Touring - LHT and the 26"ers

Yet another LHT build. Intended use: year round minnesota commuting and seasonal touring until I grow weary of 10 years of college and abandon reality to circumnavigate the globe.

I've been picked up loads of goodies about LHT builds from this forum, but details about the smaller frame wheels have eluded me. It's more a question about wheels then the LHT.. I have finally gotten past that small wheel inferiority complex, however.

26ers seem to come in many thicknesses Is 26x1.5 the standard? I'm confused about the fraction/decimal distinction (e.g. 1.5 vs 1 1/2) What is the narrowest tire that fits on these?

Could I also put the 26x1 on there?

Are 36spoke still desirable for the smaller 26" wheels? Is the smaller rim size strong enough to use 32 spoke? For instance, pricepoint has dirt cheap wheel sets (<$100) w/ deore hubs and sun rhynolite rims at 32 spoke. These are tempting just for the price.

Are there suggestions for wheelsets (comparable in quality/$ with the LHT complete build, black :D)?

Lastly, what about building wheels? (I've never done it) I intend to break in the LHT as a commuter this winter (MN, cold and snow) so my only constraint is getting wheels built by Novemberish. I see two reasons for doing this, preparing myself for future repairs and saving money. What do you think? Can I make a step up in part quality by building myself? Is wheel building going to prep me that much more for when I'm replacing a spoke in grizzly country??

As for the rest of the bike, fairly typical. I'm probably going to settle for XT rear, sungino/shimano crank/FD, probably down tube friction shifters (anyone know if I can get some in black :D ?) and put some good leather under my butt and on my bars. Thanks, josh

Welcome to the LHT 26er club.

I have Velocity Aeroheat semi-V black rims with DT 2.1/1.8 Competition spokes, DT brass nipples, XT 36 hole hubs.

Can't say for sure if this is overkill or not but I haven't had any trouble with them.

I would think 32 hole would be fine if you use a trailer and keep the bike lightly loaded. If you use panniers and carry a lot then go with 36.

The 26" wheels are probably superior, it isn't a big deal, but if there was a choice across the whole size range of LHT frames I would go for the 26. What you want are identical rims to the ones you would use on a 700c, and identical tires. Touring rims are in the 20-25mm range, vast majortity in the upper end of that. One advantage to the 26" wheel is the lighter weight. About 80% of the 700C. Rynos are popular but there are fat and 25% heavier, rotating weight is a biggie, so not on my bike, but certainly on many others.

Right at the moment the classic rims in 700C are the CR18, and the A719. At least have a look at the specs here:

http://sheldonbrown.com/harris/rims/622.html

These are the A717, and the CR18 in your size:

http://sheldonbrown.com/harris/rims/559.html

Obviously if the 719 works on the larger wheel it is much stronger in the 26" size. So why go to a pig like the Rhyno.

While you are at Harris 26" wheels, look at the MA2 rim on top. Unfortunately long out of production and here only available in the useless 28 spoke pattern. What are the critical factors with this rim? Raw silver finish, double eyelet, narrow width.

I have some MA2s and they are designed to use a lot of spokes to support a fairly floppy rim by modern standards. This strategy is more spoke dependant. Of course all wheels experience a wide range of forces, but the MA2 (CR18 717 etc...) is more spoke centered than some. One can push the limit on how many spokes are required to do this, it depends on how well built the wheels are and probably shouldn't be tried with machine built wheels. If you buy rims of this type you need to keep the spoke could up a little. Don't listen too much to short spoke count stories if they are based on stiffer rims.

The other approach comes from aero rim technology. With the disappearance of the MA2, and the finding of subsequent rims to be questionable (yes sadly some do not get good results with the 717) focus shifted for some to the aero rim profile. And over the years it seems that all rims have become a little deeper. The deeper section allowed more rim reliance, less spokes could be used, but then the main touring rim offered in a deep section, the velocity, is also one of the few offering high spoke counts.

There are actually a lot of touring rim choices out there that we don't see in NA. Here it seems to come down to the Velocity, CR`18, 717, Rhyno. However a lot of MTB racing rims are perfect for our uses, as are tandem rims. I am running alex downhill racing rims.

32 spoke rims should be perfectly strong in 26". However, to me, one of the great advantages of the 26" rim is that you can get 40 spoke/700C performance out of the much more available 36 spoke 26" rims. I would not pass it by if I was interested in loaded touring. On the other hand the 26" with 32 should be as strong as the standard 700c with 36 spokes. Machine made wheels are not optimal however.

At the moment I am running 1.5" slicks on my touring bike.

My wife and i both have LHTs with 26" wheels that i built up from framesets. The tire size depends on the rim, as Peterpan said. You don't want to put a 2" tire on a 22mm-wide rim..... likewise, i wouldn't put a 1" tire on Sun Mammoth rims.

I built up Alex Adventurer rims (24.2mm wide) and use 26x1.25 tires. I've been touring for years on Specialized Fatboy 26x1.25 tires -- i wouldn't go narrower, but i might try wider depending on what's available. My older touring bike (also 26") has 32h hubs, and as the wheels got older i started getting frequent broken spokes. Because of this, i built the LHT wheels with XT 36h hubs. 32h hubs in theory should be strong enough in 26" wheels, but i'd throw in the requirement that you tune them and/or rebuild them regularly. Either that, or just go with 36h -- they won't notice the extra weight and punishment of touring, but more important when you DO break a spoke YOU probably won't even notice a wobble.

Tires in mtn bike 26" size generally use the decimal notation: e.g. 26x1.25 instead of 26x1-1/4. But that's convention, not guaranteed. The older 26" bikes your mom rode in the 60's actually have a slightly different diameter; those tires by convention use the fractional notation. You won't find that (old) 26" size except in X-mart.... To be sure, the mtn bike 26" tires should have the "559" notation on them somewhere (559mm being the actual diameter of the tire bead).

Building wheels isn't hard, it just requires patience. The first time might take, say, 4 or 5 hours, if you aim for near perfection. But after you've done a few, it takes an hour or less. Very zen activity.... Use this for your bible: http://sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html . Perhaps the biggest benefit to building your own is the knowledge you take on the road to fix or tune an ailing wheel. But it's not cheap -- unless you take your time and shop sales. It took me a year of sale shopping to come up with parts for a $120 wheelset (Alex rims, XT hubs, DT competition spokes); similar full wheelsets on sale are in the $120-150 range.

-- Mark