the yellow line says it all. must be a 650b HD on the left
I don't think so. The same image lml posted elsewhere had a line across the bottom of the wheels too and you could see that the wheel on the left is just positioned a little differently.... they're both Ripley's IMO. Regardless, I think Lopes spending some time on (and liking apparently) a 29er can only serve to get him stoked on 650b too if he tries it.
I no longer get this 26er vs 29er thing, maybe Ive mellowed, I will always be a 26" man, but I enjoy 29ers as well and no doubt if I ride a 27.5 I will enjoy that too, Im dam sure thats how Brian looks at it too. Hes a rider not a wheel size connaisseur.
If I could and who knows for me, an HD first then Tranny and a Ripley would be great in my stable.
I"m a 26er die hard, but I spent 5.5hrs yesterday riding black diamond, blue square trails with roots the size of Anaconda"s on a borrowed SS hardtail Haro Mary, crap fork with my trusty reverb being the only decent bit of kit slaying guys on full sus 29ers and 7in 26ers light freeride bike, its not about the bike, needless to say Monday we are all shagged, work was a tough slog today but was great fun, epic ride
I lobbed a call into them yesterday to try and get an idea if they were going to at least release geometry figures, etc on the website soon and I was told they wanted to unveil everything at once. Basically I got the sense don't expect to see much of anything until Jan/Feb timeframe.
Cant't wait... But Mav is right, it definitely isn't about the bike. Lopes has been around for ages and he still kills every time. Kinda like Lance.... Lopes me be on the roids too!!!