I have an (10y old) mountain bike and wanted to get some spare tubes for the wheels before I head out on longer rides. I looked on my tires and found the markings "26x52/56". This seems to suggest 26" wheels (which match my measurements approximately) and a width of 52-56mm (my tires are around 53mm wide).
However I find it funny and irregular that imperial and metric measurements are mixed here. Looking online it always seems imperial and metric are NOT mixed. These makes me feel like I've misunderstood these markings.
- What do these markings mean, are they actually mixed unit measurements?
- Regardless of these measurements, how forgiving is inner tube sizing - if I measure my wheel diameter and width is that a good enough measurement to base my tube-size buying decisions upon?
Thank you kindly.