robow

Thought so, and soooo, I'll take the Dale for 3000 Alex.

Tourist in MSN

I would not rate 26 inch wheels higher or lower than 700c for a coast to coast trip. I have toured on both and will continue to tour on both. I prefer 26 for off-road, but on pavement they are both good.

For a coast to coast trip, I would carry a spare tire. Not a replacement or duplicate of one of the ones I am starting the trip with, but the spare would be a light weight tire good enough to get me to the next bike shop.

sloar 

My first tour was from Indiana to Florida. Solo trip and I stuffed my panniers with tubes and a spare tire. I made it all the way to Clearwater Beach to meet up with my family with zero flats.

boomhauer

+1
If you are really going across the country you will hit road construction along the way....somewhere.....
Its like riding on gravel you didn't count on.

djb

this 26 vs 700 topic is an interesting one, and a recent jan heine article touched on it, debunking the myth.
but while I realize sloar has a unique opportunity to do some informal tests on his own, ie do a hour loop lets say, and put same rear panniers on each bike, same weight. "--- BUT tires come into play, bearings or even how cassettes differ, ie one with bigger jumps vs a tighter one.

but he could get an idea anyway
my 26 vs 700 bikes are hard to compare as they are very different gearing and tire wise, weight too, so I'm still not convinced there's much of a difference purely on wheel size

And yes sloar, re flats, many of us have similar experiences. Good tires, attentiveness to what we ride over, and taking a minute if you run over sharp glass to run your finger over tires to dislodge a just embedded piece of glass. Worth the minute.

robow

djb, my choice of a 700c wheel is purely a personal choice and don't expect anyone else to own my opinion. I simply like a 700c, as to me it rolls better on pavement, if not actually on the road, then surely in my head. I built an LHT in a 26" wheel (below) and eventually sold the bike off. Again, some like the 26" version better and for very good logical reasons but none the less, I missed the larger wheel.

sloar 

I honestly can’t tell a difference when riding. The Cannondale is a faster bike due to geometry, but I personally don’t think it’s a wheel size issue.

Tourist in MSN

Any conclusions worth sharing?

If this is what you refer to, do not bother elaborating as the link explains it.
https://www.renehersecycles.com/myth...ls-are-faster/

Doug64

Your average might change when you get into "goat head" country. My wife and I had 13 flats on our cross country ride. We were using 28 mm tires and they handled all the gravel we encountered very well. We've since gone to 32 mm tires which are a good compromise between weigh and comfort.

Beautiful Cannondale. I also have a Cannondale touring bike as well as a LHT.

djb

ya, sorry. Wrote this in the morning on my futzy typing tablet and didnt take the time to look for it again as I had to get ready to head out.
yes this is what I read and his view is that the difference is so little it doesnt really make a difference. Mind you, for mountain biking you would think the whole angle of attack thing has merit.

Ya, I don't know what to think, but while my Troll does seem slower, and generally it is, than my lighter cross bike with 28 slicks, the weight thing and lower bars on the Tricross are a real factor for when going over 25kph. I just dont think that on pavement that either one loaded will have much of a dfiference.

djb

I do admit that 700 feels faster to me too, it's just that all my regular rides, two 26 in bikes and two 700, are such different bikes for numerous reasons, that I kinda believe Jan Heine, known to be fairly rigorous in his comparisons.

I try to imagine how both touring on 26 vs 700 with a similar load is, and try to remember what sort of daily average speeds I've had on both in similar terrain.
honestly I'dneed to fish out old trip journals. My last 700 trip was Montreal Boston, must be 7 years ago now.
seems to me that 15, 16, 17kph averages over the day have been pretty consistent for me over the decades.

Happy Feet

I don't know about how rim size makes a difference but I attribute rolling resistance to the better tire quality found in 700c. I would be curious how those Rene Herse tires feel.

I usually use 700c 28mm gatorskins which are stiff but not as wide as my also stiff 26" 1.75 marathons. With 700c GP 5000's there really is no comparison.

I've mentioned before that I found a pair of 26 x 1.75 paselas that rolled very nicely but picked up everything in the tread and flattens too much.

Tourist in MSN

Almost all of my touring has been on 26 inch, but two tours were on 700c.

The 700c bikes with fenders had toe overlap, the 26 did not. Toe overlap is a minor nuisance, but not a deal breaker for me.

Touring on 700c, I have always used 35mm or 37mm wide tires. On 26 inch, toured on 40mm, 50mm and 57mm wide tires. Thus, I find 26 inch gives a softer ride, but the widest tire that my 700c bikes could take with fenders was 37mm. In this case it is the frame capacity of my bikes and not a generic characteristic of the wheel size.

Some feel that 26 inch wheels are much stronger than 700c. I suspect they are a bit stronger, but I would not say "much" stronger. And I would not pick one bike over the other based on that.

Some trips I carried a spare tire, some I did not. I would be more inclined to carry a spare 26 inch tire, as I am not sure how readily available a good tire would be in bike shops along the way. I always carry two tubes on tours, regardless of tire size.

I have two derailleur touring bikes with identical gearing, one 26 inch and one 700c. The 700c is geared a bit higher because of the larger diameter wheel. But that can be adjusted for in chainring size if someone was building up a bike.

Other than the above, I can't feel the difference when touring in any way that would be specific to the tires or wheel size. Both seem to roll about the same, handling feels a little different but the handling difference is in bike geometry which is not wheel size specific.

skookum

Piker. I have four touring bikes. A 26 inch, a 27.5 plus, a 29 plus and a 700c.
The 700c is my Atlantis for pavement. The 26 inch has 1.9 tires for pavement or gravel. The plus bikes have 3 inch tires for off road touring (not bike packing).
I would recommend the 3 inch tires for thick gravel like on the Forestry Trunk Road in Alberta. It makes a big difference. Yeah, they are slow but speed isnt the objective.
That is way too many bikes and I cannot justify them.

djb

Hey sloar, what's the gear inch low of both bikes?
the lht must be about 20, but what about the over hill and dale? Hard to tell the gearing you have on it now.
to me that's the real kicker, being loaded to any extent and lugging the 'ol knees on expected steep little hills is a drag.