Agree with Jim on the pluses of 26" wheels for touring. While I've never had any problem with the 700s on my 58 cm Atlantis, given my druthers I'd go 26".
The perception of 26" being slower is not reality. My wife has one bike with 700 x 28 Paselas, and does not coast downhill as fast as I do. Her other bike is an Atlantis with 26" x 1.25" Panaracer Uban Max (commuter tire). She coasts downhill just as fast as I do on that one. Both bikes weigh within a pound of each other. So much for the myth of 26" being slow. dougP On Feb 9, 6:41 am, Jim Thill - Hiawatha Cyclery <thill....@gmail.com> wrote: > Patrick: 26" wheels are a hard sell, probably because road-bike-oriented > people associate them with "slow" MTBs and cheapo X-Mart bikes. Back when we > sold Atlantises, it seemed like 58cm frames sold better than 56cm by about > 10:1 (a guess). Perhaps RBW has a more accurate ratio. In any case, many > people saw the 559 wheel as a drawback. This observation also extends to a > previous bike shop gig, where one brand of road-racing bicycle used 26" > wheels on its smallest bikes. They were impossible to sell because of the > perception of slowness. > > With the Surly LHT, which has many similarities to the Atlantis, including > 559 wheels on smaller frames, there is now an option to get the small wheels > even on larger frames. Since this option has been available, we've only > stocked the 559 LHTs. The smaller wheels allow bigger tires and fenders, and > toe-overlap has been more or less eliminated. Also, the smaller wheels are > lighter AND stronger, all else being equal. IMO, the 26" wheels should be > regarded as a positive, not a negative. (although a nice bike with 700c or > 650b wheels is good, too) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
