2 Strokes Down Under

Why do manufacturers choose a wheel size for a particular bike?

Why 18's on RD & RZ

Why 18 on the front & 17 on the rear of a TDR?

Why did Honda put a 16 on the front of the first 900 Blade?

Width I get, narrower rims give faster transition and wider rims slower, from side to side.

Is there a relationship between diameter & width, I mean, 18 - 21" rims tend to be narrow while under18,s tend to be wider?

I remover swing a video of a fella testing a Goldwing, riding no hands with cruise control on, slapped one side of the handle bars, the unsettled bike became stable again a short time later!

What am I missing?


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18's came first, then 16in steered faster, then came 17in fronts, with 18in rear finaly 17in both ends. Narrow rim tends to make the cross section of the tyre rounder , wider more triangular, triangular puts more rubber on the road banked over.
MotoGP tyres are 16.5in, smaller rim dia seems to have more sidewall, like the 13in F1 rims. No straight answer, just fashion and improvements in suspension/chassis

The generation I come from, all the bikes had tall skinny 18's and such, then in the early 80's they all started playing with 16's and the talk was faster steering. Rims started getting wider, 'more rubber on the road'. Everyone was into performance, the era of he race rep and the "rich urban biker"/RUB.
16's started to be deemed skittish, but 18's too tall, so they progressively moved to 17's by the mid to late eighties. Mark 1 Blade in 92 is an interesting exception. That was deemed skittish too if I recall.
Thats the way I remember it.
Interesting what 2T says about MGP, hadn't thought about that.