Originally Posted by
ryansu
Someone was joking -the wheels are almost certainly 27" which was the standard road bike size for the bike boom years in the US, look for a stamp in the rim near the value stem hole. CL postings are notoriously misinformed on wheel size, brake type, bike type frame size etc. I usually take the description with a giant grain of salt and focus on what I can see from pics.
27" tires are ABUNDANT btw despite what some people might say, just do a search online for 27" bike tires.
I would say without knowing your market that if you are in the Twin cities you can find a comparable bike/price that is not 2 hours away with a little time and patience looking, or maybe you'll pay $20 more and save a 4 hour round trip and a tank of gas. YMMV
I have owned and wrenched on 30+ bikes and have had quite a few w/ 27x1.25 rims.
Funny about the 26.5 rims, reminds me of when I was in high school, the first year. Everybody would ask where is the pool? The joke was there was no pool. Ha ha.
I have never owned a French bike. I have been reading with great interest about the quixotic parts, threading and agravation associated. So, naturally I assumed that 26 1/2 was a French standard. Thank you for straightening that out!