Bicycle Mechanics - tire width

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wmcmiii
09-25-06, 07:16 AM
Are rims designed for a certain width tire only? I have 27'' rims, but do I have a lot of flexability when choosing the width? The tires I'm looking at range from 23c-28c and I wouldn't want to buy a pair of tires that would not fit or would be unsafe.

tomacropod
09-25-06, 08:45 AM
your rims will be a certain width and as such suitable for tyres in a certain width range. Some of the wider 27" rims will be a little wide for 23c but there will be very few 27s which can't take 28s (mixing measurements, how very Italian)

- Joel
cachehiker
09-25-06, 08:47 AM
How wide is the rim when measured from inside? 13mm? 14mm? 15mm? 16mm?

I personally wouldn't use 23's on anything over 16mm. If the tires run big like Michelins, I think 28's would be fine with rims up to 19mm but I doubt I'd run them on 13mm rims. I might go for narrower 28's like some Continentals on 13mm rims but wouldn't put them on anything wider than 17mm.

BTW, most 700c rims available today are 13-15mm or 18-20mm but I believe 16mm and 17mm rims used to be more common than they are now. Be sure to get the 27" bead seat, I think it's 630 instead of 622.

HillRider
09-25-06, 08:52 AM
Rims, within reason, are pretty tolerant of tire width and relatively recent 27" rims are usually capable of handling fairly narrow tires. The narrowest 27" tires I've ever seen advertised are 7/8" (about 23 mm) and the narrowest typically available are 1" (25 mm) with 1-1/8" (28 mm) and 1-1/4" (32 mm) far more available. Any of these should be ok on your rims.
moxfyre
09-25-06, 10:48 AM
Rims, within reason, are pretty tolerant of tire width and relatively recent 27" rims are usually capable of handling fairly narrow tires. The narrowest 27" tires I've ever seen advertised are 7/8" (about 23 mm) and the narrowest typically available are 1" (25 mm) with 1-1/8" (28 mm) and 1-1/4" (32 mm) far more available. Any of these should be ok on your rims.
+1

To the OP, here's Sheldon Brown's guide to matching tire and rim width: http://sheldonbrown.com/tire-sizing.html#width Note that a given rim has a lot of latitude in terms of the width that it can accomodate. For typical 27" rims found on most sport-touring road bikes from the 80s, anything from about 25 mm to 38 mm should be ideal.