+1 to all of that. At 130lb you are a very light rider, so you should be able to get away with lower tire pressures. The chart at that link will allow you to optimize your tire pressure individually front/rear according to how much weight you measure or estimate each one bears. That plus wider tires plus learning to ride light and learning your route so you can avoid a lot of the nastier stuff should put you in good shape.

BTW I hope the 35s fit, I would have suggested 32s, and/or go to a bike co-op and try on and maybe even buy some used tires for cheap. For a couple years now I've been very much enjoying nearly-new good brand (Continental) tires for only $5 a pop!

Also, that's a pretty sweet lookin bike comin from Target!

Oh, reading past the first page of posts, I see that you canceled your order. You're in Portland, get thee to a co-op and buy yourself a used pair of 700x32 tires that look in good shape and have a tread profile you like. I guarantee they will fit on your rims (I had no problem myself with 700x37 on Mavic Open Sport, which are speccd to max 32), and I can almost guarantee they'll fit in your frame, and if they fit, I can guarantee you'll be happy with front/rear tire pressures optimized using the 15% tire-drop chart.

If for some reason they don't work out, very little lost; give the tires to a friend, or donate them back to the co-op. If you do like them, then you can ride them for a good long time, or decide to pay more money for new, whatever you feel like!

Just had a good uphill commute to work. But I had to hit a crack in the concrete (perpendicular) because there was passing traffic to my left. I took my weight off the seat, lifted the front wheel a tad, and POW went my rear rim. Yeah, the psi drop may not have been a great idea... But at least my body didn't take any of the impact. :rolleyes:

And at least you didn't (apparently) get the dreaded SNAKEBITE (pinch-flat).

There's this one manhole of death on my commute, downhill, extends from the gutter to outside the bike lane, hugely messed up asphalt surrounding it, I swear it's equivalent to a 3 inch curb. Lost a water bottle first time I didn't expect it. If cars are coming I can't swerve into the middle of the lane, so I've been practicing my bunny-hops. Only once I got complete air, but for the rest at least I get only a minor whack on the rear wheel, and not my full weight. (I actually found it on google maps -- doesn't look so scary from above, but I think the ground might have shifted and made it worse since this pic)

Say what you will, but my alu road bike with CF fork and 25c tires (85 PSI front) sends less vibrations through my hands and arms than does my alu MTB with steel fork and 1.5" tires with 40 PSI in the front. The difference is immediately noticeable. Both bikes also have aluminum stems and bars.

Somewhere there should be a sticker that gives the rim's width. If not,you can just remove the tire and measure the inner distance between the beads(the inside part of the rim). This is a car wheel,but it gives you an idea of where to measure:
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=323629

POW as in,you hit it really hard,or the rim is damaged?:eek:

I just rebuilt/upgraded one of these Tourist I picked up for free. The only really crappy parts were the bottom bracket, cranks and wheelset (at your weight these shouldn't be a big problem). You probably shouldn't put a ton of money into this bike but it is definitely better than most big box store offerings. That said, the reason I grabbed this bike is because it has a bunch of tire clearance. I think you could easily fit 40mm tires with fenders or even 42mm without. This bike is pretty stiff, but if you only weigh 130 and put on some 35mm tires on it (at an appropriate psi), it would be a very smooth ride. 35mm will absolutely fit on the stock rims with no problems. Larger decent quality tires will not make you noticeably slower on rough roads like you describe. Hope this helps!

As a side note for a commuter, this frame is odd because it has lower rear rack mounts but none on the top of the seat stays. I easily fixed this with one of the seatpost clamps with built in rack mounts. This provides a much more solid and better looking rack mount than p-clips. If you will be putting a rack on there, this is the way to go!

I noticed that too, when I went to install my rack. Drops have mount holes for everything... But no rack braze-ons. Weird.

Thanks guys. It turned out the order cancellation didn't work so I got the 35mm tires anyway! I haven't put them on yet, but I'm going to :)

All right! sarahbruce gives an encouraging report that 35 should fit easily. Put 'em on, pump 'em up, take 'em for a ride and take some clearance pics and report back!

You gotta rock your weight from back to front, so that when each wheel impacts, it's relatively unloaded. Of course you can only do practically do this up to a certain max speed.

Welp, I put the tires on last night, but it got a little dramatic. It's weird; it seems like life is more complicated than it used to be. I can remember being 10 years old and swapping out stuff on my BMX bike all the time like it was nothing. But putting these tires on this bike was a 3 hour fiasco.

Dismounted the front wheel, let out the air, and pried the tire off. I have changed a tube in this tire before and it seemed easy. I had a bit of a harder time getting the tire off this time but not that big of a deal. I put on the new 35c tire with the same tube (I'm guessing it was a 28C tube + or - a little. I aired it up a tad and massaged it and made sure the bead was set right, and let the air back out to get it through the V brake. I believe I aired it up with the air compressor and all was well. So I moved on to the rear wheel. I don't have a repair stand, so I had to finagle the chain and wheel off with the bike laid over on a weight lifting bench. Got it off, got the tire off, got the new one on, then put it on the bike and got the chain back on. I didn't massage it as carefully this time, and I aired it up with the air compressor. A few seconds later I noticed the whole tube herniated outside of the rim and looked like a big large intestine. So I tried to find the tire gauge to let the air out, but a second later... POOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW. Inner tube shreds flew around and it sounded like a gun went off (this is at 9:30pm by the way).

I had a spare tube that was 28c that I discarded on the shelf because it was a presta valve and I didn't want to bother with it. I have a presta chuck now, so I tried it out. Put it all on the bike, and it did the same dang thing - herniated, even with being careful and massaging it. So it was 10:00 by this point. I was pissed and decided to drive to walmart and look for a 700c tire for a 35. Went to the walmart by my house, and they had the price tag, but they were sold out. So then I said screw it and drove across town to another walmart. They had 700x35/40 tubes only with presta valves, and my bike came with schrader valve tubes. So I bought the Prestas anyway. Got home, put one in the rear wheel, and it worked fine. The valve seems a little short coming out of the hole, but it's manageable. I took the front wheel and tire back off and put the other new presta 700x35c tube in it so the front and rear would match.

By now the bike was covered in grease from me fighting with getting the chain on off on off a few times without having a repair stand. So cleaned the whole bike, then took it for a test ride. But a brake pad was dragging on the tire from me messing with it so much, so I had to readjust the rear brakes.

But the tires feel like a drastic improvement! They were easy to slide on the rim which means they seem to be a bit of a loose fit, and I had the herniation problems. So while they seem like they fit fine now that they're seated well and aired up, I can see how their size is questionable for this rim width.

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...ps7f03c73e.jpg

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...ps3a1ba1a1.jpg

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...ps6673fa22.jpg

They don't look overly large at all.

Be very careful with those presta valves,it'll be easy to tear them free from the tube since they're floating in those schrader holes.

Yikes! What a (mis)adventure!

I can't see tire in the middle pic, but otherwise they look quite natural and well-fitting. You've got scads of room in the fork still, presumably plenty of clearance in the stays as well. And they don't look balloony on the rims at all.

Re presta in schraeder holes (is that how you ended up?) This can lead to explosive, unpatchable tube failure around the valve due to bulging through the oversize hole. I have heard they make little adapter nuts to fill that gap.

I recommend you buy a replacement schraeder tube, keep it with you on the bike at all times, as well as levers and any other tools you might need, and ride it like it is for as long as the tube that is in there lasts. When it fails, put in the schraeder tube and throw the presta away.

Or if you want to save yourself an on-the-road failure in the future, make some time to swap it out at home -- once you are ready to repeat this whole debacle again! But in the meantime, if you have presta in a schraeder hole, make sure you have a spare standing by asap.

So I don't see a ride report -- are you out rolling around now? Luxuriating in pillowy softness I hope!

The middle picture is from the perspective of the hub looking up at the rim. You can see the kenda sidewall logo on each side of the tire. They do bulge out from the narrow width of the rim a noticeable amount, but it doesn't look alarming.

Geez. I probably shouldn't have been so impatient. I should have held out for schrader tubes, but they seem to be a little harder to find in the 700c tize. I didn't think about them bulging around the hole. I don't see what good an adapter nut would do because that screws on the tip of the valve on the metal part. It looks like I have two actual holes - one on the inner rim where the inner tube is, then there's the upper part of the rim (they look like aero rims) and another hole. The valve jiggles in there a little bit but I have that silver nut there to keep it stable. I just wonder about the rubber part near the hole in the inner rim. Ugh. Looks like I WILL be going through the same debacle again.

I'm about to go ride, but I'm not sure how much I'll enjoy it knowing there's a ticking time bomb in both of my wheels :notamused:

Oh, I'm a noob. I thought that silver nut was for the outside, but that's actually supposed to go inside the rim, correct? And that protects the rubber from herniating into the schrader hole?

nono, everybody throws away the nuts and plastic caps. Apparently they are to protect the tube from its valve in shipping (coincidentally, my very first post on BF was kind of about this!)

Apparently the thing you want is called a "Presta Saver", here's a thread on it. It's like a bushing.

Bah. If I'm gonna go to all the trouble of buying something else and taking the tires off again, I may as well just buy schrader tubes and do it right.

Ah I get it. Never seen a pic from that perspective before! Looks fine to me.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Assuming you don't have expensive boutique lightweight racing tubes, it should take I would guess hundreds or at least tens of miles to abrade itself. You can certainly take it around the block for a test ride!

You can also probably get a long way by making yourself a protective rubber washer by snipping up some of your exploded tube with scissors. Another idea (from feedback to my very first post), use a paper hole puncher to put a hole in the middle of a feathered tube patch, and use that as a washer. Also, use a washer -- if you have one that fits around the presta, and inside the rim. May need to grind off the edges.

I just pulled the exploded tube out of the trash. Come to find out, it's a 700 x 23/25c! My LBS put those in there when I asked him about my rim strip problem. He replaced the strip with the good stuff, but I bet he put that 23/25c in there because he didn't have schrader's in my size! Not a big deal for the 28c tires, but the 35c's were probably too much of a size difference.

My next concern is valve length. The valve he put in there was 46mm long. I'm wondering if these 32mm would work http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kenda-700-x-...item19dc4485fc

Your rims look like a fairly deep V, you might need the extra length. Only way to tell is to stuff the broken tube valve in the hole and see how far you can get it to poke out. If it looks like you can afford to lose 14mm, then yes, but if you can find 46 I'd do that. Or, if you're mail ordering, maybe just buy a set of "presta savers" and stay with your prestas. I think it's easier to find presta's with long valves.

That's what I did. I could have spent $25 on two new schrader 700x35s with 48mm stems, or just spend $5 on a pair of presta savers. So I'll put those on my presta tubes, and I'll know that if I have a flat, I can just go to walmart and get another presta tube for $5 and use my presta saver on it.

Took my bike for an 8 mile ride today on the new Kenda 35c tires. Here's the ride report (and I have ridden on them some other days on various road qualities).

They are noticeably slower than the 28c's. They don't glide as well. I was running higher pressure in the 28c's too, about 85psi. I'm running 65psi in the Kenda's. I might bump that up and experiment some, but I think the added width is adding to the slowness, because I remember running 65 in the 28c's and not feeling as slow.

But that's where the negative ends. They feel much more safe and stable. The bike doesn't get caught in parallel cracks in the road and scare me as much. Traction feels better. I can slowly go up curbs and not feel like I'm tearing the bike up. The tires feel like they give the bike a much less abusive ride, and they fit my road conditions much better than the 28c's, and they aren't horribly slow. As far as my comfort level, they are still far from feeling like a cadillac. The road is still bumpy and uncomfortable, but the tires do seem to take the edge off. I'm satisfied with the purchase.

When I got back from my ride I saw that my presta savers had quickly arrived in the mail. I dismounted the wheels and took off the tires again. As I suspected, the valve won't go far enough through the rim with the adapter on to get the bike pump seated on the valve. I had to pull pretty hard on them before, so I'm sure they were herniating through the hole some, because that's what allowed me to pull enough length through the hole to get the pump on the valve. The saver doesn't allow that, so the valves are indeed too short at 36mm. So I just ordered four Kenda 35-43c tubes with 48mm presta valves. So the saga continues.

I'm not going to bother putting the wheels back on the bike with faulty tubes, so I'm just gonna decommission it until the new tubes come at the end of the week. Sad.

Screw walmart. They never have what I want. But oddly enough, if I buy something online assuming walmart won't have it (like some wahl hair clippers and attachment set), BOOM, there it is in the aisle at Walmart two days later for the same price.

I replaced the 700x25 tires on my cheap $200 fixie with some CST 700x38 city tires. The bike is slow but I feel like I can roll over anything.

Trust me when I say this: the bike stuff at Walmart is crap. In the past year I've bought a number of bike accessories from Walmart, and EVERY single one ended up being crap except for the saddle bag on my MTB. It's a little small but it's held up. I've bought a floor pump, gloves, bar ends, light set, patch kit - all of it crap. It's really not worth the time or money messing with that stuff.

It's good to hear everything is (almost) working out for you! Sometimes it takes a little fiddling with things like valve stem length to get everything just right. I have to warn you that your tube exploding problem was most likely caused by user error. Chalk this up to a learning experience. Sometimes it's painstaking, but once I have the tube and tire mounted, I put a couple pumps of air in and go around the whole thing making sure the tube is not pinched between the tire bead and rim. This makes all the difference and I haven't had a blowout like you described since.

As for the new fatter tires being slow: This has been hashed out and argued repeatedly on forums. These threads and articles on tire width fascinate me and if you like that kind of thing then definitely give them a read. There are a lot of variables that are for you, and you alone, that effect how fast you are traveling. The thing that really stands out to me is perceived speed. Many people think a new wider tire slows them down because they are not feeling all the bumps and road irregularities. These people then actually compare speeds on a bike computer or gps and realize they are similar to their old slimmer tire speeds. But really, who knows, your new tires could be slower, or they could just feel slower. What really matters is they are more comfortable and hopefully they let you enjoy your bike more!

As another side note: If I were you, I would try these at about 40-45psi up front and 50-55psi in the rear. Tire pressure is another thing that takes some playing around with to get just right. I like to use a tire pressure calculator online to get in the ballpark and then make minor adjustments till it feels perfect. It always surprises me how some tires feel completely different with only a 5-10psi swing.

Thank you very much for the input. I just saw that the tires were rated for 50-85psi, so I tried to fall somewhere in the middle. But I used a calculator and saw that I can/should go lower than that (same psi's you recommended), which will make me even more comfy.

I don't doubt the tube explosion was user error. I got reckless.

And I don't doubt walmart stuff is cheap. The tubes were an impulse buy and an unwillingness to accept defeat at 10:30 on a weeknight. I got a bicycle bell from there - not too worried about its quality. It works. I also got a water bottle and cage there that I'm happy with. I got some chain lube I'm happy with too. But I wouldn't buy any important parts from them.