Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
In this video, we take a look at a vintage road racing bike from the early 1980s, and I show you the biggest possible tire that will fit on a classic road racing bike from the 1980s. The bike in the video is made by Peugeot, and it is one of the road racing bikes that was intended to run 700 x 20 C tires. This is a steel framed bike, and it has horizontal dropouts, so I was able to move the wheel back far enough to fit a 700 x 35C tire on it. I measured the gap between the widest part of the tire in the frame and found it to measure 38C, so that means you could fit a maximum tire size of 35C on a vintage road racing bicycle of this style. If your vintage road racing bike has vertical dropouts, then you probably won’t be able to go much bigger with the tire because you can’t move the wheel back backwards. I hope this helps some of you who are restoring vintage bikes or wondering if you could buy one and put bigger or more comfortable tires on it. The 35C tire works great on my Peugeot Tourmalet vintage road racing bike.  on this vintage road, racing bike, and many others, there is a lot more clearance to run a bigger tire on the front fork. 
In this video, we take a look at a vintage road racing bike from the early 1980s, and I show you the biggest possible tire that will fit on a classic road racing bike from the 1980s. The bike in the video is made by Peugeot, and it is one of the road racing bikes that was intended to run 700 x 20 C tires. This is a steel framed bike, and it has horizontal dropouts, so I was able to move the wheel back far enough to fit a 700 x 35C tire on it. I measured the gap between the widest part of the tire in the frame and found it to measure 38C, so that means you could fit a maximum tire size of 35C on a vintage road racing bicycle of this style. If your vintage road racing bike has vertical dropouts, then you probably won’t be able to go much bigger with the tire because you can’t move the wheel back backwards. I hope this helps some of you who are restoring vintage bikes or wondering if you could buy one and put bigger or more comfortable tires on it. The 35C tire works great on my Peugeot Tourmalet vintage road racing bike.  on this vintage road, racing bike, and many others, there is a lot more clearance to run a bigger tire on the front fork. 
