Originally Posted by
renyay
I know you are wondering "Why?, why bother with all this?". Well, I'm small, I have short legs and a long torso. I like touring and running fat tires, and climbing with 700's is hard. Alternately I converted my MB3 into a touring setup with drop bars and slicks on the 26" wheels and the bike went from fitting to feeling TINY. I felt like an ant crawling across the ground. So... in my endless search for perfection with my bikes I'm thinking of trying 650's. Thanks for any feedback!
650B rims are 584mm in diameter and 26" MTB rims are 559mm in diameter. That's only 1" difference which is 1/2" on each side. If that makes you feel like you're "crawling like an ant" then just use 12mm wider tires and the overall diameter will be the same as using 650B rims.
Although I'm gonna guess it wasn't the wheels that were making the bike feel "TINY", but the gearing (because all else equal smaller wheels = lower gears). Just put on some bigger chainrings and you should be set.