I agree with Steve about the aesthetics part, but disagree largely about the rotational inertia part, ie that wheel diameters and circumferential weights make huge differences in handling. First, handling differences can in part be adjusted for by frame design. Second, these differences are not that great in any event. I've ridden very light "twenty six inch" wheels with 360 gram rims, 70 gram tubes, and 200 gram tires measuring 24 inches in actual diameter back to back with very heavy "29er" wheels with 900 gram tires, 200 gram tubes, and 800 gram (lightweight model!) rims and an actual wheel diameter of 29 1/2 inches -- fully 5 1/2 inches bigger. Did I feel a difference? Of course. Was it shocking? Hardly; I noticed the transition from one to another much less than that between the 130 mm Q of the small wheeled bikes and the 160+/- Q of the 29er.
Do the small wheel bikes feel twitchy? Hardly; in fact they are my benchmark for good road bike handling with wheels of any size. Did the 29ers feel ponderous? By no means; in fact, when I took them on fastish (and flat) singletrack, I was surprised at how "flickable" the Fargo and Monocog 29er were -- and this with 60 mm Big Apples and SnoCat rims. Jan may be a lot more sensitive than I am, but while I believe there is *no* reason, in other than tiny frame sizes, to upscale wheels with frame size, I also believe that there is *no* reason to stick with one overall wheel diameter for handling purposes. And I've ridden enough bikes to know good from bad handling. Different? Sure. Bad versus good? Not at all. I did notice that my brother's very light 26er mtb was more nimble than my Fargo, but the difference was interesting rather than bothersome. I had no problem keeping up with him on our twisty, thicket-smothered bosque singletrack. For the record, my road bikes now sport very light wheels measuring 24 3/4" in diameter, and my 29er has very light wheels (for a 29er) of 28 1/2" in diameter. Once again, for handling, frame differences are much more noticeable than wheel differences. On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 9:18 AM, Steve Palincsar <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 03/17/2017 11:06 AM, Tony DeFilippo wrote: > >> The Saluki design of 650B at all frame sizes no longer aligns to Riv's >> philosophy of matching wheel sizes to frame sizes... At one point they were >> offering to send you either AHH or Saluki decals and head badge on the >> tweener sized frames though. >> > > I understand that is the philosophy. What I fail to see is any advantage > to it. What matters really is rotational inertia. You feel that in the > handling. And when you expand the diameter to retain a near-constant > rotational inertia you have to reduce the tire width or find another way to > reduce the weight of the wheel plus tire. Aesthetics are in the eye of the > beholder, obviously (otherwise, how could people claim that the look of > today's racing bikes is attractive?) but in my opinion any claim that a > 650B wheel looks "too small" on a 60 cm frame are purely bogus; and I can't > help but wonder why the people who claim that don't also advocate a larger > wheel than 622 for taller road racers. > -- 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 [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
