Matt Butterman takes a look at influences that helped the present popularity of the 650b wheel. Updated August 9th with Tom Ritchey's contributions to the development of the 650b's use in mountain biking added.To get more news about mtb bike Wheels, you can visit zpebicycle.com official website.

Since first publishing this article, it has come to my attention that I'd left out the efforts of Tom Ritchey in the story of the 650b wheel in mountain biking. I've added this important information to the narrative here, and will address this aspect and the many other contributions of Tom Ritchey to the development of mountain biking in a separate article, to be published shortly -MB Renaissance is a French word meaning rebirth, and yet we most often speak of the Italian Renaissance, at least in terms of art. But over sixty years ago, French bicycle builders, notably the builders known as les constructeurs, adopted and promoted the use of the 650b wheel.

Wheel components and tires became widespread throughout Europe for 650bs, although their use was largely confined to randonneuring, touring and utility bikes. So within this historical context, the current proliferation of 650b, or 27.5” mountain bike wheels is not a new trend, but a renaissance. And given the 650b wheel’s national origin, it’s a French renaissance. But how this rebirth happened across the Atlantic is an interesting story with a couple of different angles. Our first one comes to us from American mountain bike pioneer Joe Breeze. Breeze wrote an article about the Velo Cross Club Parisien, a group of young cyclists from the Paris suburbs who engaged in a form of off-road cycling during the early 1950s that had little to do with cyclo-cross, and a lot more to do with mountain biking that emerged in Marin County, California some 25 years later. According to Breeze, in the VCCP, “the spirit, purpose and passion of mountain biking were there.” VCCP members took their 650b-equipped touring/utility bikes and fitted suspension forks from mopeds. Breeze writes, “Frame gusseting, handlebar-mounted derailleur shifting, and improved braking were common to most of these bikes.”

As humans the world over are wont to do with any sort of vehicle, these hybrid machines were put to the test in competitions. The sport was dubbed Velo Cross, and races often took place during breaks in motocross competitions throughout Paris and environs. Like many human achievements, the development of mountain biking was not a linear evolution with all the players working in concert to develop a new sport, but instead a collection of individuals working independently until geographic proximity and sheer happenstance brought them together. Northern California was a nexus for these independent thinkers, and the famous annual Repack downhill race was an occasion that brought these pioneers together and provided the necessary cross-pollination of ideas that eventually produced consensus and the development of a new cycling discipline and a new type of bicycle for it.

Tom Ritchey was one of these Bay Area pioneers. Ritchey had been building all kinds of bikes since the early 1970s, and his use of welded joints, and not lugs, meant that he could experiment with different geometries and wheel sizes more easily than builders who used traditional lugged construction. This penchant for experimentation, combined with a racing pedigree, lead Ritchey toward the use of 650b wheels for off-road bikes early in the 1970s. It was first-hand experience in cyclocross racing, and knowledge of the inherent efficiences of a larger wheel that drew Ritchey to the use of the 650b wheel. "I came from cyclocross, racing 700c cyclocross bikes and riding road bikes off road, and I knew what it was like to ride a road bike off-road and the value of a bigger wheel versus a mountain bike wheel. It's not just that, it's the physics, the scientific advantages of using a larger wheel," said Ritchey.