Which wheel travels furthest?

On Jul 9, 9:54*am, TrailRat wrote:
The front one or the back one?

Surely the front one as the back one follows on behind. Ahhh, but the
back starts in the same location as it finishes, the exact same
distance behind the front one.

Anyway, the point of this madness.

I got a little bored and decided a little experiment. Before I set out
I made sure both wheels had the valves pointing straight up. The
wheels, tyres and the inner tubes are identical back and front (apart
from that big block of cogs on the back one, duh!). Both are disc
braked. I also made sure the pressure was the same.

Then I set off on a gentle 10 mile ride. All road and cycle paths.
Nothing to strenuous. I made sure to use access ramps and not just
bounce off the kerbs. I kept my speed below 15mph.

Anyway on my return, I inspected the valves expecting to find them
still aligned and was surprised to find that front one was about 4" in
front of the rear one.

So, I turn the scientific analysis to my peers and ask that ultimate
scientific question, huh??

First scientific answer is another question. How do you know the
difference in distance was 4" and not N x circumference of wheel +/-
4"?

And if it was only 4 inches in 10 miles, that's about 6 parts per
million difference, which is way smaller than any means you would have
of measuring, so doesn't show or prove anything at all. Even if you
think the wheels are identical in overall diameter, the difference you
observed would happen if there were a 0.00017 inch difference the
diameters of your 27" wheels, i.e. too small to measure.