Tire Sizing Charts:

Inch-Based Systems: Metric-Based Sizing Systems:

Decimal Fractional French ISO/E.T.R.T.O.

Which Size Tire Fits Which Size Rim?

Bicycle tires come in a bewildering variety of sizes. To make matters worse,

in the early days of cycling, every country that manufactured bicycles
developed its own system of marking the sizes. The same size tire would be
known by different numbers in different countries. Even worse, different-
sized tires that were not interchangeable with one another were often marked
with the same numbers!

This page covers sizes in common use as of its writing, and a number of older
sizes. Sutherland's Handbook for Bicycle Mechanics, 3rd through 6th edition,
covers dozens of additional, antique sizes. The 6th edition is available on CD
ROM from Sutherland's. Better bike shops have a copy.

Which Size Tire Fits Which Bicycle?

To determine which tire size will fit, perform measurements on the bicycle's
fork and frame.

If the bicycle has rim brakes, the rim must line up with the brake shoes and so
only one rim size or a small range of sizes will work. So, first measure the
distance from where the center of the hub axle would be in a dropout to the
center of a brake shoe. Then look up the rim radius in the ISO table on this
page. A different rim size may be possible with different brakes, though
longer brake reach generally results in poorer brake performance.

The front tire must not reach the fork crown; the rear tire must not reach the
seatstay bridge or chainstay bridge. Take measurements from the axle position
to the fork crown, chainstay bridge and seatstay bridge. Tire outside radius is
nominally the rim radius plus the tire width, and as much as 1 cm greater for a
tire with a deep tread. A tire must have typically 1 cm clearance, 2 cm if a
fender will be installed, but do not use a wheel that is much smaller, or a pedal
is too likely to strike the ground in cornering. On a bicycle with horizontal
dropouts, additional clearance to the chainstay bridge is desirable so the wheel
can be removed without deflating the tire.
The space between the fork blades or stays must be wide enough to clear the
tire, with a few mm extra on each side in case the wheel goes slightly out of
true. Measure at the radius of the widest part of the tire, usually the rim radius
plus half the tire width --except that the widest part may be at the tread of an
off-road tire. Nominal tire width is marked on the tire; actual width can be
measured if the tire is installed on a rim.

If the bicycle has hub brakes (drum, disk, coaster), different rim sizes are
possible as long as the tire is fits the frame. A larger rim goes with a skinnier
tire, and vice versa..

Traditional Sizing Systems

The traditional sizing systems are based on a measurement of the outside
diameter of a tire. This would usually be measured in inches (26", 27", etc.) or
millimeters (650, 700, etc.).

Unfortunately, evolution of tires and rims has made these measurements lose
contact with reality. Here's how it works: Let's start with the 26 x 2.125 size
that became popular on heavyweight "balloon tire" bikes in the late '30's and
still remains common on "beach cruiser" bikes. This size tire is very close to
26 inches in actual diameter. Some riders, however, were dissatisfied with
these tires, and wanted something a bit lighter and faster. The industry
responded by making "middleweight" tires marked 26 x 1.75 to fit the same
rims. Although they are still called "26 inch", these tires are actually 25 5/8",
not 26". This same rim size was adopted by the early pioneers of west-coast
"klunkers", and became the standard for mountain bikes. Due to the appetite
of the market, you can get tires as narrow as 25 mm to fit these rims, so you
wind up with a "26 inch" tire that is more like 24 7/8" in actual diameter!

A second number or letter code would indicate the width of the tire. (26 x
1.75, 27 x 1 1/4...650B, 700C...)

Does Point Seven Five Equal Three Quarters?

Inch-based designations sometimes express the width in a decimal (26 x 1.75)
and sometimes as a common fraction (26 x 1 3/4). This is the most common
cause of mismatches. Although these size designations are mathematically
equal, they refer to different size tires, which are NOT interchangeable. It is
dangerous to generalize when talking about tire sizing, but I would
confidently state the following:
Brown's Law Of Tire Sizing:

If two tires are marked with sizes that are mathematically equal,
but one is expressed as a decimal and the other as a fraction,
these two tires will not be interchangeable. (well, there are three exceptions,
noted in the tables below...)

Dishonesty in Sizing
Competitive pressures have often led to inaccuracy in width measurement.
Here's how it works: Suppose you are in the market for a high-performance
700 x 25 tire; you might reasonably investigate catalogues and advertisements
to try to find the lightest 700-25 available. If the Pepsi Tire Company and the
Coke Tire Company had tires of equal quality and technology, but the Pepsi
700-25 was actually a 700-24 marked as a 25, the Pepsi tire would be lighter
than the accurately-marked Coke 700-25. This would put Pepsi at a
competitive advantage. In self defense, Coke would retaliate by marketing an
even lighter 700-23 labeled as a 700-25.

This scenario prevailed throughout the '70's and '80's. The situation got so out-
of-hand that cooler heads have prevailed, and there is a strong (but not
universal) trend toward accurate width measurements.

Some road bicycles have extremely tight clearances and will not fit an honest
28mm tire. See comments in our article on fenders.

B.S.D.

ISO, the International Organization for Standardization, has

developed a universal tire and rim sizing system that eliminates
confusion. (This system was formerly known as the "E.T.R.T.O."
system, developed by the European Tyre
and Rim Technical Organisation.)

The ISO system uses two numbers. The first is width in

millimeters. For the rim, this is the inner width between the
flanges, as shown in the diagram; for the tire, it is the inflated
width. This will vary a bit depending on the width of the rim.

The second ISO number is the critical one: it is the diameter of

the bead seat of the rim, in mm ("B.S.D."). Generally, if this
 number matches, the tire involved will fit onto the rim; if it doesn't match, the
tire won't fit.

For example, a 700 x 20 C road tire would be a 20-622; a 700 x 38 hybrid tire
would be a 38-622. The width difference between these sizes would make
them less-than ideal replacements for one another, but any rim that could
fit one of them would work after a fashion with the other.

A general guideline is that the tire width should be between 1.45/2.0 x the
inner rim width.

If you pull the beads apart and measure the total width from bead to bead, it
should be approximately 2.5 x the ISO width.

If your tire is too narrow for the rim, there's an increased risk of tire/rim
damage from road hazards.

If its too wide for the rim, there's an increase risk of sidewall wear from brake
shoes, and a greater risk of loss of control in the event of a sudden flat.

The tables below give a partial listing of traditional tire sizes, with their ISO
bead-seat equivalents. The ISO comparison list at the bottom of this page
covers all sizes which we know to be in production as of 2016. The fractional,
decimal and French lists cover common sizes.

Fractional sizes
Fractional ISO Applications

36 inch 787 mm Unicycles, some novelty bicycles

32 inch 686 mm Unicycles, some novelty bicycles

29 inch 622 mm This is a marketing term for wide 622 mm ("700C") tires.

English, Dutch, Chinese, Indian Rod-brake roadsters

635 mm
(Also marked F10, F25, 700 B)
28 x 1 1/2

622 mm (F.13) Rare Canadian designation

28 x 1 5/8 x Northern European designation for the 622 mm (700 C) size

 1 1/2 635 mm Old Swedish designation

27 x
anything except "27
630 mm Older road bikes.
five" and 609 mm
Danish

27 x 1 1/2 609 mm Rare Danish size

26 x 1 (650 C) 571 mm Triathlon, time trial, small road bikes. Old Schwinn S-4

26 x 1 1/4 Older British sport & club bikes

597 mm
26 x 1 3/8
Schwinn "lightweights"
(S-6)

26 x 1 3/8 (E.A.3) 590 mm Most English 3-speeds, department-store or juvenile 10 speeds

French utility, tandem and loaded-touring bikes,

26 x 1 1/2 (650B) 584 mm
a very few Raleigh (U.S.) & Schwinn mountain bikes.

26 x 1 3/4
Schwinn "middleweight" cruisers
(S-7)
571 mm
High performance wheels for smaller riders, common on Cannondale
26 x 1, 1 1/8
bicycles

24 x 1 520 mm High performance wheels for smaller riders; Terry front

520 mm or
24 x 1 1/8 Caveat emptor. 540mm is common on wheelchairs.
540 mm!

24 x 1 1/4 British or Schwinn Juvenile

547 mm
24 x 1 3/8
Schwinn Juvenile lightweights
(S-5)

24 x 1 3/4
520 mm Schwinn "Middleweights"
(S7)

24 x 1 3/8 British Juvenile, most wheelchairs; common on women's utility bicycles

540 mm
(E-5) in Japan.

22 x 1 3/8 NL 489 mm Dutch juvenile

20 x 1 1/8
Juvenile lightweights, BMX for light riders, some recumbents, some
20 x 1 1/4 451 mm
folding bicycles
20 x 1 3/8

20 x 1 3/4 419 mm Schwinn juvenile

20 x 2 438 mm Swedish
 18 x 1 3/8 400 mm British juvenile

17 x 1 1/4 369 mm Alex Moulton AM series

16 x 1 3/8 349 mm Older Moulton; Brompton & other folders, recumbent front, juvenile

16 x 1 3/8 337 mm Mystery tire

16 x 1 3/8 335 mm Polish juvenile

16 x 1 3/4 317 mm Schwinn Juvenile

14 x 1 3/8 298 mm Moulton mini, etc.

12 1/2 x anything 203 mm Juvenile, scooters

10 x 2 152 mm Wheelchair caster

8 x 1 1/4 137 mm Wheelchair caster

Traditionally, fractional sizes are made for straight-sided rims. High-

performance sizes (520 mm, 571, 622 mm etc.) are preferably used
with hook-edge rims, which can hold higher pressure and center the tires
more reliably. Tubeless tires may use special hook-edge rims that form an
airtight seal.

Decimal sizes:

Decimal ISO Applications

29 inch This is a marketing term for wide 622 mm ("700C") tires.

622 mm Some German tire companies use this non-standard

28 x decimal designation for 622 mm ("700C") tires -- violates Brown's
law!

Marketing term for wide, knobby 584 mm tires.

"27 five" (meaning 27.5) 584 mm
Some Mountain bikes

Most Mountain bikes, cruisers, fatbikes etc. Old Schwinn

26 x 1.00 through 5.0 559 mm
designation was S-2

26 x 1.25 (rare) 599 mm Very old U.S. lightweights

 26 x 1.375 (rare) Very old U.S. lightweights

24 x 1.,5 (Dutch, rare) 534 mm Still made in India as of 2022

24 x 1.5-24 x 2.125 507 mm Juvenile mountain bikes, cruisers

22 x 1.75, 22 x 2.125 457 mm Juvenile

20 x 1.5-20 x 2.125 406 mm Most BMX, juvenile, folders, trailers, some recumbents

18 x 1.5 Birdy folding bikes

355 mm
18 x 1.75-18 x 2.125 Juvenile

Juvenile, folders, trailers, Strida, early DaHon,

16 x 1.75-16 x 2.125 305 mm
some recumbents

14 x 1.75-14 x 2.125 254 mm Juvenile

12 1/2 x anything 203 mm Juvenile, scooters

French sizes:
In the French system, the first number is the nominal outside diameter in mm,
followed by a letter code for the width: "A" is narrow, "D" is wide. The letter
codes no longer correspond to the tire width, since narrow tires are often made
for rim sizes that originally took wide tires; for example, 700 C was originally
a wide size, but now is available in very narrow widths, with actual outside
diameters as small as 660 mm.
 French Size ISO Applications

700 A 642 mm Obsolete

700 B 635 mm Rod-brake roadsters.

Road bikes, hybrids, "29 inch" MTBs.

700 C 622 mm
(28 x 1 1/2 F.13 Canada)

French version of 26 x 1 3/8; Italian high-performance bikes

650 A 590 mm
for smaller riders

French utility bikes, tandems, and loaded-touring bikes; some

650 B 584 mm older Raleigh and Schwinn mountain bikes. Also called 27
five. See We have a page about this size.

Oddball size formerly used on some GT models. 650B tire

700 D 583 mm
(584 mm) is close enough, maybe with wide rim tape.

Triathlon, time trial, high performance road bikes for smaller

650 C 571 mm
riders

600 A 540 mm European Juvenile road bikes, most wheelchairs

550 A 490 mm European Juvenile road bikes

500 A 440 mm European Juvenile, folding

450 A 390 mm European Juvenile

400 A 340 mm European Juvenile

350 A 288 mm European juvenile

ISO Cross Reference:

Bead Seat Diameter, Bead Seat Radius,
Traditional Designations
mm mm

787 393.5 36 inch

686 343 32 inch

28 x 1 1/2, 700 B, 28 x 1 5/8 x

635 317.5
1 1/2 (old, Sweden)

27 x anything except "27 five" and

630 315
609 mm

700 C, 28 x 1 5/8 x 1 1/2 and other

pairs of numbers, (but also see
622 311
635), 29 inch,
28 x 1 1/2 F.13 Canada

609 304.5 Rare Danish size, 27 x 1 1/2

599 299.5 26 x 1.25, x 1.375 -- old US size

597 298.5 26 x 1 1/4, 26 x 1 3/8 (S-6)

590 295 26 x 1 3/8 (E.A.3), 650 A

584 292 650B, 26 x 1 1/2, "27 five"

583 291.5 700 D -- oddball size made by GT

571 285.5 26 x 1, 26 x 1 3/4, 650 C

26 x 1.00- x 2.125, also fatbike

559 279.5
tires up to 5 inches wide

547 273.5 24 x 1 1/4, 24 x 1 3/8 (S-5)

541 270.5 600 A

540 270 24 x 1 1/8, 24 x 1 3/8 (E.5),

534 267 Dutch 24 x 1.5

520 260 24 x 1, 24 x 1 1/8, 24 x 1 3/4

507 253.5 24 x 1.5- x 2.125

501 250.5 British, 22 x 1 3/8, 22 x 1.00

490 245 550 A

 Dutch juvenile 22 x 1 1/8 NL,
489 244.5
22 x 1 3/8 NL

484 242 550 B

457 228.5 22 x 1.75; x 2.125

451 225.5 20 x 1 1/8; x 1 1/4; x 1 3/8

440 220 500 A

438 219 Dutch juvenile, 20 x 1 3/8 NL

428 214 Swedish, 20 x 2

419 209.5 20 x 1 3/4

406 203 20 x 1.5- x 2.125

390 195 450 A

369 184.5 17 x 1 1/4

355 177.5 18 x 1.5- x 2.125

349 174.5 16 x 1 3/8

340 170 400 A

337 168.5 16 x 1 3/8

317 158.5 16 x 1 3/4

305 152.5 16 x 1.75- x 2.125

298 149 14 x 1 3/8, Moulton Mini

288 144 350 A

254 127 14 x 1.75

203 101.5 12 1/2 X anything.

 152 76 10 x 2

137 68.5 8 x 1 1/4

Most of this information was compiled by John Allen for Sutherland's

Handbook For Bicycle Mechanics, the bible of bicycle
technology. Sutherland's, 6th edition has a more detailed, more thorough
version of this chart.

Got an unmarked rim but no tire? Click Here for how

to measure Rim Size.

Width Considerations
Although you can use practically any tire/rim combination that shares the
same bead-seat diameter, as already noted, it is unwise to use widely disparate
sizes.

If you use a very narrow tire on a wide rim, you risk pinch flats and rim
damage from road hazards.

If you use a very wide tire on a narrow rim, you risk sidewall or rim failure.
This combination causes very sloppy handling at low speeds. Unfortunately,
current mountain-bike fashion pushes the edge of this. In the interest of
weight saving, most current mountain bikes have excessively narrow rims.
Such narrow rims work very poorly with wide tires, unless the tires are
overinflated...but that defeats the purpose of wide tires, and puts undue stress
on the rim sidewalls.

The "fatbike" phenomenon has led to the availability of very wide tires and
rims. These should only be used together.

Georg Boeger has kindly provided a chart showing recommended width

combinations:
 Which tire fits safely on which rim?
[all dimensions in millimeters]

Tire width

Rim
width 18 20 23 25 28 32 35 37 40 44 47 50 54 57
(interior)

13 X X X X

15 X X X X

17 X X X X X

19 X X X X X X

21 X X X X X X

23 X X X X

25 X X X X X

Note: This chart may err a bit on the side of caution. Many cyclists use
slightly wider tires with no problem.

A Bit of History and Math

The cross-section of a tire's fabric is an arc of a circle -- only a full circle with
tubulars. The rim takes up the part of the circle that is not represented by the
tire.

The rim is typically 0.7 times as wide as the tire, and a bit of trigonometry will
get you that the rim occupies about 90 degrees of what would be the
circumference of the circle. The tire occupies the other 270 degrees (3/4 of
the circle) and so the width when mounted on the rim is 4/(3 * pi), about 0.4,
times the width when laid out flat.

Rim and tire widths of course vary, so this result is not exact.

A suggestion to measure tire width with the tire laid out flat first appeared in
the third edition of Sutherland's Handbook for Bicycle Mechanics (1980), and
I was the author of that suggestion.
That edition also included the first published tire-size chart using the ETRTO
marking standard, other than in the original ETRTO technical document. I
performed the calculations for the chart on a Hewlett-Packard Model 27
pocket calculator.

--John Allen

Wilderness Trail Bikes' Global Measuring System

From the WTB Website:

GMS Global Measuring System The current

industry standard for specifying the actual inflated
size of a bicycle tire does not account for subtle
variation in tread and casing size. To address this
problem and provide you with more information
for comparing tires, WTB has introduced the
Global Measuring System (GMS) for tire
measurement.

The GMS uses a two-number system: the first number is the width of the
casing, and the second number is the width of the tread, both in millimeters.
These measurements are taken on a rim which is 20 mm wide at the bead-
capturing point, with a tire inflated to 60psi and maintained for 24 hours.

In addition to being able accurately to size a tire, knowing the actual casing
size and tread width provides an indication of air volume, tread characteristics
and tread contact area; all of which provide you with a more concise idea of
what ride characteristics to expect from each of WTB's tires.

Tubular Tires ("Sew-ups")

Tubular tires are mainly used for racing. A tubular tire has no beads; instead,
the two edges of the carcass are sewn together (hence the term "sew-up") with
the inner tube inside. Tubulars fit only on special rims, where they are held on
by cement.
Unless special cement which does not allow on-road replacement of a tire is
used, tubulars "squirm" against the rims and are slower than the best wired-on
tires, even though lighter -- see details from Jobst Brandt.

Tubulars existed in several different sizes, but only 700c and 26-inch tubulars
are readily available these days. Beware: sizes of 26" and 24" tubulars are
not well-standardized. Take the rim with you when buying a tire, and
vice versa. Size variations of tubulars are covered in Sutherland's Handbook
for Bicycle Mechanics, 7th Edition, available from Sutherland's, and on the
mechanic's bookshelf at better bike shops.

 Full-sized tubulars fit rims of the same diameter as 622 mm

(700c) clinchers. This size is sometimes referred to as "28 inch"
or "700". It is also, confusingly, sometimes referred to as "27
inch." The "27 inch" designation is inaccurate and obsolete, but
you'll sometimes run into it in older printed material.

In clincher tires, there is a real difference between "700c" and

"27 inch" sizes, but for tubulars this is a false distinction.
Whenever you see mention of "27 inch tubulars" the writer is
actually referring to standard full-sized tubulars, as used on most
racing bikes.

 "26 inch" or "650" tubulars are smaller, mainly used on time-trial

or motorpacing track bikes. There are two common "26 inch"
sizes, corresponding to the 584 mm and 571 mm ISO sizes.
There are a couple of oddball sizes as well.
 "24 inch" (two slightly different sizes), "22 inch" "20 inch" and
"18 inch" tubulars were formerly used for children's racing bikes,
but are pretty much extinct these days. The "18 inch" size
corresponds to the "17 inch" (369 mm) size used on Moulton
bicycles.
Tubulars are also sometimes called "sew-ups" or "tubs" (British usage.)

If you want to sound like an ignorant yahoo, call them "tubies" or "tubeless
tires." Tubeless tires for bicycles have bead wires, and are special only in
being designed to hold air without an inner tube.