HillRider

OK, lets extrapolate further and have 24" wheels for riders between 5'3" and 4'10" and 20" (ISO 451) for even shorter riders.

To some extent this is done. Georgina Terry sold bikes with 24" front wheels to her small women customers and some small frame bikes do come with 650C wheels. However, this can be an inventory nightmare for most bike shops so the intermediate sizes are going to be hard to find.

AEO

measures sold in canada have both markings.

AEO

16", 20", 24", 26", 700c are common enough.

the opposite is you alienate riders who don't fit on 'standard' sizes.

Besides, cars get this huge selection of rims and tires, but they don't have inventory problems.

HillRider

Their major home market was for utility bikes and not road or racing bikes, so they used a "baloon tire" of some size that was neither 700C not 27" The US market at the time was also mostly for cruisers and single speed bikes using some often proprietary wheel and tire size that, again, wasn't either 700c or 27" (ISO 630)

The sports/racing/serious adult bike market has used 700C wheels for many decades world wide and that's what eventually became the standard here.

springs

The metric system is the official system of measurement in all countries except Burma, Liberia, and the USA.

cyccommute 

Lemmyguess, a ludite? Gonna go out and smash the looms tonight?

LarDasse74

I agree that many of the high tech bikes are disposable, compared to the bikes of yesteryear... but I fail to see the connection with wheel size. If manufacturers want to make a 'disposable' frame they can make it fit any wheel, and they can make a disposable tire in any size. Also, I have seen expensive racing tires in 27 and 700C AND I have personally purchased $12 crap-ola tires in bike 27 and 700C

Esteban32696

I, for one, think there are too many sizes && too much confusion !

FBinNY 

It's possible that you're asking the wrong question. It may not be about why 27" went away, but why it ever existed in the first place.

Europeans were riding on tires based on the 700c platforms for decades while Americans were mainly still riding 26x1.75 coaster brake bikes, and calling 3-speed 26 x 1-3/8" British bikes "English Racers" Of course there was always a small race and sport community but it was very small. Up until the mid sixties, there were also small numbers of French and Italian (700c) derailleur bikes coming in, but you'd only see them in certain markets.

I don't know if they created the size, or not, (I'd love to hear from some Brit old timers about the tire sizes of their Carltons, Dawes, and Raleigh Clubmans of the fifties and early sixties) but you didn't see 27" bikes in any numbers in the USA until the mid sixties when the folks at Schwinn, saw the growing niche and jumped in with 27" Schwinn Continentals. I remember touring in New England in the sixties on an Italian bike - 28x1-5/8 (700c) - and needing to carry lots of spare parts including tires, because parts for "dem skinny furrin bikes" weren't available except in the bigger cities.

Eventually, because of the strength of their dealer network, Schwinn legitimized derailleur bikes, and importers Americanized their bikes moving from 700c to 27" in the late sixties, where things stayed until the markets got more global, and it no longer made sense to support a USA only size.

There's no rational argument about quality, or better ride. It's simply a matter of globalization, and the economics of supporting 2 platforms vs. one, kinda like what happened to the Beta format in video.

E

spock

If the newer bikes start coming with a different wheel size, a customer is more likely to get a new bike and have more tire choices in the long run. Who wants to deal with only 3 different sizes for 27 wheel smallest being 27 1 1/8 which you can mostly get on the internet nowadays? I do, but most riders don't. In most bike shops there is only 27 1 1/4 tire available. Like I said, marketing tactics. I have only one bike that's 25 years old and I see nothing wrong with it except that I can't simply walk into a bike shop and get a 1/8 tire.

I wouldn't be surprised if in the next 5 years a new wheel size is introduced.

Retro Grouch 

It's coming. It's just coming a lot more slowly than I would have guessed.
What size engine does your car have?
Take any medications?
Buy a bottle of soda or booze lately?

fietsbob

World has adopted the 559 26" wheel pretty universally by now .
many globe spanning travelers find 26" spare tires in remote locales..

406 20" is another common tire size that you have to be in a very strange place to not find.

HillRider

Sheldon Brown tried that a few years ago with the 650B (ISO 584) wheels. Apparently it never gained any serious audience and I haven't seen anything about it in quite a while.

This is hardly new and, if anything, there are now fewer commercially available sizes to deal with than in the past.

Go to Sheldon Brown's web site and look up the article on "Tire Sizing". He lists 31(!) different ISO standard rim sizes of which 29 are bicycle related. Add various tire widths available in many of these rim diameters and the number of tire models gets to be monumental.

Booger1

Conspiracy,brought to you by the same people that like daylight savings time.

Laserman

That used to be the case here as well. My only metric rule is one that was a giveaway from a local auto parts supply store, it has the 1968 Detroit Tigers schedule printed on it.

wunderkind

That is so Canadian. Does it come in French too?



Someday we may see 29ers taking over too. I heard 26" wheels may be inadequate.

ironwood

650B was not a new size, it is an old French size that was eclipsed by the 700C size, however it did not die out. Try looking at the Rivendell or Velo-Orange web sites, and you will see 650B is alive and well. The smaller rim diameter allows for more clearance for a wider tire, and a somewhat more comfortable ride. I built a set of wheels last year, and I am lacing up another set now.

AEO

the magical thing about measurement units in metric, is that it's already french to begin with. and imperial units in french are simply spelt different, but not confusingly.

Mile in french is Mille

well okay, 'Inch' is 'Ponce' in french

fuzz2050

Already happened.

well biked

650B is showing up on a few brands' mountain bikes as well. Right between the 26er and 29er. I've not tried one; some say they're great, others say it's not enough difference to warrant yet another BSD for mountain bikes. Here's Jamis' version:

https://www.jamisbikes.com/usa/thebik...akar650b2.html

zzyzx_xyzzy

especially annoying for someone looking for the rare 27" frame

zzyzx_xyzzy

if anything 650b has become bigger for mountain bikes than for velo-orange/rivendell type rambler bikes. Some of the rolling advantages of 29" without as many awkward geometry problems for un-tall riders. Disc brakes make it easy to screw around with rim sizes.

HillRider

I knew it wasn't new, just a revival of an obsolete size.

My point is that there are really no truly NEW sizes available since the ISO size range goes from 137 to 637 mm with practically no significant gaps. About all that can happen is someone trying to drag out something old and make it "the next big thing".

mawtangent

I noticed recently on biketiresdirect.com that they had a 27 x 1 tire for sale.

JanMM

Because weight-based calculations for pharmacy drug dosing uses only metric numbers, hospitals are 'fixing' patient scales so that they cannot be switched from kilogram to pound readouts. Don't worry, you can still get switchable scales from WalMart.