Carson Dyle

I'm going to be building a commuter from a road or cyclocross or touring frame. I notice many manufacturers now use 26" wheels on their smaller frames. Would I be correct in assuming this is to aid pirmarily in standover clearance, or does this also help keep head and seat tube angles more consistent with larger versions of the same frame?

Any disadvantages to 26" wheels for a touring bike or commuter? It seems a little ironic that at a time when mountain bike frames are increasingly using 29" wheels, road bikes are being built with the smaller wheels.

bikemig 

There are a lot of threads on this. 26 inch is a fine choice both for a commuter or a tourer; so is 700c. You'll see lots of arguments back and forth on this topic and I've never been convinced by any of them (unless you are going touring abroad in which case a 26 inch wheel may make a lot of sense because of tire availability). Personally if I were buying a new touring bike, I'd lean towards a 26 inch wheel but it's not a big deal. I do really like the way my 1993 Bridgestone XO-2 rides with 26 inch wheels and use it as my commuter:

prathmann

One issue with using large diameter wheels on a small frame is that there tends to be toe overlap with the front wheel; i.e. when making sharp turns at low speed the trailing edge of the front wheel can hit the rider's foot. While the rider can avoid the problem if aware of the possibility it's still preferable to avoid it altogether and using smaller wheels is one way to do that. Another advantage for 26" wheels on a touring bike is the greater availability of replacement tires in much of the world.

kris7047th

I recently bought a Trek 520 51c that came stock with 700c. I really didn't want 26" to begin with .. harder to keep up with the group I ride with since most have 700c's also.

mulveyr 

As a 5'5" guy, I can attest to the problems in squeezing 700c wheels into a correctly-sized frame. But honestly, toe overlap is a complete non-issue after about 5 minutes. The only time I ever had a problem was when I had a 700c bike with incorrectly installed fenders that didn't follow the wheel line correctly. A few moments with a wrench fixed that right up.

vatdim

Since I basically turned my 26 inch MTB into a commuter bike, I'd say that is definitely a valid option. In Bulgaria, a lot of people do that, since MTB's became really popular as gifts from parents to their children and so for the past 10-15 years most of the new bikes bought here have had 26 inch wheels. Once those kids grew up and started to realize the benefits of bike commuting, a lot of them dug up their old MTB's, gave them a quick service and started pedaling.

I'd say 26 inch wheels give you a lot of versatility. You can put all kinds of tires on them, wide or narrow, slicks or knobblies, whatever. For me, since most of my commute is on paved roads (of which some are poorly serviced), I've decided to use 1.5 inch wide street tires and so far I'm perfectly happy with them.

However, 700c wheels would always give you more gear inches with the same crankset/cassette combination. So if your prime goal is speed on a nicely paved road, I'd say that would be a better choice.

sreten

Hi,

Simply put, if you are big the biggest wheels are best, for lowest rolling resistance.

If you are small 700C wheels are ridiculous, and basically best wheel size relates to
the rider size and the style of the bike. FWIW if loaded touring the minor difference
in wheel size and rolling resistance adds up over the long mileages. Its easier to
incorporate 700C wheels into a LWB tourer for a rider that a road bike is MTB size.

Commuting is not the same as touring and there is no real difference. Big
you'd probably want 700C but the rest of us would be fine with MTB size.

rgds, sreten.

And note if your frames are 700C, your real only other option for
wheels is 650B, usually to allow really fat tyres, not MTB wheels.