Santa Cruz at least is still doing the MX/ mullet wheel sizing with 29 up front, 27.5 in back. Maxxis tires specced. I don’t think Maxxis is walking away from 27.5 any time soon. There’s less variety than 29, but it won’t die.
But to your question, at your height you are not missing out on not having built a 27.5 mtn bike.
Loving these in 42mm on my commute. Hitting some gravel on Sunday I think, hoping for good things.
Have a set of Horizons: rode them twice then they went back in the tyre box…
Hakkapelitta, the OG 1980s non studded ones that helped kickstart early MTB
Neo-Moto, for the modern resurgence of 650b ATB
Thunder Burt, helped validate the idea of a randonneur type bike but for gravel and light singletrack but that didn’t suck on pavement.
Confreries
I mean… The king of gravel, Gravelkings.
They were great for their time, but I’d argue the Conti GP5k in 32 x 584 is a better tire today.
Although it was released antemortum of the wheelsize and was never popular, the 650bx47 Pathfinder Pro is a great tire.
Is there a secret stash of 650b Homercars behind the Iron Curtain waiting to be unleashed upon the world?
I’d love that investigative journalist bike nerdery
Who here speaks Russian?
I dunno; the 5k is nice, but it’s a whole bunch easier to get a confrerie onto a wheel without shredding the inner tube, so I’ll stick with it as the goat in 650b-land
OG 650b: Michelin World Tour.
The Hakkas are also noteworthy as proto-29er tires on the Bruce Gordon Rock 'n Road bike, and then getting copied as the BG RnR tire with Panaracer.
It’s interesting that for all the tire resting that has occurred over the last decade, it took comments from randoms to get BRR to test tanwall/skinwall tires and determine that they are (at least in the BRR test) slower than blackwall tires.
Perhaps the difference isn’t legible in outdoor testing. Looking at the CRR values, it should be for R Chung and some rolldown tests, probably not for constant power.
I’ve almost always chosen tanwall when given the option 
I’m not fast enough to have it matter vs the superior aesthetic of (casing) skin or gum walls
That was the prevailing thought in the 80s & 90s, but no one quantitatively verified it. Anecdotally, I had way less pinch flats on black wall tires.
Ran thru a set of 42mm slicks on my commuter and they just weren’t good. Very narrow sweet spot for pressure, rode and cornered awfully if it dropped a couple psi. The bokens have like a 15psi window where they’re good, which is great cos I always forget to pump them up.
1000% agree on 42mm GK slicks. Hated their self-steer and general cornering behaviour. I’ve been Boken curious for a while but dammit if they aren’t hard to find on sale. ThunderBurts run tubeless are terrific and would buy again for full price kind of tire for me.
I’ve got some new Bokens in my “to get rid of pile”. Maybe half a dozen?
DM if interested
650b or 700c size way?
650
I ALREADY SUPPED BRO
And they arrived… At my old house.
