Originally Posted by
LarDasse74
This may have been the best choice until 26 X 1.5 and 700 X 35C tires became so readily available. Considering that most 26X1-3/8 wheels have single wall steel rims, I think their advantage is gone. Narrow rims are not the problem - narrow tires are. Wide tires protect rims - even narrow rims - from dents.
Back in the 80's many nicer 26 inch rims were much wider than they are now and the trend has been to make them narrower and narrower which works better with V brakes than it did with cantis but it does cause issues with things like snakebites if the tyre is too wide for the rim. Some of the solutions to this has been to use tubeless tyres but a wider rim would do much to prevent this.
Recently switched a few of my bikes to a slightly wider rim without changing tyres and with wider rims that are a closer match to the tyre a little less tyre pressure is required to get the same rollout and the ride quality really has improved. Difference in rims has only been 1/4 inch in width which still does not exceed the tyre width.