Returning to the British sizes, 26 by 1 1/4 was established first and was later joined by 27 by 1 1/4. Just before the outbreak of war in 1939, most sports bikes seemed to be offered with 26 inch and only the high-end ones with 27. However tubs were made in both 26 and 27. The correspondence so far seems to have assumed only one size of tubular. Does 27 ride significantly better on rough roads than 26? If it does, then we really need it on our West Sussex colonial sections which don't seem to have been rebuilt since nineteen hundred and frozen to death. Comments, anyone? (On the tyres not the roads.)
Stuart Tallack in Sussex