Bicycle Tire Size for Dummies

A bicycle wheel

We at the Antisocial Network just love the dumbasses at eHow.com; a site where clueless freelancers answer stupid questions. We mean, who's so out of touch with reality that he or she needs to ask "How to Determine Bicycle Tire Size"?¹ Well, whoever it was, eHow's Shelly Schumacher was apparently just as dumb, if not dumber. We kid you not.

Shelly, as eHow'.coms journalism majors so often do, began her Healthfully.com article with a scintillating introduction:

"As one of the most popular forms of exercise and sports on the plant [sic]..."

Presumably, Schumacher meant "planet," but we will never know for certain. So, anyway, to move on to the meat of the matter... Shelly presented five different ways to obtain this critical information, only one (or perhaps two) of which would be particularly useful. Any sensible cyclist (what Shelly calls a "bike rider") would use her solution number three:

"Look at the sidewall of the bicycle tire..."

...though why that isn't her number one solution, we have no idea. Look look at the "paperwork that came with your bike"? visit the website? Sheesh... But after those three "solutions," Schumacher clearly begins flailing around for additional methods (to reach that all-holy minimum word count, we presume). Why else would she suggest

"If you cannot find numbers on the wheel, you will need to measure the rim yourself. The best way to do this is to measure the tire from rim to rim or axle to rim. Take the number and double it. This will give you the approximate circumference measurement."

In case you didn't know, Shelly – it's obvious you don't – the size of a bicycle wheel isn't the circumference, it's the diameter. By the way, which number would you "take and double"? But Shelly saved her best creative writing for last: "Using a wrench, loosen the bike tire from the wheel housing. Take the wheel to a bike shop in your area. Employees at a reputable bike shop will be able to tell you the wheel size just by looking at the tire." "...loosen the bike tire from the wheel housing..."? WTF? Did she mean "remove the wheel from the frame"? We dunno... and, in case Shelly doesn't know, that employee would most certainly use method number three, read the size off the friggin' sidewall.

It's one more time when eHow failed: another freelancer who didn't know jack shit, and proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt. That makes Shelly Schumacher a worthy recipient of the Antisocial Network's Dumbass of the Day.

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_4795168_determine-bicycle-tire-size.html

copyright © 2015-2022 scmrak

DD - BICYCLES