24" muni vs. 26" muni?

[lasha]

That is seriously awesome thats the uni i want!! Wish i had the money for it!

[makym]

I have got KH 24 and I think it's really good for technical downhill or even uphill.
I don't like to carry my muni when going uphill so I'm trying to find easy way to summit. Easy means rather even but usually can be very steep. Last year I improved my uphill skills and off-course leg muscles, too. Now I am able to ride really steep hills, I couldn't believe before that I will be ever able to do so.
I never used 26 but I understand that rides uphill are much more harder.
Many times when doing XC, or easy downhill I fill to slow or even bored on my 24" wheel but at the moment I think It's better to upgrade in with geared hub than increasing wheel size.
I do not understand you guys, in my opinion doesn't matter how high is the rider. In trial, guys use 20" wheels or smaller, high riders do not choose 24" for trial because they are higher than average.
For XC I will choose 26 or biger for sure, bot for difficult downhill I am going to stay with my 24.

[Nurse Ben]

Makym, I think the size (height) aspect of riding a bigger wheel has to do with leg length, torso size, overall body type/build "fitting" one wheel size better than another. So big people tend to like bigger wheels, small people tend to like smaller wheels.

Like in BMX, as a kid i was fine riding a 20" bike, but when I got over about 167 cm, my legs started hitting the bars (my hands), so a bigger wheel ultimately led me to mountain biking (26" wheel). Nowadays they have 24" bmx for big kids

I learned to uni on a 20" and within a week I was riding a 24", so when I went back to learn trials, the 20" wheel size felt very small and akward. Now that I ride a 29/26, even a 24" wheel feels very small and twitchy, so for me at 182cm/90kg I can climb comfortably and faster on a bigger wheel since I have the weight and power to manage a bigger wheel.

If you find a 26" wheel is hard for you manage, it could be your size, your experience, or just that you're not used to a bigger wheel. I can climb anything on a 26" that I can climb on a 24", but on the 24" I work harder and must hop some, whereas on the 26" I have a more stable platform for climbing and I have more roll over capability so hopping is less necessary. On a 29er I lose some of my gearing advantage, so I can't ride quite as steep and technical as a 26", but I can ride further and longer because it is more stable and has even better obstacle rollover.

One of my son's friends is a small girl, only 145cm when she started uni, so even a 20" trials was big, and so until she grew taller she rode a trials for muni, then when she got to about 165cm I cut down a 24" muni frame and she was able to ride that on trails.

There are lots of advantages to the 26" wheel size and really no disadvatages in contrast to the 24" wheel size, but for some reason off road unicyclists have gotten stuck on the 24" wheel size. This was not an issue for a number of years as tire availability was good, but now the tires choices are very limited, so if a person (like the OP) was asking about getting a muni today, I'd advocate for the 26".

[DavidHood]

Originally Posted by makym

For XC I will choose 26 or biger for sure, but for difficult downhill I am going to stay with my 24.

I struggled with this same conundrum over in this thread and I'm glad I went with the 26" when I finally pulled the trigger on an Oracle. It all came down to tire selection and availability for me. If it's weight your concerned with, I would venture a guess that my 26" Oracle retrofitted with a 2.5" tire and Freeride 1.2mm tube would be nearly as light as the 24" Oracle with the 3" Duro had I not fitted Moment cranks and big platform pedals.

Funny to see how this thread got resurrected. Almost like it was a bot. There are better threads on the subject out there, most of which were already brought to the attention of the OP. Anyway, I'm glad I went with the 26" and my trails are mostly technical. Not that I have much to compare it to as I only had a 24" Nimbus MUni for a brief period of time.