# 26" or 28"???



## rustyspoke66 (Apr 8, 2012)

Ok, I am working on a Elgin Falcon/Blackhawk project and am considering going with 28 x 1.5" wheels as offered in the 34 catalog. As I was messing around with straightening the fork and looking at some pictures to determine the fork rake and what not I noticed in allot of pictures that there is fair amount of clearance between the tire and fender. I am assuming that this is to accommodate either the 26" or 28" wheels. So I guess my point is that I have never seen a 28" wheel Falcon or Blackhawk and am thinking about going with the 28's. Any opinions on this?


----------



## Andrew Gorman (Apr 8, 2012)

I'd go for the 28"- marginally smoother ride, 700C rims and tires are widely available.  It's your bike.


----------



## rustyspoke66 (Apr 8, 2012)

That's the way I am leaning and I totally agree with the smoother ride thing. The bike in the eyes of a non collector is a real pile and most people might not have tried to fix it. I've gone the route of the Velocity P-35's on a Hawthorne and I think I will try that on the Elgin. I have it mocked up with some old 28's and will post some pics.


----------



## rustyspoke66 (Apr 8, 2012)

Ok this is it, the fenders don't have braces but everything lines up quit well.


----------



## Hiawathatc (Apr 9, 2012)

What size drop stand should this have? I have a 34 Falcon that is missing it's drop stand and it has a lot of clearance between the fender and the tires (26 inch wheels). Looks like 28 inch would fit.  Should I get a 28" drop stand?


----------



## rustyspoke66 (Apr 9, 2012)

I'm thinking a 28" wheel drop stand will work. The stand I got with this bike looks to be repop but I'll try a few and see what fits best. Does anyone know what is the wheel base on these bikes should be?


----------



## yeshoney (Apr 9, 2012)

This is interesting.  If my math is correct you have shortened the wheelbase by two inches.  If I remember my motorcycle days when I put a shorter swingarm on it and shortened the wheelbase it made flicking it in a corner very easy.  On a bike will it be twitchy due to the low speed?  I guess do you care?  But I try to think about the ridability of a bike when building it and of course at the nd of the day if you don't like it or the way it rides you could always go back to 26's.  I like the look!

Joe



rustyspoke66 said:


> Ok this is it, the fenders don't have braces but everything lines up quit well.


----------



## RMS37 (Apr 9, 2012)

The wheelbase is not being changed; it can be measured as the distance from the front axle to the rear axle or as the distance from the center of the front tire contact patch to the contact patch of the rear wheel. The contact patches are directly below the axle so even extreme wheel size changes will not affect that. What will change slightly is the geometry defining the front wheel caster or trail which will be increased slightly with the use of a larger diameter wheel. Increased trail should actually slow down the feel of the steering but the small difference will probably be less perceptible than the feel attributable to the tire change.


----------



## rustyspoke66 (Apr 9, 2012)

Thanks Phil, I should have mentioned the reason for needing a wheelbase measurement. I was hoping to compare it to a bike that has not been damaged just to see how close I am to factory. This bike had been broken at the top tube to head tube junction and the fork was bent back at least a inch. The only way I can know for sure if I am close is by eyeballing it or by getting a measurement from someone that has a undamaged Falcon or Blackhawk. This bike has had to undergo some major repairs and is by no means an original bike. So at this point after looking through all the catalog pages I can find am looking at putting the 28" wheels on it. After all the original Falcon fenders are kind of hard to find and I happen to have a set of steel 28" raingutters that have not been drilled for finder braces.


----------



## cstorar (Apr 9, 2012)

I never even thought of putting 28"Look at all the room im sure they will fit!I know its not the same bike but it gave me the idea....


----------



## rustyspoke66 (Apr 9, 2012)

cstorar said:


> I never even thought of putting 28"Look at all the room im sure they will fit!I know its not the same bike but it gave me the idea....




Nice V-200, Your right as far as the frame is concerned it will take a 28" wheel. I think you would need to take the fenders and spacers out and maybe a fender change. Also you would need a different fork. Fairly standard H.P.Snyder stuff for the early balloon era stuff. Not sure if they offered the V-200 in a 28" wheel model but it would be cool to see one. I would also like to see a stock Falcon or Blackhawk in a 28" wheel version.  Strange thing about the Falcon is that the fork seems longer and possibly made to accept both 26 and 28 inch wheels. Again very sweet bike.


----------



## RMS37 (Apr 9, 2012)

cstorar said:


> I never even thought of putting 28"Look at all the room im sure they will fit!I know its not the same bike but it gave me the idea....




More typically those Snyder frames were equipped with raingutters though I believe they were specific 26" raingutters and not as large in diameter as a full 28" set would be....

And Jeff,

I noticed the repair weld at your top tube/head joint. This is a weak point on these frames and I have seen several with similar repairs. I have an unbroken frame that I can get a measurement from (in fact I have done so in the past and believe it is documented somewhere in my archives.) 

  One relevant thing I have noticed though is that early BH/Falcons seem to use a version of the corrugated plate crown fork while the later bikes use the forged crown fork. When our local group brought a number of these bikes together about twenty years ago, it was apparent that the angle of the head tube was different between the two variations, being steeper on the earlier bikes

  This is where it gets hard to make sweeping statements about the Elgin Blackhawk/Falcon line. I think that the literature gives a snapshot of what was produced but comparing the literature to extant bikes leaves a lot of questions and it is hard to know when the observations derived from those comparisons as to what is “factory correct” are too cautious and when they are too liberal.

  It is also hard to project exactly what, besides the actual wheels were different on the early models produced with 28” wheels. Left to blind speculation I would expect the frames to be the same between 28” and 26” models with the difference made up with fender spacers à la Snyder and a 28” specific narrow crown fork.  

I do have pictures of a very rough (supposed) 28” Falcon and it looks like it has a Balloon width corrugated crown fork. Steve Castelli was building a 28” Falcon at one time but I don’t know if it was an original or a replication.

   This is a subject that could be studied and debated forever without reaching provable conclusions. It is also somewhat irrelevant because your project is not an attempt to build a spot on replication of an original 28” Falcon. I’ll try to find the dimensions I took from my frame and forward those to you or re-measure the frame when I get a chance to extricate if from behind the couch, something I need to do to finish the Twinbar decal artwork!


----------



## rustyspoke66 (Apr 9, 2012)

Thanks again Phil, I would like to build it to be somewhat correct but not spot on as it is not a bike that deserves that type of rebuild in my eyes. I would like to build a very nice rider out of it so I can take it out and enjoy it without the worry of messing up a piece of history. The head tube worked out pretty good. I actually built a new internal lug, drilled out the head tube and installed it from the inside of the head tube into the top tube. It seem very solid but of course it might be subject to breaking if you had a serious front ind impact like it possibly had at one time in the past.


----------



## kris Nelson (Feb 7, 2018)

This one came to me with 26"x 1.375 wheels and tires that look too small (picture 1). The fork crown and rain gutters are narrow, and will not accept a 2.125 tire either. Picture 2 shows 'Goldie Locks' choice of 28" cad wheels with 1.5" tires, that seem to fit properly. I still need the tank, siren, light and rider tires, if you've got 'em.
Axle to axle is 44 3/4"


----------

