Ordered 26″ x 11//4 x 13/8 Woods City Bike Tubes for my wife’s MTB for slicks. Arrived yesterday but they seem way too big when getting them on the rim. Loads of slack when putting the tyre. They say 26″ on the tube but they just seem too big. I’ve never seen this but is this ‘normal’ for this size and high pressure tubes for MTBs?

the sizes with imperial in them as you have are for tyres similarly measured, not compatible with modern mtb tyre sizes.

you need 26 x 1.5 or 26x 2.00. and avoiding woods valves is a good idea.

Not sure I follow what you mean, why aren’t 26″ x 11/4 – 13/8 comparible to 26 x 1.5. Basically what tubes for:

Schwalbe Marathon Plus

the tubes you have aren’t the right ones.

which size?

You need tubes for 26 x 1.5 to 1.75.
the tubes you ordered are for old standard imperial wheels that are still used on touring bikes etc.

Cheers Lads! I’ll send them back

I have this problem every week at work, no matter how often I ‘helpfully instruct’ (no swearing involved…) my dear colleagues to: “Just look at the darn metric size! ’20″‘ means NOTHING!!!!!”

We can harp on about how great the Imperial system is, but, actually, I think you’ll find, at the end of the day, it’s, a lot of the time, not very good.

I secretly hope that all this talk fo 26 and 29 and 700 will one day die out and we can use 559 and 622 instead.

Less ranty and more helpfully, according to the tyre-bible, it looks like you’ve got tubes for 597 wheels.

EDIT: just had a look at that link, basspine… no reflection on you, as doubtless Google is the guilty party, but it’s truly awful. Skip everything except the last paragraph.