Can you travel further on 700 rims?

[Daniel Beckham]

A reputable wheel builder of touring bikes said something to me yesterday when I called to enquire about purchasing a pair of wheels to go on my Thorn Sherpa frame I am looking at purchasing shortly.

He stated that I would be able to ride further before getting completely worn out on a 700 wheel tourer than I would be able to on a 26” wheeled bike.

Now, I am a keen cyclist and love my camping weekends and odd week away but I don’t have years and years of experience of riding both 26” and 700 wheeled machines to counter his argument but common sense tells me this statement can’t be correct, can it?

I could understand in his experience he has felt the benefits of a 700 wheeled bike because it was perhaps fitted with lighter, thinner rims / tyres and maybe better quality hubs which has led him to this conclusion.

My thoughts are as follows.

A 26” wheel will give lower overall gearing to the bike but this has no influence over the speed the bike can travel as the rider can select a higher gear.

A 700 wheel may roll better as it is a larger diameter and the inertia of his will want to continue to roll for longer but this is equally countered by the reduction of the rate the wheel with accelerate by. The rider will have to put more energy into the wheel to get it up to speed.

The main influence as I see it to how a wheel rolls would be the quality of the hub used and bearing condition and setup, wheel weight and most importantly the tyre, its width and rolling resistance.

I also think a 26” rim must be inherently stronger due to spoke length.

A 26” wheel will allow a slightly lower of CoG, which becomes more important when carrying heavy loads.

A 700 wheel will be smoother and perhaps ride bumps better due to its larger diameter is my guess?

So in short, and in balance it is my current thought that a 26” wheel offers more versatility and has no major draw backs and if it is built from quality components with a tyre with good (low) rolling resistance will travel just as well with similar input of energy as a 700 rim. I would be really interested to hear thoughts from more seasoned riders than myself who can use experience to confirm or counter my thoughts on this?

Many Thanks

[honesty]

Sounds like a rubbish argument to me. A 26" wheel with a fat tyre is pretty much the same diameter as a 700c with a 25mm tyre anyway.

Effort for the distance covered is all going to be down to the gearing on the bike, of which the wheel size is a contributing factor. To travel in the same overall gear ratio on a bike with smaller wheels may just require selection of slightly higher cogs to counteract the down gearing of the smaller wheel, but effort put in will be the same (thats how gearing works!) so I call rubbish on his argument.

[jags]

i have  ridden both, sherpa now audax give me 700 wheels any day of the week.i found when i was cycling in a group riding my Sherpa even when everyone else was free wheeling i was peddling like a lunatic to keep up
no doubt the 600 wheels are stronger over rough stuff and more comfy with the wider tyres but there going to be far heavier that a good set of 700 wheels .

jags.

[Daniel Beckham]

i have  ridden both, sherpa now audax give me 700 wheels any day of the week.i found when i was cycling in a group riding my Sherpa even when everyone else was free wheeling i was peddling like a lunatic to keep up
no doubt the 600 wheels are stronger over rough stuff and more comfy with the wider tyres but there going to be far heavier that a good set of 700 wheels .

jags.

Thanks for the reply Jags. Surly it isn't as simple as that as the Audax is made from lighter material, has thinner tyres and generally be a lighter faster bike. Also its geometry will just make it feel perkier when you ride it?

[jags]

dont get me wrong i loved the sherpa great bike for sure but its hard work in a group of riders on lightweigh bikes. your right of course but i still prefair 700 wheels.

[il padrone]

i have  ridden both, sherpa now audax give me 700 wheels any day of the week.i found when i was cycling in a group riding my Sherpa even when everyone else was free wheeling i was peddling like a lunatic to keep up

I reckon you just needed to bump up your gearing.

no doubt the 600 wheels are stronger over rough stuff and more comfy with the wider tyres but there going to be far heavier that a good set of 700 wheels .

Less metal. 26" wheels of the same rim width will be lighter - less metal in the rim, less metal in shorter spokes. Don't go comparing appples and oranges there jags, some 26" rims are heavier, mostly because they are wider.

[jags]

I'd say your wrong on that score ilpadrone.i haven't come across a 599 wheel as yet that was lighter than a 700c wheel.i ride with the same group these day on my audax  and there usuall sucking my wheel
if i were to do the touring you guys do then yes the 599 set up is defo the way to go might even go with rohloff  (what an i saying) but the touring i do which BTW is not much would be light as possible and on tarmac so a good lightweight bike that will carry my load will do me fine,not concerned about speed just make cycling as easy as i can get it.
I'm an old man ya know.

jags
go easy on me I'm uneducated as well.

[Swislon]

What about Moultons with 20" and 17" wheels.
By the Wheel builder's reckoning you wouldn't get round the corner before you are knackered!! But they go round the world.

If he was arguing light fast bike v solid heavy bike then he would be correct but then you wouldn't be able to put everything plus the kitchen sink onto a light fast bike without something failing fast like a few dozen spokes.

[honesty]

What about Moultons with 20" and 17" wheels.
By the Wheel builder's reckoning you wouldn't get round the corner before you are knackered!! But they go round the world.

If he was arguing light fast bike v solid heavy bike then he would be correct but then you wouldn't be able to put everything plus the kitchen sink onto a light fast bike without something failing fast like a few dozen spokes.

the other end of that argument as well is if he were correct we'd be riding round on 36" wheel monsters already...

[il padrone]

I'd say your wrong on that score ilpadrone.i haven't come across a 599 wheel as yet that was lighter than a 700c wheel.

Never say never  

Mavic XM719 26" - 475g

Mavic Open Sport 700C - 490g


Yes, we are talking a bee's dick here, but the bee's dick is on the 700C rim.

[jags]

  very good i admit defeat 

[Andre Jute]

very good i admit defeat  

Not so fast. Some of Daniel's assumptions, while based on "traditional cycling wisdom" (a very suspect quantity), are simply wrong, like the one where he lumps in wider tyres with greater rolling resistance. We know now that wider fatter tyres, otherwise like for like, have less rolling resistance.

There's more to being knackered faster than just the obvious, visible mechanical leverages. For instance, 700C wheels, again like for like, are likely to dampen microvibrations better than 559 wheels. That can make a big difference at the end of the day in how wiped you are. This effect is hidden in the Thorn range because the 700C bikes are old-feshioned narrow-fork tourers, whereas the 26 inch bikes are the ones with forks for fat tyres, including balloons or other types that can beneficially be operated at lower pressures, which are also good for killing microvibrations before they reach the rider.

There's more to a bike than just the mechanics, and at the wheel and tyre and there is much more that is counterintuitive.

I have absolutely no hesitation in saying that on 700 wheels you can, like for like, travel further than on 26in wheels. It may not be a huge amount on any day, but for a serious tourer it could mount up over a tour. There are other considerations though, like the nature of the terrain, and how far he will be from the nearest good bike shop. Andy Blance is pretty persuasive about 26in wheels being intrinsically stronger.

[mickeg]

I have done loaded touring on a 700c Long Haul Trucker with 37mm wide Hutchinson Globetrotter tires and on a Thorn Sherpa with plain Schwalbe Marathons (with GreenGuard) that were 40mm wide.  In both cases I ran pressures of about 80 to maybe 85 psi in the rear, about a half to one atmosphere less in the front.  Both 700c and 26 inch bikes appeared to roll about the same.  (I used the LHT on the last tour and decided that I prefer the Sherpa, will be using the Sherpa on future loaded tours on pavement what do not warrant the ruggedness of the Thorn Nomad which I also have.)

Also the Sherpa with 26 inch wheels offers more tire choices if you want to run wider tires, say 50mm wide.  Some of my tours have predominantly been on gravel instead of pavement.  For those tours I used a Dureme 50mm front and Extreme 50mm rear tire, it is hard to find a good 700c touring frame that can take the wider tires.

[JimK]

26 inch wheels didn't seem to slow this guy down too much:

http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records-1000/fastest-cycle-across-the-usa-%28n-s-and-e-w%29/

(Thorn posted this on their facebook page.)

more: http://glenburmeister.com/transport/

[JimK]

A 26" wheel with a fat tyre is pretty much the same diameter as a 700c with a 25mm tyre anyway.

here are some numbers: http://www.schwalbetires.com/tech_info/tire_dimensions#circumference

there is a bit of cross-over: a 54-559 has the same circumference as a 20-622, i.e. 2100 mm. These numbers are a bit imprecise, I must say, having made my own measurements to set my odometer. Of course I wanted the circumference loaded and these are almost certainly unloaded.

Sure does seem like bigger wheels ought to roll better over rough surfaces, all other things being equal. But there are so many other variables with steering geometry etc.! I think rim and tire selection is the most practical driver of such decisions, especially between 559 and 622 where the difference isn't very big.