24" or 26"?

tholub said:

That's very nice for you. Now let's try to address the concern of the
poster.

Yeah.
I forgot not to add input on threads like this one.
There are plenty of recommendations for the 26" size . . .
and yet, we don't SEE very many of them at group meetings.

I guess that I would suggest to the poster that he actually run the
numbers to get an idea about how much more distance a 26" will cover.
Of course, then others will chime in that it's impossible to gauge that
because it will depend on the terrain, and so forth . . .

As for tholub's off topic post about "staying on topic" try reading the
first sentence of my off topic post. The implication there is that the
poster did not fully describe all of the things that he would like to
do with the wheel.

Ride with groups? Ride distance only? What terrain? Get a workout?
Climb much?

If he takes the time to write a list of pros and cons,
and most likely make the same decision that most have:

24"

Then again, there are always substandard riders that will swear that an
inch or an ounce makes all of the difference in the world. Perhaps for
them, it's true.

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Most people have 24" nowadays because that's what the standard size for
the KH muni is.

In the UK, we actually have quite a lot of 26" riders at meets, who've
been riding from the days of Pashleys and DMATUs. There are also people
who don't ride 3" tyres.

As far as I can tell from rides, there's no correlation between how
good people are and wheel size. Roger Davies (probably the fastest muni
rider in the UK) switches between 24 and 26 at a whim and I'm not sure
it changes how fast he goes much.

I'd get a 24" if I wanted to do trials or big drops. Otherwise there's
not much difference between the wheel sizes (8%ish), except that the
26" has a far wider range of tyres, meaning that as you get more
skilled, there's availability of more specialised tyres for different
purposes, such as faster, narrower xc tyres etc. Changing tyres makes
far more difference than changing wheel size. Other than that, I don't
see much difference between the sizes. I think most people just buy 24"
because they want to be like Kris Holm or because that's what size the
KH/onza/Qu-ax munis come in, not because they need the strength or
anything.

Dave - I'm commuting, on the coker at the moment. I do like muni on the
29er with 125s, but I've recently been riding rocky technical stuff
like in the peaks, which it isn't really suited for. It's great for
woodland singletrack riding though and for some of the big cross
country rides I've done in Yorkshire it'd be nice. I also don't ride
the 29er on group muni rides usually, cos being that much faster than
the people on the 24" munis with 165 cranks would be a bit cheeky, I'm
already quite speedy anyway.

I ride 26x2.6" gazz, which is nice. I hate the 26x2.3" gazz, it's
different and funny and doesn't want to ride in a straight line.
Everyone who rides it hates it. I've not tried the 26x3" gazz, I don't
feel I need more boing and I don't bottom out on, so I've just never
bothered changing.

Joe

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joemarshall said:

I hate the 26x2.3" gazz, it's different and funny and doesn't want to
ride in a straight line. Everyone who rides it hates it.

That's what MikeFule had on his Pashley when I had a quick ride of it a
few months ago. Very nasty indeed. It's a much squarer section than
the others, more like a car tyre than a bike tyre. Didn't like turning
at all - perhaps it would be OK on very soft mud but on anything hard
it was terrible.

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joemarshall said:

I ride 26x2.6" gazz, which is nice. I hate the 26x2.3" gazz, it's
different and funny and doesn't want to ride in a straight line.
Everyone who rides it hates it. I've not tried the 26x3" gazz, I don't
feel I need more boing and I don't bottom out on, so I've just never
bothered changing.

Joe

You can try my 26x3" when you're in Berkeley next week.

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rob.northcott said:

That's what MikeFule had on his Pashley when I had a quick ride of it a
few months ago. Very nasty indeed. It's a much squarer section than
the others, more like a car tyre than a bike tyre. Didn't like turning
at all - perhaps it would be OK on very soft mud but on anything hard
it was terrible.

As documented in my later evangelical posts about the Holy Roller! I
still can't believe how much difference that change of tyre made. The
Gazz 2.3" is the work of the devil. Cast it out!

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rob.northcott said:

I don't know why people seem to think a
26" is so much heavier than a 24" - assuming the same type of tyre the
difference is less than 10%, which assuming my 1/4 of the unicycle
weight guess means only 2.5% change in unicycle weight.

Don't forget that the rim will be heavier too, as will the spokes and
frame. Morever, most of that extra mass is rotating farther from the
hub than in the 24" case. That in itself adds to the angular momentum
and hence to a more sluggish "heavy" feel of the larger-wheel uni.

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Klaas Bil said:

rob.northcott said:

I don't know why people seem to think a
26" is so much heavier than a 24" - assuming the same type of tyre

the

Quoted message said:

difference is less than 10%, which assuming my 1/4 of the unicycle
weight guess means only 2.5% change in unicycle weight.

Don't forget that the rim will be heavier too, as will the spokes and
frame. Morever, most of that extra mass is rotating farther from the
hub than in the 24" case. That in itself adds to the angular momentum
and hence to a more sluggish "heavy" feel of the larger-wheel uni.

I know what you mean, but it's still only about 6" of extra tyre/rim
and 36" of spoke wire. OK, so it is all an extra inch away from the
hub, so that may be enough to be noticable in acceleration. The
overall extra weight though, which is what would matter for climbing
and hops etc, isn't that much. Oh, I forgot the 2" of frame tube.
There must be something good about 24" munis otherwise they wouldn't be
so popular, but I'm not convinced the weight saving is that
significant.

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I recently bought a new Torker 26" and changed the cranks from 170s to
150s and I ride that when I want a fast pedaling workout at a decent
speed but more often I choose to ride the Coker to cover distance

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