BobRuth

I have let a few years go by and find myself wanting to get my bicycle back in shape for mostly just "sensible exercise". Just to start "moving"!!!!
Mine is (I believe) a late 70's Raleigh Record and it has 27" wheels and uses 27" x 1 1/4" tires. I started looking for new tires and ONE thing that I seem to have discovered concerns me.

Looking at the websites of local bike shops.... they do not have ANYTHING in 27".
Looking at place where one might commonly find bike tires & tubes (Thinking WalMart... places like that).... they do not have ANYTHING in 27"

I can find them in places where I have to order them..... but the real surprise was that local shops don't have them.

Did I miss a memo?
What happened?

Bob

jaxgtr

the 700c wheel happened in the mid 80's becoming the standard

HTupolev

My experience is that most LBSs don't carry a very good selection of 27" tires, but many have something basic in stock, like a Kenda K35.

As far as what happened... 27" wheels have a bead seat diameter of 630mm, while 700c wheels have a bead seat diameter of 622mm. They're almost exactly the same size, so it's awkward for a market to sustain good support for both. The USA used to use 27" as its standard road bike wheel size, but 700c started to encroach in the late 1970s. 700c has the same brake track location as road tubulars, and it was marketed as a more "performance-oriented" size; it was also sold with a greater focus on hooked rims to provide good bead security for narrower and more lightly-constructed tires at higher pressures. Over the course of the 1980s, 700c took over.
The reason that bike shops don't carry more 27" wheels and tires is that the size has been dead on new bikes for a few decades.

There are still some reasonable tires available in 27", like Paselas. And most bikes with 27" wheels can be swapped to 700c wheels, if desired: it just requires moving the brake pads downward by 4mm.

Gresp15C

I ride 27" on a couple of my bikes that are built from older parts. So far as switching to 700c, I figure that someday I'll need new tires and will discover that 27" are no longer available, then I'll build new wheels. Or if something really bad happens to one of the wheels. But I see no reason to worry until that actually happens. "Premature optimization is the root of all evil." -- Donald Knuth

Continental Ultra Sport and Vittoria Zaffiro have been available in recent years. Of course everything is in shortage right now, but these seem to be available in 27x1-1/8 and 27x1-1/4

https://www.biketiresdirect.com/prod...ffiro-v-27inch

HerrKaLeun

If you learned in 2020 about the disappearance of 27", you will have a very interesting year 2050 when you learn about what **** show 2020 was.

veganbikes

I guess I should break a whole lot of news to you:

The Soviet Union has fallen and they first elected Boris Yeltsin as their leader and since have had one other leader, Vladimir Putin
Freddie Mercury died in 1991
We had two different George Bush's as president and two wars against Iraq, one of the Bushes died and both wars were lost but eventually they did get the dictator of Iraq Saddam Hussein.
Nelson Mandela was released from prison and eventually became president of an Apartheid-free South Africa and sadly passed in 2013
A new music called grunge swept the nation and their arguably biggest star Kurt Cobain died in 1994 after beginning his career with the band Nirvana in the late 80s.
The Game Boy a portable gaming device with many different game cartridges was released in 1989 and has since had at least 8 different versions of it.
Movies can be watched not only on tapes but now also plastic discs with foil that shows on the bottom called DVDs and newer technology called Blu-Ray and even you can now use a pocket telephone to watch a movie that comes down from the clouds via hidden tubes all over the planet.
In 2008 Barack Obama became the U.S.'s first Black president after being a senator for a bit.
Donald Trump was given his father's money lost a lot of it in bad investments and properties including casinos much of it bearing his name, then was a T.V. show host where his job was to say "you're fired" then he made some inappropriate remarks against women and became President of the U.S.

SurferRosa

Al Gore invented the internet.

Shop online (Amazon, ebay, etc.) for Panaracer Paselas in 27x1 1/4" or 27x1 1/8" if you want 'em a little more narrow.

Het Volk

Imagine spending all this time and energy to be a d*ck to some guy trying to get back into this sport.

Quite the flex

Het Volk

Have you considered a career in comedy?

veganbikes

Wow you called me a "Richard", I was having some fun...lighten up. If I really wanted to attack him and be serious I would have said nasty remarks about him personally. However I didn't do that I simply made a little joke because it was nice to laugh. It was also a nice walk down memory lane.

I can imagine you spending the time and energy to not have fun and not laugh. Granted it does take more muscles and work to laugh so I guess yes I did spend extra time but it was worth I laughed and had a good time. I am nice and relaxed, you should try it : )

To the OP no ill will. Laugh and enjoy life a little bit. Also there are still 27" tires out there but not in large numbers as it wasn't really ever a popular size. Schwalbe, Vittoria, Kenda, Specialized, Continental, Panaracer, CST, Michelin and potentially others I have forgotten all make those tires and some have or still do multiple tires in that size of varying quality. Granted with the pandemic they might be hard to find because everything is tough to get but they exist. QBP sells 17 different tires in ISO 630 all very much out of stock but will be coming back in eventually.

big chainring 

Your Raleigh Record will ride like a dream on a pair of Kenda K35 tires. Look for them on ebay.

Maelochs

I guess a lot of posters here only appreciate their own humor ... but hey .... lighten up. We're laughing at you.

Darth Lefty 

I have seen 27” tires at my Walmart in the last few years, but it’s a pretty bike-friendly Walmart in central CA. Bell brand, and all their replacement tires are folding bead for shelving reasons. I’m not claiming these are good, just available

70sSanO

You will find tons of them on eBay.

It will also be a good source for older bike parts, although the pandemic has really cut into what is available.

John

mack_turtle

you can most likely use a tube labeled for 700c tires in a 27" tire. just choose the appropriate width and valve stem type.

here's a handy guide https://www.sheldonbrown.com/tire-sizing.html

Dan Burkhart 

Just curious to know if anyone has tried folding tires on hookless rims and how that worked out. Serious question.

ExPatTyke

BobRuth welcome back to cycling, and to Bike Forums. 27 inch wheels and tyres are still existant, although 700c has largely replaced them. I've got several older bikes running on 27 inch wheels, and there's no problem getting decent tyres and tubes from online outlets, although local shops tend not to stock them.

My preferred tyres are Continental Ultrasport - not sure on delivery cost or time to the States, but the last pair I bought came from Deporvillage back in the summer, and they cost me £25 including delivery. Delivery to the UK was three days, and they have stock in now - https://www.deporvillage.net/contine...gid-tyre-black Conti also make Gatorskins and Supersport in 27 inch sizes, and Pasela make some 27 inch tyres.

700c tubes will fit fine, assuming you get the right valve type - a 27 x 1-1/4 tyre will fit a 700 x 32 tube.

Hope this helps - enjoy cycling, a Raleigh Record is a nice bike to ride!

big chainring 

Say what?

Germany_chris

They were a US/UK thing so where you live will change your perception of popular

rydabent

Your inability to find the tires you want is probably due to the bike boom the virus has created. Bike stores as has been pointed out on other threads are sold out of a lot of bike parts.

Gresp15C

This is a good question. For a bike of that era, it's important for the OP to find out if the bike has hooked or hookless rims, and how to deal with the latter if necessary.

Darth Lefty 

The Bell tires above, folded, apparently have a "carbon steel" bead anyhow, so now you get to choose if it's the Kevlar or the folding that may or may not make a difference to hookless rims.

tcs

You won't live that long.

I keep reading about the death of 27" (ISO630) [and now 26" (ISO559)!] tires. You can still buy ISO597s, guys and gals, and that size tire hasn't come on a new bike since the 1950s (and wasn't even common then). At least until a few years ago (and maybe still?), you could buy single tube tires and they've been obsolete since the early 1930s.

27s are widely available in discount brands. Fine quality 27" German and Japanese tires are available from Schwalbe, Continental and Panasonic. Specialized and Trek (Bontrager) both catalog 27s. Your LBS doesn't stock any 27s? Well, you gave the local cats a shot at your business. Now have some delivered to your house tomorrow from Amazon.

DorkDisk

Several months ago, my bike shop owning friends were commenting on how 27" tubes and tires were impossible to source at wholesale due to The Current Situation. Then I was told to stock up by October, I don't think the supply chain has been improved since then. Maybe winter will give a slight breather; maybe not.

MRT2

A few years? I would guess it has been at least 30, maybe even 35 years since new bikes were sold with the 27" wheel and tire. I had a Schwin LeTour with 27" wheels from the early 80s which, I suspect may have been among the last bikes to be sold with 27" wheels and tires. As others have said, I think you can still get replacement tires, even replacement wheels for your old bike. I know this for a fact as I helped an old friend get both replacement wheels and tires for his old mid 70s era Panasonic road bike.