You know what really grinds my gears? When multiple knobs create misinformation and then spread it by citing eachother (Woozle effect)
I wanted to look up why 26 inch wheels became a de facto standard and all I found were retards on otherwise reputable sites like GCN saying "It's because they were common in the 20th century". That's not a fucking answer, that's circular logic, because it just shifts the goalpost to "Why were they popular?" and these lazy fucks don't even attempt to answer this
I finally got my answer when I realized 26 inch wheels became popularized because of Mountain Biking, because that was the wheel size Joe Breeze chose when designing and building the JBX1/Breezer 1, the first Mountain Bike, even utilizing rims made by Araya, and the reason he chose this was because it was the most optimal size for mountain biking because the wheel was large enough to roll over most terrain yet small enough to be easily responsive and more manuverable than larger 29 and 30 inch wheels. 27.5 is just a "middle ground" wheel size that came later

Another anon put it better than I can, but mountain bikes are an abomination. A hippie sport cooked up by mountain town burnouts that turned the bicycle from the "steed of the people" aka a tool to augment human locomotion, into an upper class superfluous hobby/pastime with useless overbuilt bikes that evolved from kids toys meant to imitate motorcycles.

>>2046363
Mountain bikes are bikes that are suboptimal for literally anything that isn't going downhill but are sold as "the new gravel bikes" even though Cruisers make better gravel bikes than MTBs do. At that point you might as well daily a fucking unicycle or Penny Farthing repro

>>2046360 (OP)
It goes far further back than Joe Breeze because you need to ask yourself, why did Joe Breeze choose 26" then? That's because the clunkers that Breeze rode were based on the Schwinn "balloon tire" standard, which at the time the standard was 28"x1-1/2". During the era of the inception of the Schwinn "balloon tire," significant amounts of funding and tooling to create a manufacturing standard was required, so they had to build the logistical capacity to manufacture a new tire size which became a new standard after their popularization and so the 26"x2" became the defacto standard size after phasing out 28" (which also popularized 700c for sport bicycles)

>>2046370
>Schwinn "balloon tire" standard, which at the time the standard was 28"x1-1/2"
I worded this badly, at the time the standard for bicycles was 28"x1-1/2" but Schwinn saw a need to create a comfier standard which was the 26" balloon tire that they created which happened to be a better tire for early MTBros and their clunkers.

>There are no fewer than 5 different, incompatible "26 inch" sizes which you are likely to encounter.
>And one of them is even sometimes called a 27-inch size! A so-called "26 inch" wheel/tire could have an ISO rim size of: 559 mm, 571 mm, 584 mm, 590 mm or 597 mm!
kek

>>2046371
>at the time the standard for bicycles was 28"x1-1/2"
So after 100 years, the industry has basically circled back to the same exact tire measurement that was standard when different categories of bicycles didn't even exist yet.

>>2046360 (OP)
Its pretty simple: Wheels are a tradeoff of practicality and low price from small size and low rolling resistance and immunity to surface uneveness from large size.
Naturally wheels evolved to converge towards a good practical tradeoff.
And since standardization makes sense the industry quickly sought to standardize and get rid of one-offs. Going from there it was just a question of who the biggest players in a given market where and which standard they subscribed to at the time.

>>2046363
Mountainbiking evolved from clunking, which was literally riding trash frankenstein bikes downhill

>>2046421
That is the marin-county-centered normie view of the history.
It is true that the modern MTB can trace almost all its lineage back to the breezer which was created for repack specifically. But it has long been disproven and is revisionist and marin-centered at best to claim MTBesque bicycles and especially MTB as an activity did not exist before afluent hippie kids on Schwinns in marin county. It's just that that was when it took off.

>>2046394
Almost full circle, 28" is a 630mm wheel size while modern gravel is based on 622mm. If 28" gets resurrected then yes, we've gone full circle

26" is the best sizing for anything not BMX. You don't need more.
I will never be convinced otherwise.

>>2046436
Ah, I see.

>>2046442
Had a fascinating conversation once with this fella who ran a touring bicycle hire business in the alps.
They only stocked 26ers, and bear in mind this was only 4 years ago. He swore by them, waxing lyrical about efficiency, durability, reliability and comfort, he was convinced that except for racing nobody needed anything bigger than a 26, and he felt the industry was desperate to move away from 26'' as the standard partly because of these factors, in his words they just didn't fail fast enough.

Being four years ago the industry had already pretty much abandoned 26ers, so he had a firm in Germany that hand built all his wheels. He was adamant that the extra cost was offset by how much longer they lasted and reduced maintenance.

He was also big into steel frames and his were all hand built steel beasts, for pretty much the same reasons.

>>2046462
Sounds like an old man such in the past.
Lots of those can be found in the Swiss Alps, and if you own your own house there, you can afford to be quirky with your business, worst case you sell your house to some rich German idiot and live like a king for the rest of your life in Thailand.

>>2046462
Funny. I also love 26in wheels and steel frames. Why fix what ain't broke?
I ride a 26in aluminum bike and always wish it was steel. Maybe in the next life.

>>2046370
>It goes far further back than Joe Breeze because you need to ask yourself, why did Joe Breeze choose 26" then?
Because he found through testing that they were the most optimal size like OP said. I recall reading also that the 70s was the "muscle car" era for bicycles where you had a whole bunch of shop owners just mix and matching parts to find what was most optimal for their respective builds, meaning Joe had plenty of room to utilize different frames and experiment with other wheels sizes, he simply found 26-inches to be the best size for mountain biking. Your story just explains why 26-inch wheels were even on the market in the first place, although I'm sure Schwinn came to the same exact conclusions that Joe did through their own testing. Remember, Cruisers WERE the original mountain bikes and gravel bikes

>>2046485
>Cruisers WERE the original MTB
Again: No. We had this entire thread regarding MTB history countless of times on /n/.
Some hippies on schwinns were not the first people to engage in an acrivity that one would call MTB and they were not the first to build or at lwats modify and equip bikes to be MTB.

>>2046438
iunno about that, but my eighties 27" rims are 630. when you buy tires they say "27x 1¼” /630x32" on them.

>>2046485

>>2046501
Cruisers were literally based off of military bikes (see pic related) despite popular belief that Cruisers were originally meant to recemble motorcycles, this was only a marketing strategy to sell these styles of bikes to children after the war. So in a way military bikes served as the model for later Cruisers and eventually Gravel Bikes as its own category

>>2046503
This of course opens up another rabit hole, because original World War 2 Military Bikes, which were specified under the M305 "Bicycle, Military, Universal" Ordinance Department standard features 26-inch wheels. So now we have to ask why the Military chose this wheel size. The plot thickens...

>>2046503
ok, but the bikes I posted were not "military bikes," they were off-the-shelf, regular bikes for 1897 which are not anything like a cruiser. and yet they were capable offroad.

>>2046507
Actually, the 25th Infantry Bicycle Coprs used bikes made to spec by A.G. Spalding & Bros, they weren't "off-the-shelf" at the time they were adopted, they had to be made to spec because they were expected to be used over long distances and they wanted them to have minimal maintainance, so they were fitted with a heavier frame and a single speed, which was somewhat novel even for the time from what I understand.

>>2046509
>>2046501
In fact, they were even called Military ‘Special’ bikes and advertised as such at the time
What I find curious is that these bikes utilized 28-inch wheels instead, which was far more common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, so 26-inch became standard sometime between 1900 and when World War 2 came around but no earlier than this

>>2046509
but they were still in no way cruiser-like.
anon said cruisers were the original mtbs but these bikes are not.

>>2046512
True. They resemble single speed gravel bikes if anything but my point is that Cruisers came from World War 2 military bikes specifically

cruisers were the original mtbs
now mtbs are the new cruisers
circle of life

>>2046515
>now mtbs are the new cruisers
Not even close but thanks for playing

>>2046511
Well I said it before and I'll say it again:
We all. know the obvious reasons why comically large wheels and comically small wheels are not utilized.
That leaves us with a middle ground that is suitable to make a safety bicycle and offers a good compromise between large wheels (better response to obstacles, better rolling resistance) and smaller wheels (lower price, lower weight, higher strength) and I want to suggest it was the higher strength that was the deciding factor. Suppose you developed a bicycle for military application, repack or any similarly demanding environment you would inevitably break a wheel sooner kr later. In fact breaking things and also finding out what gives first was and often still is an important part of a development process. Its feasible to think that a military, in the procurement process, would even break things on purpose. So when you started with a 28" wheel and broke it the logical response would be to choose the next size down as an improvent and perhaps ry again and see if it's satisfactory.

>>2046519
This makes sense, and it does explain why we first started out with larger (29-30 inch) wheels as was on the first Safety Bicycles, before realizing these were impractical before switching to 28 inch wheels and still realizing they were still not robust enough for the time and switching to 26 inch wheels in the early 20th century before going back to larger 27.5 and 29 inch wheels by the early 21st cetury as materials development and modern manufacturing yields allowed for larger wheels to be more practical

>>2046519
yeah, my assumption for why mtbs used the 26" standard was because they were stronger, but I never looked into it, it just seemed the only logical reason they didn't continue with 700c/29 that road bikes had settled on.
of course, times have changed...

>>2046585
It's more like a combination of "they were stronger" and "they were expected to have fat tires" IIRC you can swap 26" tires on most bikes with 27.5 wheels instead but you'll obviously need skinnier tires, which is also why I think 27.5 " took off too

>>2046522
>29-30 inch wheels
probably gearing, they'd only just stopped using 54 inch wheels lol, and that wheel size was predicated on average leg length.
>materials development
all they had to do is widen the hub flange spacing
>>2046587
>swap 26" tires
ye ol French tire size system, it makes allot more sense now that everything has disk brakes.

>>2046516
it is
>beefy
>can ride over anything
>army likes them
>normies like them because they're relaxed and squishy and look badass

>>2046625
MTBs are overengineered and suboptimal for regulat street cruising. The whole point and appeal of Cruisers was that they made good jack-of-all-trades bikes that were desirable for their simplicity and made practical beaters for the streets and some light offroad/gravel riding. MTBs are anything but practical

>>2046626
literally are
the police uses mtb every generic bike is made in mtb style nobody even has parts for your special snowflake grandma bike

>>2046588
>gearing
nah. The safety bicycle, thanks tl its chain drive, had the benefit of virtually arbitary gearing.
The penny farthing owed its large wheel to gearing. No transmission, only direct drive - > wheel circumference dictates your gearing. The head injuries were quite something. So the safety bicycle was born, with the expressed purpose of bringing the rider closer to the ground and further between the two wheels, all made possible by combining transmisson with a smaller wheel.
But as I've said >>2046519 the co. promise is not that simple. Besides speed there is comfort. To be very clear: A bump of a certain size 'appears' larger to a smaller wheel and vice versa. Imagine riding head onto a curbstone on 3" wheels. Your wheel would hit it head on, at a right angle and stop your bike right there. A real big wheel would result in an apparent angle at the point of contact of only a few degrees. That's important for MTB but I suspect strength was the limiting factor. This is why we do now see so called 29" wheels. Materials made it that far. We can now have strong 29" wheels that negoriate bump much better.
It goes without saxjng that the more compact wheel is stronger, even the bracing angles are increased for the same hub diameter.

>>2046627
>the police uses mtb
Most police use Utility Bikes, are you retarded anon?

>>2046637
there are no special utility bikes jackass

>>2046638
cross bikes, hybrids, trekking bikes, city bikes, call them what you want, it's all basically the same.
28" wheels, ~35mm road tires, flat bars, upright posture, wide gearing, mounting points for fenders and rack, kickstand

>>2046360 (OP)
GCN is not a reputable site, it's an advertisement agency.

>>2046640
all slightly tweaked mtbs

>>2046642
or slightly tweaked road bikes.
When you're reductionist like that, all bikes are just bikes.

>>2046656
they don't resemble road bikes at all but they resemble mtbs in the relaxed geometry fat tyres and front suspension
and know when to shut up

>>2046667
>relaxed geometry fat tyres and front suspension

>>2046669
it has neither of those three things and no normies ride this its not cool enough
its not versatile enough for police and not adequate for army

>>2046670
just admit that utility bikes are a class of their own. They can be almost road bikes with fenders and rack, or almost mountainbikes with slick tires, or something entirely different like a Dutch bike.
Point is, you can neither race nor bomb downhill on them, so they're neither a road bike nor a mountainbike.

>>2046671
they're not a class they're barely a feature

>>2046638
>there are no special utility bikes
post bike
butchers bike
backfiets
bicycle rikscha
sharpening bicycle
sewing bicycle
...
There is countless of specialized utility bikes. Are you going to claim
>picrel
was either not a bicycle, not utilitarian or not specialized. As you'd have to do one of those three to semantically defend your point.
>inb4
'it'got more than 2 wheels, not even single track'.

>>2046682
slightly tweaked mtb

>>2046682
your definition of utility bikes changes every other post but whatever deranged idiot i didn't bring it up

>>2046711
This is an anonymous image board in the style of futaba sir.
It's my first post that uses the term 'utility bike' itt and in a long time.
But since you're asking: I consider a utility bike and bike that serves the purpose of getting your ass or your stuff from one point to another and perhaps serve additional functions beyond that. As such it is designed to be suited for this purpose which often entails compromise and versatility. Not a utility bike is a bicycle that is used for bicycling as a means to its own end. That could be a racing bike, fitness bike, MTB... that kind of thing. Those bikes are usually designed in an uncompromising manner to make them fit for the one discipline they are intended to be used for or to comply with a set of rules put forth by a regulating body.
Utility bikes simpy serve a purpose beyond bicycling itself.
>deranged idiot
are you here to engagr in discussions and form actual arguments or just to shit up the board? Please do that on >>>/b/ if youre only looking for pointless confrontation.
>i didn't bring it up
again: This is an anonymous imageboard. What is 'it' even?

>>2046493
Yes they were

>>2046360 (OP)
Now I don't know why 26 became a standard, but I vaguely recall Sheldon brown saying it came around about 100 years ago for heavyweight bikes, but was not the main size then.

>>2046370
>>2046371
Schwinn had at least different 26 standards which complicates things .

>>2046363
The french were trying variants of that 80 years ago.

>>2046442
You are a manlet.

>>2046485
Remember, that they don't have fat 650b and 29er.. His other most common options are 700c, 27, 24, 20, and some of the weird shwinn specific sizes. 26 cruiser was the widest of those options. 28 wouldn't have been available at that time.

>>2046809
Again: No.
Things that happened in marin county circa 1970 being widely popularized as 'birth of MTB and MTBing' and being the only thing that NPCs and casuals think of when asked about are not the definitive birth of MTB. This being the first instance where it took off as a phenomenon does not make it the start of the MTBs lineage. If anything it hints at: Marketeers and also a point in time where the disconnect between people and early bicycling grew to whwre the roots of bicycling were erased from said NPCs minds.
The bicycle existed long before modern roads were a common thing. Most early bicyclists, especially on safety bicycles, can be thought of as gravel- oder even MTBikers. And many even purposefully engaged in MTBing and constructed or modified bicycles for the expressed purpose. Those were made by many around the globe not to get to a place using shitty roads but to go to places where mo road leads as a leisure activity. This is mountainbiking.
Also many other types of bicycles have existed for a long time were the products of a convergent evolution, while not really being MTB. For example cycle speedway has been documented as early as 1920s. Riding a bike in circles over uneven surfaces. It's almost as if zoomers would call that a 'pump track'.
So yeah we know of:
Bicycles for offroading that existed long before schwinn first made their abomination.
An activity where you go to remote and scenic places off road on your bicycle for the hell of it, long documented before 1960.
Bicycles and components specifically optimized for loose surfaces that date back to long before 1960.
Mentions of bicycles specifically intended for offroad use in all sorts of languages, dating way back.
And so on.
But of course the first time anyone ever thought of going where the fuck they wanted and having fun doing it, on their bicycles and then also optimizing their bicycle to be even netter at it, was 1960. Right?

>>2046809

see
>>2046501

>>2046656
>all bikes are just bikes.
True. Just a series of tubes with wheels attached.