[CR]Re: Weird wheel size dimensions

(Example: History)

In-Reply-To: <MONKEYFOODiMn7h3vlm000045b5@monkeyfood.nt.phred.org>
References:
From: "Toni Theilmeier" <toni.theilmeier@t-online.de>
Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 19:58:53 +0200
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: [CR]Re: Weird wheel size dimensions

> In addition they use the same abbreviation for inches
> we do ("). It's the one part of the description I can read out of the
> Cyrillic letters. Looking at their catalog from 2000, they have 12",
> 16", 20".
> 24", 26". 27" and 28" tire sizes on their different models. I don't
> know of
> any connection this factory (that used to make most of the bicycles
> used in
> the former USSR) had with capitalistic countries much less English
> ones.
> Somehow English sizes must have become some kind of standard over there
> sometime in the history of bicycling. Perhaps my Russian speaking CR
> list member from Germany, Toni, knows something.
>

... Doug Fattic wrote.

All I can say is that those 12" ... 28" measurements are the standard German, Dutch and, afaik, British way to tell wheel sizes apart. It was

used generally before ERTO measurements came up. Also, all my Soviet/Russian/Ukrainian bikes have this system on the tire sidewalls.

I guess that this still stems from pre-revolution times.

Over here, people still work their way up in two inch increments when going through the children´s, later adult, frame sizes, as the frame

sizes are not stated in popular usage, but the wheel sizes, and mountainbikes have 26" wheels in Germany. Dutch roadsters have 28 x 1

1/2, or used to, whereas German ones had 28 x 1.75, which are smaller in diameter than the British 27 x 1 1/4 which were all the rage here on ten speeds during the seventies. Some really lovable, old-fashioned

system which only takes a little getting used to, I´d say.

When selling a used roadster bike, you state the wheel size in the newspaper ad ("For sale, well-kept 28" Dutch Roadster...), when selling

a lightweight, the frame size, as people automatically assume that it has 700c wheels.

Bikes have to be pedalled over here, too, never mind the wheel sizes.

Regards, Toni Theilmeier, Belm, Germany.