DirtySixer make big bikes for tall people and after a successful launch of their first bike last year, they’re back on Kickstarter with a couple of new models.

Wheel sizes eh? Just when you thought everything had calmed down and the diameter-based tribal warfare had died away a bit, here come DirtySixer again to stoke the fire of debate.

Kickstarter

Last year DirtySixer successfully launched a sort of hybrid bike with 36″ wheels, the All-Road DirtySixer. Check out the video above from that project. You may well have seen it pop up on your social media feed. It was a bit of a viral thing. They sold in decent enough numbers to make DirtySixer think that they’re on to something er, big (sorry!)

Anyway, they’re back with two more models. Essentially they’ve moved on from the hybrid do-it-all initial DirtySixer bike and are now hoping to do a road bike and a mountain bike.

DirtySixer MTB

The DirtySixer MTB is on Kickstarter with prices starting from $6,299. The frames are made by their neighbour Ventana Cycles. The estimated delivery date is down as August 2017.

They may look a bit odd from certain angles but for people who are extremely tall (we’re talking 7ft here) the concept is actually very logical. If you’re 5′ 10″ you wouldn’t ride a kids 24″ wheel bike would you? Indeed, there are those in the regular mountain bike world who think that wheel size is perhaps a predominantly height-based issue.

DirtySixer bikes comes in three sizes: S (6’5″ or 195cm up to 6’9″ or 205cm), M (6’9″ or 205cm up to 7’1″ or 215cm) and L (7’1″ or 215cm and up to 7’5″ or 225cm).

If your brain can handle it, DirtySixer have also been tinkering with a 32″ wheel mountain bike, aimed at plugging the gap between 29er and 36ers(!) Yep, it’s the 650B of the big wheel world.

DirtySixer 36er AllRoad with a 7′ customer, DirtySixer’s fabricator Sherwood in the middle and DirtySixer boss David Folch (6’6″) on the right.

The little things

Although the overall concept is eye-catching it’s actually when you get into the detail of the bikes design that things get even more interesting. We’ll restrict ourselves to talking about the mountain bike model here.

The suspension fork is a special version of the MRP Groove inverted suspension fork. It’s had its travel reduced from 200mm down to 100mm. MRP are fairly local to DirtySixer so the collaboration makes sense. The axle is also a custom 20 x 150mm to fit into DirtySixer’s own super-wide front hub.

Those hubs then. The front is 150mm wide, the rear hub is 170mm wide. Wide hubs help to make for stronger wheels. The rims are wider than traditional XC/trial rims and use 36 plain gauge spokes.

For riders over 300lbs DirtySixer also recommend going for the Rohloff hub-gear drivetrain system, this is due to the fat hub of Rohloffs using shorter spokes (stronger wheel).

DirtySixer also offer extra wide pedals, 203mm disc rotors front and rear and extra long crank lengths (180 to 220mm in 5mm increments).

Forward to a lofty friend

If you know someone really, really tall who looks like a bear on a kids bike when they’re out on the trails, send them a link to this page and they’ll be forever in your debt.