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.
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
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
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.