Originally Posted by
cyber.snow
Since I still want to ride the fire and forestry roads, does it make more sense to make another set of wheels with a little narrower rims? Or just change tires and tubes?
It would depend on how thin of a tire you want to run and how narrow your current rim is.
I have enjoyed the ride quality of a fatter, smooth tire on pavement, but if you feel like a thin tire is needed, then you need to figure out how thin. For me, tread is more important. I commute on mostly pavement, and I've been using 2.15" tires (26") lately, Big Ben and Almotion. If using tubes, I'd favor the Big Ben. They come as wide as 2"
Prior to those tires, I was running 700 x 40 Vittoria Hyper or Randonneur Hyper or something. They keep changing the name. Loved those tires, too, but a rim that ran a 2.25" tire might not work great with a 40mm tire.
I do have two wheelsets in use right now. It's handy to me to be able to swap wheels rather than tires, especially since they're tubeless, and it's nice to have an expanded range of tire width options. But I built up a 2nd set to get my tires wider, not narrower. I'm happy doing my pavement riding an a 2" tire as long as it's not too knobby.