It’s a little tough to describe but you almost feel like you’re “stink bugging” on every jump. The only time I could feel the imbalance between the two wheel sizes was in the air - especially bunny hopping. I was able to push the bike harder when things got rough. It carried speed easier and held its momentum through wheel-grabbing sections of trail. It made light work of some sections I struggled with on the stock setup. Even with the 10mm reduction in front travel, I felt far more confident with the slacker geometry and bigger wheel. The mullet is on another level of capability. That bike doesn’t exist, so the battle comes down to 27.5” vs mullet. If I could run the Mojo 4 in a full 29” setup, that would be the most capable bike for rough and rocky terrain. Only in flat, tight, and rocky sections did I prefer the agility of the full 27.5” bike. It feels pretty different from anything I’ve experienced before. The front wheel swings wide while the back wheel kind of dives inside and cuts a tighter path. You get the nice smooth arc of a 29er with the added maneuverability of the 27.5”. The shorter wheelbase and smaller radius let you steer the bike instead of just leaning it.Ĭornering on a mullet is really the best of both worlds. 27.5” wheels clearly handle tighter corners and berms better though - especially the awkward rocky ones. They seem to track a smoother arc through the corner without the need for as many micro-adjustments. For our western US trails, they handle the wide-sweeping turns a little better than a 27.5” for me. Picking my way through and around rocks on the climbs was harder. The big front wheel feels a bit less manageable in technical terrain as well. Mullet mode makes it quite a bit slacker, and that generally never helps climbing performance. It is quick, efficient, and handles technical terrain very well. The Mojo 4 is one of my favorite bikes for climbing. It went up and over rocks easier, smoothed out transitions at the bottom of rock rolls better, and overall added a level of capability to the bike that 27.5” couldn’t provide. Without a doubt, it handled the business better. It gives you a degree of confidence seeing a big wagon wheel handling the business end of the bike. I liked seeing the big wheel out in front of me. Spoiler alert - from the first rock roller I knew this was going to be good. Overall I enjoyed the ride, but I did feel that some of the sections were pushing the limits of the bike a bit. The bike doesn’t want to monster truck too much. I did, however, have a couple of rough rides through some of the rockier and steeper sections. It wasn’t too difficult to pick my way through the rocks. In the tight, technical bits, the handling was very quick and easy to steer. I just wanted to set a quick baseline for the bike on this trail. I’m not getting into the details too much here. Next, I swapped forks and repeated the same trail. It’s a great trail for feeling the differences in wheel size. It also had plenty of flat awkward technical sections as well as steep rollers and a couple of jumps. Speaking of the trail, I picked one that had a lot of rocks, roots, and chunky bits. I took a lap in the standard 27.5” setup just to set a baseline for this bike on this trail. I didn’t really have an accurate way to measure reach and stack but those will change as well. The critical measurements I looked for were the head tube angle, seat tube angle, wheelbase, and bottom bracket height. Bit of a brag here, I wasn’t far off at all. When it was all said and done, I ended up using an online bike geometry model to corroborate my field measurements. It’s not a perfect system and there’s some room for error. Sure, I could have used a bike geometry model, but where’s the fun in that? Keep in mind, I used bubble levels and a digital protractor to measure all the angles. I build a little jig to hold the bike completely level so I could take accurate measurements of the angles. I went full nerd on how to figure this out. I knew the head tube and seat tube angles would get a bit slacker, but I wanted to know by how much. I was curious to see how much the geometry would change with a mullet conversion. I did everything I could to maintain the geometry of the Mojo 4, but it still changed a bit in mullet mode. Combine that with the added axle height of the 29” wheel, and things can get out of control quickly. Even with the drop in travel, the fork was still taller than the stock version. I dropped 10mm to help mitigate this increase in front end height. Why the drop in travel? 29” forks will always have a longer axle to crown measurement than a 27.5” fork with the same travel. So I swapped out the stock 27.5” Fox 34 140mm with a 29” Fox 34 130mm. First of all, you need a 29” fork in order to run a 29” front wheel. So you just swap out the front wheel of a 27.5” bike with a 29er hoop. It’s a great candidate for a mullet conversion. I used the Ibis Mojo 4 for this experiment.
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