Happy Feet

I tend to see two differences between 26 and say.. 700 but I suspect neither have to do with circumference.

One is riding posture differences (aka geometry), 26 usually being more common on upright builds and thus less suited for speed over distance.
The second is weight of tires, wheelsets, components and overall builds. Generally the 26 bike is heavier and made to be durable while the 700 bike has more emphasis placed on road weight and speed.

Of course those are just generalities. one can certainly find opposing examples in each camp. When that happens though, a couple of 26"FES card carrying members will dispose of the evidence in a one way hole to China.

Brett A

Was this thread created to discuss if 26" wheels are less round? Because circularity (a.k.a. roundness) is important in a wheel IMO. And if 26" wheels have a disadvantage in that area, I want to know about it.

3speed

Haha. EA3 would be a Perfect fit into their marketing BS.

Gerry M

Scientifically, the world is flat. It's space that is curved!

Arvadaman

Rollfast

No, it's a 3D Viewmaster.

Cycle Tourist

I did most of my early touring on 27" wheels with 1 1/4 tires. I like the ease of the narrower 700's now. If you spend your time on the pavement stay skinny. I really appreciate less work on the flats and downhills. The only advantage I can see for 26"ers is fewer flats and good gravel control.

79pmooney

I'm a member of the parallel Zephal society. "Expanding the universe one stroke at a time."

Ben

Happy Feet

Amen to that brother Mooney.

I love it when these threads, that you can tell were started to try and slam a choice, turn out to be a celebration of it instead.

Praise be to he who tossed the world like a big pizza dough into the sky to be baked by the sun and pass the friction shifters please!

phughes

The Earth is flat, but spacetime is curved. That is why you can circumnavigate the flat Earth...

wbc4406

I'm horizontally opposed to any wheel diameter that is odd number

djb

oh well, no Subaru or Porsche driving for you then.

jefnvk

Wow, you guys have sure been bored the past few weeks. Glad I got slammed at work and missed this...

djb

chuckle

Lemond1985

LOL, did you see the Salmon thread? Originated in your fair city, I believe.

Duo

been a long time on 26" wheels. would you say with your experience that this size may be a bit more durable than 700 or the old 27"? any down sides to running 26"?

BigAura

Wheel size doesn't seem to make any touring difference as far as I'm concerned. In fact as much as I'm always changing my bicycle, gear, & rigging I usually can't even remember my setup for a particular tour. I have to look a photos to see what it was. I always remember the adventure but not the equipment specifics.

Most of my tours have been on 26" so I could have fatter tires (usually around 2") for off-road. Nowadays fat tires are available in all wheel sizes. But I also recently toured on my fixed gear running 700x32c and did some of it off-road (although relatively flat) and had a great time.

Duragrouch

I don't know the reason for 29s, but I suspect that it's "cone index", i.e., a measure of how well something sinks or floats in soft soil, and larger diameter tires help. But I would think the difference between 26 and 29 matters mostly for racing and extreme off-road. In my past profession where off-road mobility engineering mattered, yes we wanted large diameter tires, but were limited by "packaging" and "weight".

I just found a dandy titanium road bike for a friend relatively cheap, I think because it has 650c wheels, which I think are now on the downtrend. But for him, a small frame size, it's so better proportioned than 700c. And he has plenty of high gear now that (common everyday) cogs go down to 11 tooth. And like others have noticed, if need be, I think the brake caliper pad slots would accommodate typical 26" rims. (The 650c rims also can wear "old Schwinn 26x1" which is also 571 bead diameter.)

Happy Feet

Hah hah... for sure. We got hit by a late few weeks of snowfall so I'm looking for distraction in between snow riding. It was either this thread or the Olive Garden slam fest in General Cycling and I just couldn't bring myself to care about that enough. But I could argue 26" wheelsets all day!

How bad is it? So bad that I am cooking parsnip pancakes while we speak. Note the similarity between these, the world and 26" wheels. A coincidence? I think not.

Duo

my mtb bikes are still 26", some say this wheel would be most durable because the length of spoke is shorter. i note that the only spokes i break seem to be on my road bikes with 700c wheels.

been wondering if larger wheels are less durable because of size as some seem to believe in other threads. it could be that i ride my mtb less of course than the road bikes and good mtb wheels are built tougher than road bikes because of weight.

anyone? thanks.

djb

I certainly do not have the wheel building experience to really know, but I suspect that if everything was the same, rim, spokes, build quality etc, that a 26 will be a bit stronger because of the shorter spokes. Maybe this is all a myth, but I think not.

Happy Feet

I don't know the physics either but I would wonder if the 26" design specs are also more robust in general because of the intended use (mtb vs paved road). Things like spoke diameter, rim thickness et al. I'm pretty curious what such a thinner road spec'd rim/spokes would do using a narrow road sized tire. I don't even think they make a 25c 26" tubular but if one could put that together one could throw both on a road frame and see the speed difference. Even typing that though I feel the 26" would lose some inherant strength that way.

Duo

i also ride tandem bicycles where wheels matter more. it seems the solution may be going with more spokes for this pro wheel builder.

Wheelsets for moderately loaded touring.
Phil Wood tandem cassette 40 hole hubset, 145mm rear axle, Wheelsmith DB14 spokes in front, DH13 spokes in back, Mavic A719 (was T520) rims

Wheelsets for heavily loaded touring.
Phil Wood tandem cassette 48 hole hubset, 145mm rear axle, Wheelsmith DH13 or DB14 spokes, 14-15 butted front, Velocity Dyad rims:

in just visually comparing wheels between my lite road bikes and mtb/tandem/touring bikes, the differences are quite noticeable. my trek has so few spokes on the road bike that it would not be my choice at all for touring. many are questioning going away from 32/36 spoke wheels to low spoke count as not being the answer to longevity. it would seem that breaking a spoke on these low spoke count wheels would be more of a problem, hafta wait and see.

Tourist in MSN

I think it will be slightly stronger, but not so much because the spokes are shorter but instead because (1) the length of the rim around the circumference is smaller and the spokes at the rim are closer to each other and (2) the hub would have the same width, thus teh flanges are the same distance apart, so the angle between the drive side and non-drive side spokes at the rim would be slightly greater. You said "everything was the same" so here I did not make a distinction between 130 and 135mm hubs.

Rohloff used to argue that you only needed 32 spokes because their hub flanges were so far apart which increased that spoke angle. (They also made the point that the wheel was not dished.) But they eventually built a 36 spoke hub which is the one I bought.

You could argue that a longer spoke might make it stronger because the longer spoke would offer a bit more cushioning (like a longer spring) when the wheel hits something like a pot hole. Here I am using the same logic that supports double butted spokes with a thinner middle section.

But in the big picture, both wheels are so close to the same size, I think the difference in strength is so minor that other factors are more important to deciding what wheel size you want.

Regarding that Rohloff argument about the flanges being farther apart, I recall someone used the same logic to say if you are using an SP front hub which has very close flanges that you should use more spokes, they were suggesting four more spokes on an SP wheel than you would otherwise use on for example a Shimano dynohub wheel. I think that makes some sense, although I am clearly going off topic here.

Tourist in MSN

In this case, the 145mm rear hub is undished, that makes a difference too. As far as I know the only production solo touring bike that is sold with a 145mm rear dropout spacing is the Americano. Thus, that is an uncommon wheel for a solo bike.