24 versus 26

T

tomgndallas

New Member
I was staring at my mountain bike trying to better understand dimensions of this build I want to do, the current bike having 66" tire to tire, end to end, and having 26" wheels.

I think many of the trackers in this forum are going 26", I wanted to ask the question, why not 24? When I was searching the other day I could find a 24 X 3 inch tire in white, but not the 26 inch unless you want to run coker motorcycle tires and those are 3 hundred bones a pop.

What if you did a 70" wheel base and 24" tires, would it just look goofy and not very period.

Throwing this one out there to the experts!!

Take care

Tom G
 
We'll you can do whatever You thinks looks best & fits...I am a huge fan of 24" rims

you can get the cream colored 26" tires here:
Schwalbe Fat Frank Tire 26" x 2.35" Wire Creme

or order them form any one dealing in schwable tires...
Had a lot of guys scratching their heads in touscon looking at my 20" wheeled race bike....till they saw it slicing any line on the track.

I really want to do an "over scaled" boardtracker build using these wheels:
Nimbus 36" Stealth2 Rim with Braking Surface

Just satisfy yourself....every one will give theire opinion anyway LOL!
 
Real antique motorcycles either used 26" or 28" tires. The thick brick's in cream are a great tire. I don't think there is an alternative to this tire in 28". It's all about your body size. I'm 5'11" and fit my bike. A friend of mine at work is 6'4" and he makes my bike look like an elfan toy. He most definitely need's to do a build with 28" tires. The overall length helps with sizing issues. My Indian build is 77" from outside tire to outside tire, or 6'5" long. I could have gone to 79". They were long bikes and you have to stretch the wheelbase to get the look.
 
As far as the color of your tire goes, you can order the tire in any color and spraypaint it. Krylon fusion is the paint to use for tires. Google "spraypaint bicycle tires" and you will see. I had a whitewall tire that looked like crap. Rather than shelling out $15 for a new tire, I spent about 5 to paint that tire black. It worked out pretty good.
 
if you want a true 3" wide tire, 24" is the way to go, you get the look and the total tire dia. is the same as a 26"x2.125 tire.
 
my race bike is a 1937 Shelby Airflow frame, that came stock with 26" wheels, and i'm running 24's on it with 24x2.3 Kenda Kiniption tires.

the bike has a slightly longer wheelbase than the average cruiser frame, and the 24's lower it and don't look out of place at all.

another advantage to 24's is off-the-line speed. it takes less energy to get a 24" wheel rolling than a 26.

unless you run the 24 x 3's of course, then it's basically the same weight and size as a standard 26.
 
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