Originally Posted by granto

Hello all,

So last year at the LBS they guy recommended I replace the stock knobby 32mm tires on my new bike with specialized all condition armadillos on my WTB dx23 rims.

Originally Posted by granto

Thing is, there weren't any 28mms laying around, and he threw some 25mms on after asking another guy's opinion, who said I'd be fine. Not really knowing anything at the time about tire sizing, I didn't think much of it, and was generally pleased with the tires.

So one day my rear rim gets a nasty inward bend in it with a sidewall protrusion that truing just isn't going to fix. Maybe from a pothole or something, I'm not sure- I definitely liked to ride at around 115 psi but I didn't do anything extreme, just some basic city commuting. So I brought it in and they said they probably wouldn't be able to fix it if I couldn't. I then went to a local bike co-op and the guy had the correct tool to pull the rim out, but the rim has since bent on me again in new and exciting ways and things are generally going downhill. I've since learned form Sheldon that you risk rim damage from using a narrow tire on a wide rim, and this combination is definitely in the red zone.

Originally Posted by granto

What are your thoughts on this? Was it bad advice? I've since bought a new (24mm) rim, and want to put a 28 on it (which Peter White says is acceptable). Do you think it would be unreasonable to ask for a free replacement with a more reasonable size (28)? Since they didn't seem to be capable of fixing the old rim, there's not much I could ask them to do short of helping me pay for my new rim, and I thought asking for the tire they should have sold to me in the first place was a better approach. Or do you think I'm splitting hairs between the 25 and 28 and they are both running too narrow for the rim?