LHT in Madison

The larger Surly LHT frames are for 26 inch or 700c wheels, the frames are not designed to allow both sizes of wheels. Their website lists geometry, you can check the numbers there.

After a couple hundred miles on gravel last summer with my 700cX37mm tires while touring with a friend who had 26X2.1 tires on his mountain bike, I decided that I needed wider tires. I tried some 42mm wide tires and had fender mount rubbing problems. With different fenders, I might have been able to keep the 42mm tires but I think that would have been my upper limit for tire width and I wanted wider than that.

Thus, I concluded that I needed a touring bike with 26 inch wheels. I could have gone with a 29er but decided to stick with the more common 26 inch for wider variety of tires. I now have a 700c LHT and a recently built Thorn Sherpa with 26 inch wheels. Regarding handlebars and other components, I use drop bars on both, same combination of gearing on both (road crank and mountain 8 speed rear), etc. The only significant difference in equipment is the wider rims, tires and fenders on the 26 inch bike.

If I could only have one touring bike it would be a 26 inch wheel bike. You can use wide tires for off pavement with that and also narrower tires (26X1.5) at higher pressure for pavement.

I am going to keep both bikes, the LHT for paved touring and the Sherpa for non-paved touring since I already have both. But, if the 700c bike was stolen, I don't think that I would replace it. Instead I would buy some narrower tires for the 26 inch bike.