Every single one of these bikes has a different tire setup. And in this video,
I'm going to explain why are there so many different tire
options? What do sizes even mean? And which one of these should you have?
20 inch 24 inch 26 inch 27 inch 27 inch 26, 24, 26, 26. Four inches wide, three and a half inches
wide, two and a half inches wide. This can all get really confusing. And like I said, I'm going to
break this down and explain it in a way that makes sense. So, you know, when you're shopping around.
Which of these tires should you have on your bike?
You're going to know what the rim widths mean, what the tire width means and what the tire
diameter means, because it's not always what you think. And I'm also going to tell you
about one tire size. You've probably never even heard of. Now these bikes aren't in
any particular order. However, I kind of do have them going up in size,
but not necessarily just the diameter, which is what we often think about.
This is a 20 inch wheel. The one next to it's a 24. Then we go up to a 26, then a 27 and a half.
And then beyond that, of course you do have bikes that are common now with
what they call 29 or wheels, which is a 29 inch diameter,
which is also the same exact diameter as a 700C, which is common on road bikes.
But again, All very confusing. Let's break it down and explain what this means. Firstly,
start with a 20 inch tire diameter. Why would you want something that small? What are the advantages
and what are the disadvantages? Ideally as bikes either get smaller or larger. The
tires and wheels should get smaller and larger to compensate.
So everything is proportional. Now that's not always the case.
Some bike brands might have three, four, five different sizes that I'll use a 26
inch wheel. In this particular case with the Hemingway bike, it is a 20 inch wheel because
it's designed to be a small. Step through model. You'll also see these popular on
folding bikes, because as you get the tire and wheel smaller, they can be more compact.
They can fit into smaller places.
Go smaller. You have a different angle of attack, which sounds a little bit weird,
but, uh, imagine that you're going over a bump. The bigger, the diameter is
the easier it's going to be for the tire to roll over an obstacle. The smaller the
tire is the harder it's going to be. And if you put this at an extreme example,
imagine this gravel right here, any of these bikes will roll over this very easily.
But if you tried to roll over this gravel on something like roller skates. Yeah.
So as we go up to a 24 inch, you have a tire that's going to roll over obstacles more
easily.
You got like three feet of air that time. And then we'd go up to a 26
inch. This is a very standard size that's been around for years. Again, it's going to roll a
little bit easier. And then as time went on, the bicycle industry adopted the 27.5 inch.
Now, interestingly enough, as far as the bikes I have here, the rim size gets smaller.
This is another 27 and a half, but with a wider tire, uh, but this tire and this one
and this one, those are only 26 inches. But you might think, well, they look bigger,
not just in width, but the diameter it's bigger than this. And for the rim
itself, this is bigger. But when you take into account the tire, the outer diameter of this
whole setup, even though it's 27.5 inches is actually going to be physically smaller.
Then a 26 inch rated tire. And that's where I said things get a little bit confusing
because the 26 inch 24 inch 20 inch, those dimensions are not the outer diameter
of the tire. Those are measurements based on the rims, a 26 inch fat tire bike. Like this is
going to have an outer diameter of 29. Inches the inch size that's referred to is very consistent.
Among rims. 20 inch rims are always going to have the same diameter.
24 inch rims always have the same diameter, but the tire you put on it can affect how much
bigger. Then that dimension they're going to be, this is a pretty standard with a fat bike rim. It
looks to be about 80 millimeters. We move over to this rim and you can see, this is much narrower.
Move over to this one, really skinny. This is totally different from
either the plus size or fat bike tires. And to clarify, I know that many people
are not familiar with these terms. A plus size tire would be something like
this. 27 and a half inch rim. They call it a plus size because it's using a fatter tire.
Actually, this is even a better example. Here is a 27 and a half inch rim with a three inch wide
tire. So plus size is bigger than your standard. 26 by. Two inch tires, but it's smaller than the
fat tire bikes. So plus is in the middle. It is not bigger than a fat tire bike. The wider the
tire is the more volume it's going to have inside, which means the ride is going to be smoother.
As an example, this particular tire is rated for 30 PSI maximum. So it's
running a fairly low pressure, but a high volume. If we jump over to a tire like this,
This is going to be rated for something like 65 PSI.
So that means if you feel the tire, it's going be a lot firmer and harder than a fat tire would be.
Now, when you go to something, something like this, which is three inches wide. So in between
these two, you kind of get a compromise, a middle ground of both. If you're going for
the least rolling resistance, of course you want the tire to be skinnier harder,
but that's going to lead to a harsher. A rougher ride, depending on the surface, you're riding on.
If you're riding on smooth streets all the time, it's really not gonna matter.
But if you think you're going to hit some potholes or some gravel or some dirt trails,
then the bigger the tire goes in width, the lower the pressure is going to be
the softer. The tire is going to be more comfortable and plush the ride is going to be.
So that's another big advantage to fat tires. In my opinion, the number one reason for using
fat tires. Is that they are more comfortable to ride. In most cases, going back to the fat tires,
we have different rim widths with maybe the same tire. This is a 26 inch by four inch tire.
But so is this, this is also a 26 by four inch tire.
But if you look closely. This tire looks wider than that tire. Why is that? Well,
we have to look at the rim width that's being used with those tires to determine
how wide does the tire actually sit and how does it perform? This is a fairly
narrow rim for a fat bike. It's going to be somewhere around 60 millimeters.
So that's going to make the tire appear smaller in width. That means it's not going to have as
much of a contact patch. Not as good. This is obviously going to be great for off-road,
but maybe not as good on sand or snow than a wider rim would be. Now,
if we move over to the Blackbird bikes, they use an 80 millimeter wide rim.
So a little bit wider. That means the tire is going to sit out a little bit further. Once again,
a little bit more contact patch with the ground. That means more traction and better float
on really loose surfaces, like sand and snow. And then if we move over
to something like the Warthog, we have a massive 100 millimeters or inch wide rim.
Why are all parts on bikes? Always every single time measured in metric,
but then we refer to tires in inches and the answer is,
I don't know. So you could run a four inch wide tire and a 100 millimeter wide rim
like this. But instead on these wide hundred millimeter wide rims, we go up to a 4.5 inch tire,
which tire is right for you really depends on how you're going to ride the bike.
If I'm going to take a 20 inch fat tire bike like this, I know that I can go off-road
with it. I know that I could potentially go on sand potentially on snow, you know, loose mud,
things like that. But I also know that it's not going to roll over obstacles as well
as a bigger diameter tire. So if my main use is more on road with some generally smooth trails,
but I want the capability to go off-road then a 20 inch fat tire might do just fine.
If the advantages of it being a smaller bike, or maybe a folding bike are worth it. If we
don't need a smaller bike, if we don't need a folding bike, Then I would recommend going up
to a larger tire diameter. I also mentioned a tire size. You've probably never heard of.
I just recently recorded a podcast and this is something that will be coming out within the next
30 days or so, uh, with David from Dirty Sixer Bikes and the Dirty Sixer bikes are awesome.
They're also completely different probably from anything else you've
ever seen. Now I've talked about these smaller sizes we have here
all the way from 20 inch up to even a 29 inch, but Dirty Sixer like the name sounds
is kind of a nickname for 36 or so. That's right. 36 inch diameter wheels, which is crazy.
Now the company started out making bikes for tall people, which makes perfect sense.
Because it has the bikes get bigger. When, and when I say tall, I mean
the smaller bikes were starting in the, you know, mid six foot range up to well
over seven feet tall, you need a big giant wheel to be proportional for a bike that size.
If you want to know more about those bikes, then make sure to go check out the Bolton Ebikes
Podcast. That episode will be coming out. Soon. Another question I've gotten is people asking,
for example, if they can put larger 26 inch wheels. On a 24 inch bike. So in other words, swap
the entire wheel set, tires, everything, or they want their 26 inch bike to be as little smaller.
And they ask if they could put 24 inch wheels that way. And the answer is I wouldn't recommend
either of those first scenario of trying to put bigger wheels on a smaller bike.
Is generally not going to work at first glance with the front tire here,
it might look like there's plenty of clearance in the fork.
And that could all work odds are though, if you go put a bigger tire like this
and wheel on a bike like this on a fork that wasn't designed for it, it's going to bottom
out. So that's not going to work on the front on a rigid fork. It probably just won't clear
at all. Now, if you go to the back of the bike, however, where the frame is, Uh, it's
just going to be too large of a diameter and it's not going to fit at all the wheel.
The tire are going to rub on the frame
in that rear triangle area. It's just not designed now. What about going the other
direction? At first glance? It looks like that could all work. The tire and wheel would fit.
If anything, you'd have extra clearance in the front, you'd have extra clearance in the back.
It seems like lowering the bike, that could be a good idea. And is it?
Also that is a no, let me show you why you can see that the 26 and 24 inch blackbirds have
a different frame. And that is by design. It's hard to tell at first, but if you start looking
at things like the seat post length, you can see that it's much shorter on the 24 inch bike.
Versus the 26 inch, the bike is overall longer on the 26 inch bike. The bottom
bracket position is in a certain spot. Everything about these two bikes is designed
for the tire size that they use. And this is the problem that you would have. If you tried to
change to a smaller wheel diameter, if you look at the distance from the pedal to the ground,
you can see that you've got a few inches there.
Now what happens as you start. Lowering that, but the problem is if you're riding on flat
ground and you're peddling, nothing's going to happen, everything is going
to seem great. But as soon as you go into a turn or off or anywhere where you have
any reduced ground clearance, your pedals are going to start hitting the ground.
And that's just not annoying, but it's also potentially a dangerous. Situation.
Imagine you're going down a street at a high rate of speed. You take a turn
and you try and peddle, which you could do on a properly proportion bike,
but on a bike that's been lowered. You strike one of the pedals on the ground.
Well, potentially what can happen is the force of you hitting the pedal on the ground. Lifts up
the rear tire slightly, you lose all traction and you crash and I don't want you to crash.
So that's why I don't recommend doing that. I put the Hemingway bike at the end here.
Not because I'm doing any further modifications or selling this particular model,
but because I recently did a live e-bike review on this bike and we are currently giving it away.
So there's a giveaway going on right now. I will put a link in the description.
So you can enter to win it. That is going to be somebody at random. And I want to share that I
have more giveaways going on this month. Just coincidentally, May is the month of my birthday.
And so I think it's awesome that I get to give away more bikes all month.
I'm going to be doing another e-bike review tomorrow on Friday, another one next Friday,
another one, the Friday after that, basically every single week I'll be doing live Ebike reviews
and giving all of those bikes away in one way or another. If you want to know more about electric
bicycles, I recommend checking out this video where I explain Ebike Laws in the United States.