When I first built my '03 Atlantis (51 cm), a friend gave me an earful of criticism for have 26" wheels--"Your bike will be too slow. "You should've gotten 700cc wheels." Ugghhhhh. Really, I've been riding/commuting on this bike, off and on, for 13 years. It's the most comfortable bike I've ever had, 26" wheels and all. I'm 5'9" tall with a long torso, short legs. The combination of wheel and frame size on my Atlantis suit me perfectly. I think the conventional wisdom on issues of wheel size being more or less efficient should be taken with a grain of salt. I've seen people on 20" wheel folding bike blow right past me. Yeah, I'm not the fastest rider, but not the slowest either.
I remember sometime ago somewhere that Grant had wrote something about the aesthetics of wheel/frame size. The gist was that 700cc wheels on smallish frames made the bike look funky; 26" wheels where better proportioned to smaller frame sizes, which, aesthetically, is a good call on his part. Grant's philosophy behind bike design and riding is what brought me to choosing a Riv over everyone else. Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway), I agree with Deacon and others, it's just a wheel, there is no ideal; it's all about compromise, and I think what it comes down to is comfort and aesthetics. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
