I got a call from my friend John Ker at Mountain Bike Action. He was asking what I knew about vintage mountain bikes that had two different wheel sizes.
I’m willing to stand corrected if there were others, but the only bike I could remember like that was a Cannondale from the early ’80s, which had a 26″ front and 24″ rear wheel. I know there were a few “one-offs” but only one major manufacturer. The obvious problem is that you would have to carry two spare tubes, and it would be much harder to borrow a tube from another rider.
From memory I guessed that the Cannondale like that only came out a couple of years, around ’84 and ’85. I was pretty sure I had some photos, so I dived into the digital files, and found them right away, along with scans of the specs. I was exactly right on the years. Having done the work, here are the images.
Olsen did them before and designed the Cannondale.
Also think Mike Rust did some Shortys with different wheel sizes, Mike Skinner’s (later MCR) Descender and Jack Witmer (CBR) also made some/them before the Cannondale came out
Charlie Cunningham did one also, with oversize aluminum tubing, around 1980.