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tire width

Old 09-25-06, 07:16 AM
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tire width

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.
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Old 09-25-06, 08:45 AM
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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)

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Old 09-25-06, 08:47 AM
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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.
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Old 09-25-06, 08:52 AM
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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.
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Old 09-25-06, 10:48 AM
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Originally Posted by HillRider
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: https://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.
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