Bicycle Mechanics - 35c tires on road wheels?

I'm a bit confused on this one. Are 700x35c cross tires ment for normal 700c road rims or are cross rims wider? Search function isn't working so I apoligize for the trivalness of the question. Thanks.

You can use 700 x 35 cross tires on "normal" 700C road rims. Look at cyclocross bikes, touring bikes, etc, you're in good company :)

Sheldon Brown has an article on rim widths and the tires you can run on them if you poke around his page.

Cross rims are in general wider (and hence beefier) but many people, particularly those wacky MTB folks, run wide tires on narrow rims.

Right now I'm running a set of IRC Mythos CX (700x42) on a pair or Mavic CXP33 rims.

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/3710/s5030229kw9.th.jpg (http://img87.imageshack.us/my.php?image=s5030229kw9.jpg)

Big tires mean low pressure. But if you run a big tire on a narrow rim
at normal pressure the bike will do weird things like hop in corners.
You can pump the tire harder, but then you lost most of the reasons you
got a big tire in the first place. On a typical road rim 28c is the usual limit, 30c
can be done but I have experienced hopping with with a 30c tire on a road rim.

On my cross bike I run 700C x 40 Victoria tires on Sun 700C aero rims. Been using the for several years without problems. The Victorias are nice as the are relatively high prssure tires (90psi) for good road riding and are still nice and wide for off roading. I wouldn't necessarily recommend wide tires on narrow rims but I had both the tires and rims and put them together with good results. Roger

...Are 700x35c cross tires ment for normal 700c road rims or are cross rims wider?...

Hi fixedgnar!

In theory and in practice, many cyclocross folks run wide tires on road rims. In fact, the Mavic CXP-33 is a popular rim for cyclocross use, and many cyclocross racers use it with wide tires. I tried the same and here's what happened to me:

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=201510

It is still unknown why my rim failed. Some say because I had 80 psig in my 700x37c tires; some say because I'm a clydesdale; some say because Mavic's quality control is poor lately... Could be all of the above. In any case, I won't be running wide tires on road rims again! Your life, your choice.

thanks everbody. the reason i ask is i plan on running studded tires from nashbar on my winter beater, fixed conversion. i dont plan on hauling ass and i will be running them at pretty low pressure. based on responses im going to give it a try. i will let everyone know if i have a problem.

Sheldon Brown's chart is towards the bottom of the page found at the following link.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/tire-sizing.html