Originally Posted by Sheldon Brown
High profile rims are useful for wheels that don't have enough spokes, but if you're running 36 spokes (and you should for touring) the wheel will get its vertical strength from the spokes.
There's no reason for a rim to be heavy on a wheel with plenty of spokes, and with properly inflated tires of width suitable for the application.
The rim only needs strength when the tire bottoms out. If your tires are wide enough and properly inflated there shouldn't be an issue of rim strength.
For loaded touring you should be on medium or wide tires, typically 32 mm or wider. Wide tires don't work so well on narrow rims, so the principal need for a "touring" rim is that it be reasonably wide.
Sheldon "MA3, CR-18" Brown
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| Never do today what you can do tomorrow. |
| Something may occur to make you regret |
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Mr Brown-
I AM SO HONORED THAT YOU HAVE ANSWERED MY QUESTION.
Thanks for all the free info on your website. Invaluable. You are one of the legends. In fact, I saw your new gunnar on fixedgeargallery and rushed to get mine submitted so that it could sit in your shadow!!!
Thinking about it, A friend of mine, very experienced bike tourist, was riding on an 80's trek with rusty nipples that needed some butter on old 27 inch wheels. maybe I have a pic that will fit on the forum...
I was so excited to see his touring setup, but was a little disappointed to see how much crap he had! I thought he was a minimalist!
I gotta share hwo awesome he is, He's hiked the AT, PCT, CDT, touring in europe, asia, he is a great traveler, he was riding to MT from chicago, via st louis, and north along the divide to MT to finish his cdt trip.
Here's 2 quotes from him:
I like a 40 for my big chainring.
when I asked him how he affords to do all this traveling:
"I don't tell people what I do, I tell people what I don't do. Haven't had a car in 20 years, no phone, not married, no kids, no house."