JohnMorgan

OK, not sure if this is where it goes, but here it is.
Off the back of a video from ‘RJ the Bike Guy’, I took an old Raleigh 501 frame I had no 700/27” wheels for, and tried 26” wheels with 1.75” road tyres on it. Needed longer brake callipers to catch the rims, the bottom bracket is the same height from the ground as my Galaxy so ‘normal’ 170mm cranks. Added straight bars from the scrap pile because that’s what I had, and it seems to work fine.
So, if you need to make use of an old frame you have no large wheels for, you can get away with smaller wheels.

base2 

People have been doing this with 650b conversions from 700c for years & years. I once did a 26 inch (559x2.3) from 700c on 2013 CX bike. The axle to crown measurement on the new (used) fork had to be 2cm taller to keep the BB within 5mm of OEM specs. Which incidentally was exactly the same as the OEM bike (700x32) when equipped with 700x23 tires.

Yep. Rake, trail, even stand over height worked out the exact same as OEM as well even with the head tube slackened 1 degree & flop being greater by 1mm.

Longer reach brakes suck more than shorter reach. But they are better than none. Definitely better than no bike at all.

If it works, roll with it.