Originally Posted by
rekmeyata
27" tubes are difficult to find and they're junk now so switching over to presta gets you better quality tubes.
I've never seen someone suggest there was such a thing as a 27" tube. If you look on most 622/700c tubes you'll see on the box that they are marked for both the 622/700c size AND the comparable 630/27" size. Tubes stretch and the 8mm variance isn't enough for their to be a difference in what tube to use. Did you intend to state that 700c/27" Schrader tubes were hard to find?
Originally Posted by
rekmeyata
As far as modern rims being more sturdier than older ones is simply not true. I have lots of older rims that I rarely have to true, in fact one of mine has over 30k miles on it and I doubt I had to true them more than three times and then it wasn't much, and these were light weight Torelli Master Series rims, I did have these rims built with DT Revolution spokes on the front and Competition on the rear and they are 36 spoke wheels, but none of my original 27" wheels go out of true much at all. I think the older rims are actually more sturdier! All I hear on forums about rims today is that a rim cracked, a spoke broke and taco'd the rim, this is the problem with higher tensioned spokes and too few spokes use in modern wheels.
Obviously this is all my opinion, in the end you have to do what you want to do to your bike, but there is no reason to shy away from 27" rims and tires.
You're right. The Mavic Module 4 rims were some of the best touring rims EVER made, and Mavic certainly doesn't build rims using their special alloy alchemy that they used for the Module 4 rims anymore. Its been stated it was just too expensive. Andrew Muzi at Yellow Jersey loves to explain to people that vintage Mavic Module 4 rims were stronger than anything being offered today.
Also, I've got 630/27" Wolber rims in the garage that were actually Magnesium, believe it or not. Magnesium absorbs shock/vibration better than anything, it has the highest damping capacity of any material. Yet Magnesium is about 1/3 lighter than aluminum and half again lighter than titanium. Sadly, I think I pulled a spoke through those rims, even though Magnesium should have better fatigue resistance than aluminum.