Originally Posted by CrossChain
How wide a tire can I safely put on an Open Pro rim? I'm guessing 32, but hoping for 35. General purpose, utility use including commuting and general dinking around.
Typically the frame is a bigger limiting factior, for example the rims on my MTB are 19mm wide, and currently hold a 53mm (2.1") tire, however one thing to remember, the wider the tire, the lower the pressure, so if your running 8 bar in your 28s, you might want to be 7 bar in a 32 and 6,5 bar in 35s. Of course some of this depends on the tires as well, if your tire is limited to 6 bar, then you want to run at 6 bar, even though the rim can handle 6,5 bar. Now I have the opposite problem, I am switching to narrower tire, probably a 35mm, which means I can gain some pressure, and can probably run at 6 - 6,5 bar without damaging the rims.
Now the frame, some frames, are designed for a certain tire limit, and going to a wider tire, will cause it to rub on the stays or the brakes. I would say make sure you have at least 2mm on either side preferably 4mm and the same for the brake and chain stay bridges although you want more like 8mm of room there.