Wheel alternative

Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum

Help Support Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Mar 21, 2012
Messages
266
Reaction score
1
Location
Alberta, Canada
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I have a 1939 Zenith bike which wheels are in dire need of restoration. I will do it but I'd like to ride the bike in the mean time. The wheels are 28" English. What would be a comparable size to fit the bike? I'm a little bit lost when it comes to wheels. Someone told me either 700c or 29's would do as they are the same.
 
Usually the wheel number is a nominal overall dia with tire, so, depending on your clearances to the fork crown and a seatstay brace and/or the bottom bracket chainstays you can fit anything smaller than stock, and maybe a bit bigger. Even some cheap and easily available 26" wheels might fit well enough to run. You can also run larger width tires with a smaller dia. than stock. I would check the max radius; measure from the front fork dropout center to the fork crown underside, and deduct a good 1/2" min., probably 1" is better and double it to get dia. You also want to know the max axle size that will fit the dropouts, front and rear, and the inside width that you need to fit the hubs into. A smaller hub can be spaced with washers, and the fork legs and rear can be spread just a bit to pop in something wider; no big deal if you dont go too wide.
 
Good to know. The space between the rear stays is 110.
I was at my LSB today and they don't have anything ready to use. I would need to build a wheel which I want to avoid. The spacing needed would be at least 130 for a wheel I can put a cog on.
 
HotRodRob said:
Yes, the 700c's will be the same size as your original wheels. They will even fit on your original wheels. The English 28x 1 1/2 is the same as a 700x38c .


UM............ sorry to interject, and I know this is an old post, but I just found it thru a search; I wanna make sure any rookies who find it via search get the right info.

700x38c is a 38mm tire mounted on a rim that is 622mm in diameter. An English 28x1 1/2" is a 40mm tire mounted on a 635mm rim. So, the 28x1 1/2" is larger in overall diameter, and you cannot fit a 700c tire on this rim.

I can see where the confusion comes from; in Germany and other parts of europe, they refer to fatter 700c tires as 28"....
 

Latest posts

Back
Top