearly a decade to take hold, the plus thing was virtually an overnight sensation. It was only in early 2014 that a few bikes appeared with the as-yet-unseen combo of the 50mm WTB Scraper rim and 2.8 Trailblazer tyre. For a while it seemed that the only people who had hold of this mythical combo were bike company product managers, but slowly more bikes started appearing with the 2.8 and later 3.0 tyres fitted. The 2.8 version of ‘Plus’ (for it was a thing now…) was easy, as most 29er bikes could be tweaked to accommodate these chunky tyres. It was only as the double whammy of Plus and Boost – a widening of the forks and dropouts to give more room for bigger tyres – took hold that the plus thing looked like it was here to stay.