Older Bike - 27" Wheels...Am I out of Luck?

[PepperB]

I have a 1977 Schwinn Continential II that I bought a few years ago on Ebay for exercise. Now I want to commute to work. It's 20 miles each way, but it's the Mississippi Delta, so it's completely flat. It's also almost devoid of any traffic.

But in all my research so far I've only seen 26" wheels. Is there anything out there for me? Can I put a 26" wheel on my schwinn?

[ejserv]

The only problem I can see that you would run into installing a 26" wheel on a 27" bike would be brake pad adjustment. Probably you would have enough room in the calipers to move the pads down enough but you might need a different caliper on the powered wheel. (or a bracket to lower the caliper)
Ed Service

[Patriot]

If you really want a 27" wheel, you can buy 27" rims all over, and have can your LBS lace up the motor hubs to your rims.

You can also use you existing rims. I plan on doing the same, but they are steel rims, and everyone says I should change them, so I'm looking at some 27" alloy rims on the Harris Cyclery website.

[gmouchawar]

Hi,

Are you sure they are 27" and not 700mm? I have seen a few hub motor kits offered in 700c. Even if they weren't European bikes are designed to accept 700c . That will give you more options.

[Greywolf67]

Would your best bet not be to search the net for a supplier of 27" and remove the old style brake on front, converting to front disk?
I guess it would need some ability to diy, provided you have the skill and some tools handy.

Just curious.....

Doable but on a frustration scale of 1 to 10 maybe a 5.

*EDIT*

Dumb me, not thinking straight, coffee not kicked in yet.

Front hub motor, no room for disk.

You could go 26", as said before, provided the calipers allow for pad adjustment. You may need to search out longer calipers worst case.

[ejserv]

You can certainly convert to disc brakes, I did that on my blue bike ( edscreations.blogspot.com) I have since further modified the original front hub and installed a threaded adapter so I can install it on the rear of a different bike. Many things are possible if you have the tools and skills.
Ed Service

[ejserv]

If you do want to convert to disc brakes i recommend pocket bike brakes. I use the ones from giovani pocket bikes. they fit right onto the disc brake mount already on your fork if it is so equipped. another advantage of these brakes is that the insideof the caliper is thinner so you can mount them closer to the hubmotor than regular bike calipers. on bicycle calipers both side pads are adjustable to center the caliper on the disc, this makes the inside of the caliper thicker. the pocket bike caliper is centered by adjusting the whole caliper in or out via a thumbscrew. you should probably use bike discs though as pocket bike discs are a lot thicker thus heavier than necissary. I have pocket bike calipers AND pocket bike discs on all three wheels of my goldenmotor powered trike. (edcreations.blogspot.com) This trike has pedal power to the front wheels and goldenmotor electric to the rear wheel (24"). a very comfortable ride and sure gets me a lot of attention! If you buy the caliper set for pocket bikes from Giovani you will get a front and back caliper, they are the same except the mirror image, only the front will work on a regular bicycle without modification. (the caliper goes on the right side on the rear of a pocket bike!)
Ed Service