Dude, millions of people had 2" mountain bike tires on 14mm inner width rims. What are you talking about?

Your tire blew off because it was a crap tire with bad dimensions, not because of 2mm per side of rim width.

One may be able to run wide mountain bike tires on 14mm rims, but I have to wonder: at what pressure?

Also: "...millions of people..."?

My point was that if one runs the tire at max pressure, wider tires on these rims for road use may be an issue.

I do not dispute that the tires I first tried were junk.

We put Continental MTB tires on a Santana tandem and filled the tires to 80 psi. It is not an issue.

You have a very narrow set of experiences and reference points, and it has led you astray. There is no rim width conspiracy. All those rim width charts popped up just in the last 10 or 15 years - about the time recommended pressure charts finally got everyone riding pressures that match their weight, and the introduction of the A23 rim. Before that it wasn't a discussion with quality rims. Narrow rims were lighter than wider rims, so if you wanted lighter that's what you used.

What's even more disturbing, the rim width recommendations are becoming wider and wider. When the A23 was introduced, it's 18mm inner width was considered radical for 23mm tires because it made their shape essentially not round. But now we have websites saying that 19mm is the minimum width for 23mm tires? Ridiculous.

https://sugarwheelworks.com/blog/how...and-tire-size/


There is a lot of BS in cycling. Any hint of "science" and everyone comes out of the woodwork to promote it. Everyone not riding long cranks was an idiot, now everyone is promoting super short cranks. It gets tiresome after you've lived through enough oval chainring trends to realize that most of the stuff people get stuck on amount to nothing.

At what pressure? The one you need. a 100lb woman doesn't need much to not have the "floppy tire" effect on the road. OTOH a 300lb big boi will need near max to avoid that issue. Also, on the dirt it's less of an issue since if you go low enough on any tires you get floppyness, but with tubes like BITD you worry about pinch flats or rim impacts which are common on rock gardens under 20psi on old xc tires.
Max pressure can work well on the road if you need it, and don't mind the "firm" ride feel. a 1.5 or 1.9 at max pressure is still more comfy then a 23 at whatever pressure you run it at, and near max you have enough support for the tire to not squirm on a curvy, fast road descent.

I found on a 1.5in tire I needed 60+psi(max 85) to not get tire squirm as a 210lb rider. On the front. On other tires with thicker carcasses(heavier, slower rolling) or wider size you can run less pressure.