If you find that you prefer the handling of 700xWide wheels, then by all means ride them. As you said, there are many tire choices. Preference and interpretation of handling play a huge role. The ways in which a smaller diameter wheel is objectively and measurably superior are as follows:
For a given rim extrusion, the smaller you make the rim, the lighter and stronger it is. 700c, being the biggest common diameter, is the weakest and heaviest of all choices for a particular extrusion. If you never have wheel strength issues and are not a weight weenie, then wheel weight and wheel strength don't matter. If you take lighter and stronger to their logical conclusion and run a bike with 12" wheels, you'll end up with a weird handling bike. Shorter cranks are lighter and stronger, too, but people don't choose 140mm crank arms just because they are lighter and stronger. Still the fact remains, smaller is bothlighter and stronger. For a given width tire with the same casing and tread, the smaller diameter is lighter. For a given second moment of inertia, you can run a wider tire on the smaller diameter rim. A wider tire is safer, faster, stronger and more comfortable. If you already like wide tires on the biggest diameter wheels, and don't care about second moment of inertia, then it doesn't matter. If you are a 'not tall' rider and insist on 700xWide wheels, it's challenging to design a frame without TCO (toe clip overlap). If you never ride slow and never turn sharply, TCO is not a big deal. If you run flat bars, TCO is easy to avoid by designing the frame with a long front center. Some riders absolutely refuse to tolerate TCO. Others don't care at all. -- 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.
