12" vs 14"

Sarge, also keep this in mind. My family was in the tire biz for many years so this is where my mind goes imediately. Less sidewall=stiffer rider.

Let's be honest, these are utility bikes, not sport bikes. A larger wheel, thus a shorter sidewall is gonna make it handle better (but still ride stiffer) b/c there isn't as much sidewall to flex, just like on a car tire. Most of our time on these bikes is done in the woods and/or on rough trails. If you take a 12" wheel with 26" tall tire and do a full trail test on it, then take and 14" wheel with the same style 26" tires, run the same trail test, you're gonna find the 14's had a rougher ride. The only way you could bump up and salvage your ride comfort is to up-size the tires porportionately so they have more sidewall, thus the same soft ride. A large determinant in how much the ride should sufffer is what size tires also, If you're gonna be running 30" tires, a 12 or a 14 inch wheel is probably not gonna make a comfort different and as a matter of fact, I would almost recommend a 14 with a 30" tire. My reason is that at that point, you just have too much sidewall with a 12 and your handling will siffer.

So, there are a couple of things to consider when deciding between a 12 and a 14" wheel:

• Is the cosmetic gain more important to you than a loss in ride quality
• What size tire will you be going with
• Do you potentially ever ride somewhere where you could get stuck on a trail with an irrepairable hole and a dealer not close by that stock 14" tires.

Personally, I perfer the look of the 14's as well. But, I have 12's. Would I like to have some 14's as a second set. Hell yeah, they look great. Would I use 14's if I had them. Sure I would but when I was going to the rough stuff, the 12's would go on.

Just my thoughts.

Buster

Buster, I will be Devil's advocate here. I think the trades offs you mentioned are true, to a point.
The 14" are mainly (maybe only) available in oversized tires. Therefore the sidewall flex of a 26" tire for absorbtion and sideload handling purposes would be comparable to the 25" stock tires on 12" rims.
Now take that same comparison with 27" tires and you would have a small gain in absorbtion and a small loss in side load flex. But, take that 27" tire on 12" rims and you notice a IMO sluggish cornering.
I would much rather have a better turn handling machine over a straightline bump handling. With any machine, i think shocks and springs will make a lot more difference in both cases than a tire will, agree?
So I guess what it really comes down to is "bling", and I think we can all agree that a nice rim is a whole lot sexier than some black rubber doughnut. :icon_thumleft:
I do agree that the 14" has a much higher advantage with the 29"+ tires.