Can I fit road wheels on my mountain bike?

[night cycler]

I have 26” (x2.75) wheels on my mountain bike. It’s not a bad frame and it’s not chunky-just normal. I’m interested in getting a pair of road wheels with say 700x28 tyres and putting them on for when I want to cycle on the road. Is this doable and ok? Anyone see any problem in doing this?

 

[davidallenxyz]

Biggest problem will be the different position of the braking surfaces (if using rim brakes).

Easiest solution overall is a set of MTB road tyres (put on a spare set of MTB wheels if you will be changing from on to off-road regularly).

 

[Mobytek]

700 is not 26".

You can either:
get some road tyres for 26" wheel
Get a set of 26 road wheels with suitable tyres
become well versed with changing tyre without nipping inner tubes and swap as needed.

Just be aware of the cassette swap / interchange as road and MTB dont mix easily, if geting a second set of wheels.

any other size and you're going to encounter brake / rim alignment problems, and maybe even fitting, possibly.

 

[raleighnut]

Schwalbe Marathon 26" x 1.5, jobs a good un.

 

[night cycler]

David-if I get a set of MTB road tyres, will I have to ensure that the spare set of MTB wheels are narrower (to take the narrower tyres)? I am assuming this because my current MTB tyres are 2.75. I am assuming that the road tyres are much narrower than 2.75 and may not fit my rims? Please could you clarify?

Mobytec-As you highlight potential problems with cassette interchange, it is probably best for me to avoid putting road bike wheels on my MTB (at least with the rear). Maybe ok with the front?

 

[Stonepark]

Check your rim size as most rims accept a variety of tyre sizes.

For instance a 25mm rim can normally accept 42mm to 57mm tyres.

 

[night cycler]

ok Stonepark, what is the narrowist size mountain bike tyres I can get?

 

[slowmotion]

Check the width of the hubs on your current wheels. You need to get the same width hubs on the new ones so they can fit onto your frame correctly. Check the brake positions if you have rim brakes, as has been said already. You might need different brake pad shoes. Other than that, I don't see a problem.

 

[RecordAceFromNew]

Conti grand prix, 28mm.

"Road" cassette is generally not a problem on a mtb wheel, since its ratios are invariably a subset. Road rear hubs are however generally 130mm wide while mtb hubs are 135mm or more, even assuming they have the same axle standard, but there is nothing to stop you marrying road rim to mtb hub or vice versa. Some consider converting to disc a way to make wheel swap easier (by taking rim size although not tyre clearance out of the equation), but it is harder to avoid brake rub with disc brakes.

 

[Tim Hall]

Umm, has anyone considered that a 700c wheel has a greater diameter than a 26 inch, so may well not fit in the frame?

 

[night cycler]

ok, good job you mentioned about width of hubs. I thought they were all the same width if they were 26" wheels.

 

[Cubist]

Just use some 1.5 slicks. 700 probably won't fit your fork anyway, and as said above the rear axle will be too narrow, even if there's enough clearance to your seat stays and down tube. You can get a pair of used 26 inch wheels for a pittance, and a cheap cassette for not much dosh, so all you need to swap are the wheels.

 

[Globalti]

I've tried this with my full-rigid mountain bike. Fitted with 1.5 inch slicks the bike looks stupid and horribly under-wheeled. So I fitted the 700c disc road wheels from my Tricross, which worked well although terribly sluggish, and filled the frame but were within 3mm of the bridges. So I stuck with 26" although I looked around for a set of 27.5" wheels as I reckoned they would look much better and would fit perfectly. I'm still interested in exploring that option and just need to borrow some of the mid-sized wheels with slicks to try.

I don't know why anybody would want 29" wheels on a mountain bike, the 700cs felt so sluggish and slow-steering; they spoiled what should be a nimble and quick-handling XC bike. Gawd knows how they perform with fat knobbly tyres on them.

 

[MichaelW2]

You may be able to switch rim size with disk brakes. You will still need MTB hubs of correct width.
Cheapest option is narrow slick tyres, 1.5 or 1.25 on your 26" rims". These used to be common when MTBers rode in road events.
A new (or old) option is 27.5/650b. Slick road tyres in this size used to be a rare item from specialist boutique bike shops, but now that half of all new MTBs are 27.5", a few more slicks are becoming widely available.

 

[lpretro1]

A standard road wheel 700c will usually be 130mm OLD. A standard mtb wheel 26" will be 135mm OLD. So you need to check. Also when swapping wheels you may well,have to adjust gear limiters on rd as no two wheels are ever exactly the same