Friends dont let Friends get VEE Rubber Tires

[honestherman]

Hi Guys, a FRIEND of mine sold me 2 VEE RUBBER tires for my 26". Well he said. Hey they are a bit tough to mount. THAT IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT. These are JUNK. They do not come close to fitting on a 26" wheel.
They are so sloppy. I tried for about an hour to mount them. Boy some FRIEND. I will say Guys AVOID these Tires. They do not come close to fitting the wheels.
Just Junk.

 

[scrumblero]

are you sure they are the same number scheme as the wheels? fractions and decimals don't mix!

 

[jackdaw]

Yeah, 26 x 1 3/8 is not the same as 26 x 1.75. What a pain, right?

 

[honestherman]

We took off 26x 2.125 and these say 26 x 2.125
The wheels basicly fall thru the VEE tires.
The problem is with the 26" part. The Bike is a 1950 Schwinn
There could be no mistake on 26" Bike wheel is a 26" Bike wheel. Any way you figure it a 26" BIke Wheel is a 26" Bike wheel and a 26" Bike tire should fit a 26" Bike wheel

Your example of comparable
26 x 1 3/8
26 x 1.75 which would be very close to 26 x 1 3/4
as .125 is 1/8
.250 is 1/4
.750 is 3/4
Thousanths of an inch.

If you were talking Metrics it would be
like ** M x **MM

But again we are talking 26" here.

 

[DougC]

...There could be no mistake on 26" Bike wheel is a 26" Bike wheel. Any way you figure it a 26" BIke Wheel is a 26" Bike wheel and a 26" Bike tire should fit a 26" Bike wheel

Nope.
What ISO size is your wheel, and what ISO size is the tire you have?

The measurement system ending in fractions was an earlier one, that used the total height of a typical tire on the specific wheel size. This resulted in confusion between manufacturers deciding on their own how tall a "typical" tire for a given rim would be, so the bike industry came up with a newer system. The newer (ISO) system always measures the bead diameter.

So for example, now you have two tire sizes that are casually called "20-inch tires", but one is ISO 406mm (the BMX bike wheels) and the other is ISO 451mm..... nearly two inches bigger in true diameter.

A tire that says {26 x 1-1/2} on the side will not be the same size as a tire that says {26 x 1.5} on the side. Mathematically the numbers are the same, but the measuring systems are different.

See this chart-
http://sheldonbrown.com/tire-sizing.html

...which gives the size of early Schwinn wheels as 26" x 1-3/8", which is the ISO size 597mm.
If you bought a regular MTB tire, it would be a {26 x 1.00 through 2.3} (on the chart there) which is the ISO size 559mm.
Two 26" wheels, very much not the same size.

 

[yoothgeye]

Last 2 comments are correct, the one before that, not at all.

 

[scrumblero]

ya man! you got decimals, you need fractions. like DougC says,its hard to go wrong when you shop by ISO number.. :mrgreen:

 

[dougfisk]

We took off 26x 2.125 and these say 26 x 2.125
The wheels basicly fall thru the VEE tires.

I understand all the Schwinn fractional stuff, but isn't he saying that the tires that DON'T fit are marked the same as the tires that DID fit?

And 26X2.125 wouldn't be to LARGE for an S7 rim, they would be too SMALL.

Either he is right or I am misunderstanding the facts... :?

 

[CCR]

The Vee Rubber tires I've had (not all but a good 50%) usually have something to gripe about. The last set I had (26x1.95 gumalls) fit the rim but wouldnt roll smooth due to high/low spots and had a men wiggle to them I couldnt strighten out.

 

[honestherman]

I bought a Schwinn with flat tires. They were 26 x 2.125 that were old dry and flat. I replaced with new Tubes and two used Vee Tires that said 26 x 2.125 on them. But only way I could get them to even fit for a few moments was blow up the tube and wiggle them. After one bump they pop out of the rim. If they were just tires without the Tubes. The wheel fell right thru the tire. Kind of like putting a 25 1/2 wheel on a 26" tire.
Problem I see is if I were to buy two new tires that said 26 x 2.125 in the store. Would they fit?
Measuring as marked?
I opened up a can of worms and got myself frustrated too.

We took off 26x 2.125 and these say 26 x 2.125
The wheels basicly fall thru the VEE tires.

I understand all the Schwinn fractional stuff, but isn't he saying that the tires that DON'T fit are marked the same as the tires that DID fit?

And 26X2.125 wouldn't be to LARGE for an S7 rim, they would be too SMALL.

Either he is right or I am misunderstanding the facts... :?

 

[dougfisk]

Do your rims have S2 stamped in? Did the 26X2.125's you took off fit right? If the answer to either of these is "yes", then the tires are to blame.

I don't even know what a VEE tire is... but 26X2.125 is 26X2.125; there is no fractional confusion possible in this case.

Maybe buy some tires from a retailer who would let you return them in the unlikely event they are "wrong".

I bought a Schwinn with flat tires. They were 26 x 2.125 that were old dry and flat. I replaced with new Tubes and two used Vee Tires that said 26 x 2.125 on them. But only way I could get them to even fit for a few moments was blow up the tube and wiggle them. After one bump they pop out of the rim. If they were just tires without the Tubes. The wheel fell right thru the tire. Kind of like putting a 25 1/2 wheel on a 26" tire.
Problem I see is if I were to buy two new tires that said 26 x 2.125 in the store. Would they fit?
Measuring as marked?
I opened up a can of worms and got myself frustrated too.

We took off 26x 2.125 and these say 26 x 2.125
The wheels basicly fall thru the VEE tires.

I understand all the Schwinn fractional stuff, but isn't he saying that the tires that DON'T fit are marked the same as the tires that DID fit?

And 26X2.125 wouldn't be to LARGE for an S7 rim, they would be too SMALL.

Either he is right or I am misunderstanding the facts... :?

 

[scrumblero]

I think dougfisk is right, you need to inspect the rims for markings, not easy trying to buy tires if your not sure what size the rim is..

 

[yoothgeye]

I bought a Schwinn with flat tires.

Maybe they were flat because they never fit either.

 

[Henry morgan]

whats a pichers :shock: mama says its the thins that crabs have.... I got crabs... :roll:

 

[ChrisMac]

ISO # ISO # ISO #

 

[honestherman]

I went back to the bike in storage at our cabin. Took Off same size as I put on. No Numbers on the wheels to help me. Wheels that came off are the same size that I replaced with.
Hmmm.

 

[mikeeebikey]

I went back to the bike in storage at our cabin. Took Off same size as I put on. No Numbers on the wheels to help me. Wheels that came off are the same size that I replaced with.
Hmmm.

Been a long time for me but I bet it's 26 x 1 3/4 rims you have. Schwinn.

 

[honestherman]

Its stock wheels on a 1950 Schwinn and took off both tires that were 26 2.25 one had some air the other was flat and they were VERY old and dry. This bike sat in a barn for 30 years.

 

[mikeeebikey]

Its stock wheels on a 1950 Schwinn and took off both tires that were 26 2.25 one had some air the other was flat and they were VERY old and dry. This bike sat in a barn for 30 years.

Have to research what size they used that year? But I swear I could almost get a 26x2.125 to fit the 26x1 3/4....In fact I remember the earth shattering boom as it blew!

 

[Bicycle808]

ya man! you got decimals, you need fractions. like DougC says,its hard to go wrong when you shop by ISO number.. :mrgreen:

It's farmore complicated than that. A list of so-called "26inch"
bike tires, and their actual inner diameters in mm:

s2 aka ballooner aka mountain bike aka "just 26inch"= 559
s7 aka 26x1 3/4 aka "middleweight" (same diameter as 650c, which are too skinny to be called 26")= 571
650b, which the Brits used to call 26x1 1/2"= 584
26x1 3/8" aka EA3 aka 650a aka "lightweights" (non-schwinn)= 590
s5 aka s6 (same size, different look) aka "lightwieghts" (schwinn-specific size)=597

I count at least 5 different diameters of 26" tire, each with an alias or two. :shock:

So, yeah, it's more complicated than just decimal vs fractions, although pretty much the decimals are interchangeable with each other; once you get to fractions, you gotta measure. If the tire was made from the 1980s on, it will probably have a actual-size metric measurement on the sidewalk somewhere. As in, a 26x2.125" will also have a 54x559 on it somewhere...

As for the OP, well, I'd say your best bet is to measure your rims diameter to make sure you got s2 rims, then order up some decent quality rubber. My current favorite *cheap* balloon tire is the Cheng Shin c241, with the knock-off BFG tread pattern, available in all-bloack, white wall,and occasionally other colors as well.

(Not nearly as good as my Fat Franks, but they come in at like 1/3 of the price!)

hth
-rob